<TITLE>12. Par 126-139</TITLE>L-126   So then I--then I was getting too critical on speaking with tongues, you see. But one day, then, how God vindicated that to me!

L-127 I was baptizing down on the river, my first converts, at the Ohio River, and the seventeenth person I was baptizing, as I started to baptize, then I said, "Father, as I baptize him with water, You baptize him with the Holy Spirit." I started to--to put him under the water.

L-128 And just then a whirl come from the heavens above, and here come that Light, shining down. Hundreds and hundreds of people on the bank, right at two o'clock in the afternoon, in June. And It hung right over where I was at. A Voice spoke from there, and said, "As John the Baptist was sent for the forerunner of the first coming of Christ, you've got a... have a Message that will bring forth the forerunning of the Second Coming of Christ." And it liked to scared me to death.

L-129   And I went back, and all the people there, the--the foundry men and all them, the druggist, and all of them on the bank. I had baptized about two or three hundred that afternoon. And when they taken me out, pulled me out of the water, the deacons and so forth went up, they asked me, said, "What did that Light mean?"

L-130 A big group of colored people from the--the Gilt Edge Baptist church and the Lone Star church down there, and many of those was down there, they begin screaming when they saw that happen, people fainted.

L-131   A girl I tried to get out of a boat there, sitting there with a swimming suit on, a Sunday school teacher in a church, and I said, "Won't you get out, Margie?"
She said, "Billy, I don't have to get out."

L-132 I said, "That's right, you don't have to, but I'd have enough respects for the Gospel to get out where I'm baptizing."
She said, "I don't have to."

L-133 And when she was setting there, snickering and laughing at me baptizing, 'cause she didn't believe in baptizing, so then when the Angel of the Lord come down she pitched forward in the boat. Today the girl's in the insane institution. So you just can't play with God. See? Now, later on... A beautiful girl, went to drinking later on, was hit with a bottle, of--of beer bottle, cut all of her face down. Oh, a horrible-looking person! And there that happened.

L-134   And then all along down through life I'd see that, see that moving, see that visions, how those things would happen. Then, a little later on, It kept bothering me so much, and everybody telling me It was wrong. And I took off to my old stomping grounds, up there where I always prayed through. And I'd... No matter how much I'd keep praying for That not to come to me, It come anyhow. And so I was just... I was--I was game warden in the State of Indiana. And I come in, there was a man sitting there, a brother to my pianist at the tabernacle. And he said, "Billy, will you ride up to Madison with me this afternoon?"
I said, "I can't do it, I got to go up to the forestry."

L-135 And I'd... just coming around the house and taking off my belt, gun belt and things, and rolling up my sleeves. We lived in a little two-room house, and I was going to wash and make ready for my meal. And I had washed, and just walking around the side of the house, under a--a big maple tree, and all at once Something went, "Whoooossssh!" And just almost passed out. And I looked, and I knowed it was That again.

L-136 I set on those steps, and he jumped out of his car and run to me, said, "Billy, are you fainting?"
I said, "No, sir."
He said, "What's the matter, Billy?"

L-137 And I said, "I don't know." I said, "Just go ahead, brother, that's all right. Thank you."

L-138 My wife come out and brought a pitcher of water, she said, "Honey, what's the matter?"
I said, "Nothing, sweetheart."

L-139 So she said, "Come on now, dinner's ready," and she put her arm around me, tried to bring me in.


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