Frost Our Owx San Francisco, June 25.
T have purposely refrained from; commenting upon the strange dis appearance of Mrs. Aimee Semple, MePherson, the famous evangelist of Los Angeles, for the reason that it was, against" all circumstantial evidence, believed that she was still alive. Your readers may remember that, on May 18, Mrs. MePherson went down to one of the beaches Some distance out of Los Angeles for a swim. She was accompanied her secretary. In the absence of the latter on some errand, Aimee, MePherson was kidnapped, but it was generally concluded that she had been drowned arid that her Body had been carried away by the current. Owing to, her gre popularity in all parts of the United States, as well as in England and other countries, her strange dis appearance created widespread interest, and from places as" far remote as Calgary and cities in Mexico came reports that she had een seen on the, street by people who knew her, The most unlikely stories were given currency regarding reasons for her wishing either to do away with herself or to withdraw from the world-fame temple of religion which she has for years controlled with such dynamic power as a speaker and a beale Some of the New Thought people declared that she had outgrown her preaching, and, being desirous that her church work should not suffer, abe had elected to make an escape into the Californian mountains. hi {ll The woman was with me—it was dawn. I donot know whether br not it was the next day. Another woman came in and I asked them what they wanted with me. They said they were holding me for.a half-million dollars ransom. I told them they were foolish, that T did not have the money, nor did the church have it, but' they replied that they knew better."
Her captors told Mrs. McPherson that they had, moreover, made plans to get the money, and at that time they moved her.
"We were in two automobiles, she said, "and travelled long. dis-neve. We came to another house, and the men, thank God, were not there, for previously they had burn. ed me with a cigar on the finger to make me answer the questions they said my mother had asked to prove that I'was alive. 'They threa. tened to cut off this finger (me cone with the long white sear) that my' mother would know when she received it that they actually had me captive."
Mexicans Threatened to Sell Her The evangelist's abductors held Rut the threat to give her or sell her to a Mexican called "Filipe," the said. "One day after one of the men called Steve had burned me in an attempt to make fnswor their questions," she went on, "they brought a great hulking man whom they said was Filipe. That was the first time T had seen Some in this place for about four day that we I could not remember days, an don't know now the day I made my escape.... After they got me in the last house I understood that that financial embarrassments. at the bottom of it all. But all along officials claimed that she wa alive, Her mother offered a $26, 000 reward for any authentic formation regarding her daughter, and all: that reasonably could have yen expected was done by the Police ix an attempt to trace her.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.