Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 April 1885 — A Clerical Visit to Wartner. [ARTICLE]

A Clerical Visit to Wartner.

Revs. B. van Ess and W. Lubach, pastors respectively of ilia Rose Land and Lansing Reformed cliurclies, in Cook county, and Elder Iv. Madderon, also of Rose Laud, three estimable and educated Holland gentlemen, came to Rensselaer, Tuesday, to visit the condemned man, Wartner, whose evil state they had learned through -the Chicago papers. They found Wartner possessed of the idea that he would, in soine manner, escape the death penalty, and also little disposed to listen to religious conversation. They say that lie has had no training m religion and Is disposed to unbelief. Their earnest talk and prayers not without good effect on the murderers obdurate heart, and may. perhaps, lead him to take a more correct view of his prospects. They told him plainly that they saw no grounds for his hopes for a pardon, and that the sooner he made up his mind to accept that fact, the better. Their impression of Wartner was that he is a man of much natural mental ability, and especially shrewd and cunning, but that he is vicious and unscrupulous, and utterly averse to hard labor, as a means of liveli-liood.