<TITLE>16. Par 54-58</TITLE>L-54 Just this, I want to say, and I want you to be real reverent just for a minute, and think, and look this way a minute. I was thinking of Chris Berg, setting here somewhere in the service this afternoon. I... Everyone knows that I'm a hunter. I just love to hunt. It's not so much to kill the animal; it's to be in the woods. My mother's a half Indian. And I--I just love the woods so much. There's... Even my conversion, still I get out there; that's where I first found God, was in the woods, watching nature, how flowers die. It's gone, but it lives again.
I said, "If God made the flower, and it's got a way a live again, surely, He's got a way for me to live again."
I watched the nature, watched the eagle soar up, the prophet, way high, so he could see far off. All these things I watch in nature.

L-55 And I used to go up to the north woods, before it went to going west. I would go up in New Hampshire to hunt. And I had a good hunting partner up there. I love to ramble. Chris knows that. And I put in a good thirty-five miles a day in walking, just love to do it. Up over the mountains and around through the valleys and things, I love to roam. And Burt was a good walker, a good tracker, a good hunter. But he was the most brutal man I ever seen in my life. He would shoot those little baby fawns just to be mean.
And I said, "Burt, aren't you ashamed of yourself?"
Now, the law of New Hampshire gives you a fawn if you want it. It's nothing in killing a fawn. If the law says so, you can do it. Abraham killed a calf and fed it to God, and God eat it. See? So there's no harm in that. If the law says you can have it, all right. But not go and kill a whole string of them just to be mean. That's the wrong part.

L-56 And Burt would go out there, just because I was a minister. A little--if a deers would jump up, he'd just shoot the fawn, just to make me feel bad. And I said, "Burt, you are a brute."
And he said, "Oh, that's what is the matter with you preachers. You're chicken-hearted."
And I said, "Burt, it isn't that. It isn't justice. There was a big buck in that bunch. You could've got the buck."
He said, "Oh, you chicken-hearted preacher."
Always throwing off like that. And I like Burt. He was a good fellow, but just so brutal; and he just wanted to act smart. And many times you hear people say, "Oh, I don't this, that, or the other." Their--they may be good people, they just want to act smart, want to show off.

L-57 So I noticed, one year when I went up there, he had invented himself a little call. And he could take that little call and go just exactly like a little baby deer a crying for its mammy. And he'd get out there and blow that, and that little--make it go like a little deer crying.
And I said, "Burt, you're not going to use that."
He said, "Oh, come on preacher. What is the matter with you." Said, "You chicken-hearted preachers."
We went into the woods, and we'd gone practically a half a day. We'd never even seen a track. And we come to a little open space. And Burt got down and he reached in his pocket. I thought, "Oh, no. Surely he ain't going to do that." And he pulls out this little old whistle and looks around to me. I said, "Burt, don't do that."
He said, "Oh, shut up."

L-58 And he took this little whistle and made a little cry that sounded just like a little fawn crying for it's--it's mother. And when he cried it a couple times, just across the way, a great big, beautiful doe (that's the mother deer) jumped up. And I seen that smile come across his mouth. And that big doe, she was so pretty, her big brown eyes, those great big graceful-looking ears, as she looked around. What was it? There was a baby in trouble. She couldn't help it. She was a mama. Mother was in her, was borned in her. She wasn't putting it on. She was a mother to begin with. [Blank.spot.on.tape--Ed.]...?... of it is, you can't impersonate love, it has got to be real.


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