<TITLE>05. Par 16-19</TITLE>L-16 Now, I want to speak about my, part of my life. Probably Brother Baxter has referred to you many times, and in my book about how the Angel of the Lord came to me and how that He led me through life. But I want to approach it on the other side this afternoon, from the--the side of just a human life.
My father was a very uneducated person, and he probably wouldn't have knowed his name if it was wrote before him, no education, none whatever. We were raised in the mountains of Kentucky. My mother, her father was a school teacher, and she got a fairly good education. But if there's anybody here from down that part of Kentucky, and around in Burkesville, and where I come from, well, down there when the creeks got up, school ended. And the most of the children got their education in the corn field with the gooseneck hoe cutting out freebers and weeds. And we had a very hard time, raised very poor.

L-17 And the little cabin I was borned in had two rooms in it. I taken a picture of it recently to put in my book back there, little log cabin. My father left Kentucky in his early days, at about twenty years old, I suppose; I was about three years old. And he moved to Indiana. We lived up on the Utica pike, just above Jeffersonville, going northeast of Jeffersonville. I had my schooling there on the Utica Pike School, the old ground stands today. The tree's still around, I can't hardly pass the place without breaking down in my heart, to think of the boyhood days. And there's no days like that.
My daddy's gone; he laid on my arm. As his locks dropped over my arms, he looked up at me, and smiled and closed those blue eyes, and went out to meet God, years ago. My mother, as far as I know, today is a living. She's getting aged now; each time when I start to leave, I see the poor old thing; she'll start crying and quivering. She said, "Someday you're going to return, Billy, and mother won't be here."
I said, "But mother, just wait at the gate; it won't be long; I'll be coming along too."

L-18 And she's always kind of worried about me flying on planes; she doesn't like for me to go on planes too much. But let's all of us today, most all of you have a boyhood or--or childhood, rather, experience. Let's all of us just drop back down home a little while. Wouldn't you like to go back to the old days? Oh, my, I would just give anything.
Today, if I had a million dollars, and if I had it, it'd sure go in the Lord's work, right away, just as quick as I could get it. I'd build that Tabernacle and things we was talking about and what all I had, was talking. And put every cent to the Lord's work. But if I had it today, and it was to be mine to enjoy the pleasures of this life, why, if I could lay it down and once more see my old dad come walking down that aisle, and just walk up there and say, "Good evening, son," and disappear, I'd give every penny of it to see him. And I just... You'd do the same thing for some of your parents that's gone on. But those days are gone.

L-19 And young people here, you don't know what a good friend you got in your mother and dad until they're gone. When they're gone, then you really know who they were. And I heard many, the children these days say, "The old man and old woman." Oh, my, don't never do that. You--you don't realize who that is. They know what's best, and you don't.
When I seen him when he was laying in his casket, and I seen it begin tinting gray a little around the edge at fifty-two years old, I thought, "Many a worried about me had put those gray hairs there." And how I wish I could brush them back, but it's too late then. So don't do nothing now that you would regret in the future. If you only looked for today, you'd be a miserable person; look to the end out there, and then live for that, out to the end.


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