<TITLE>02. Par 12-21</TITLE>L-12   Wonder if Brother... Doc, come here and get these Bibles. You're standing close there, and Brother Burns. Is that right, Burns? I heard him say... [The brother says, "Conrad."--Ed.] What? ["Conrad."] Conrad. I called him... I'm getting kind of hard of hearing, maybe, Brother Neville. How did I ever get the name of Burns? I know the man's face, and I just can't, couldn't call his name.

L-13 And you know, as you get a little older, I find out one thing, it's harder for me to read this Bible. And I just hate to think of having to wear glasses, to read the Bible.

L-14 But, here not long ago, I thought I was going blind. And I went over to see Sam. And Sam said, "Bill, I don't know." Said, "I'll just get you an appointment with some specialist."

L-15   I went to Louisville. It must have been the will of the Lord. Some famous specialist; I forget his name now. But he had read my book. And he said, "If you ever go back to Africa, I want to go with you." He said, "And if you... Them African people love you." And said, "They're very superstitious, especially with a knife, to go to cutting. So," said, "I want to give six months of my life, for operations of cataracts and things, to the... in mission." And said, "If we could go together, and you could win favor of them, like that." Said, "Then if they had cataracts and eye works," said, "I'd just love to give it, free of charge, six months of it." And I forget how long you have to wait for an appointment with him.

L-16 And we was setting in a little room and it had a little--little red light come on, back there in the dark room. Why, I could read them letters. It said twenty-twenty. I could read it either way. And he snapped it on fifteen-fifteen, and I could read it. And put it on ten-ten, and I could read it. He said, "Well, there's not much wrong with your eyes."

L-17   So he had a little telescope. He put a little gadget back there, a little thing, you know. Them old telescopes, how many ever remember them? We used to look through them, look at pictures, just like that. And he said, "Can you read that?"
I said, "Yes, sir."
He said, "Read it for me."

L-18 It had a, oh, a whole paragraph, about like that. I started, read it; he started pulling it up, like that, getting slower and slower. He got about like this, I stopped. He said, "I can tell you one thing, you're past forty."
I said, "Yup, that's right, a long ways past it."

L-19 He said, "How have you done it?" He said, "The human eye, naturally, when you get forty years old, like your hair gets gray, and so forth, the eyeball gets flat." Said, "Now, if you live long enough, that'll come back again." He said, "That second sight, they call it. But," said, "a human being, about forty years old, they'll actually..." Said, "There is nothing wrong with their eyes."

L-20 I can--I can see a hair if it was laying on the floor, get it off from me. But get close to me... And he said, "Now, you read your Bible," said, "You push it away from you." Said, "After while, your arm is not going to be long enough, till you can't--can't get it out there far enough to get a hold of it."

L-21   And so he made me a pair of glasses, and the bottom part you can, it's for reading. He said, "Now, in your pulpit..." He thought I was one of these here dignified preachers, you know. And so said that the... you... The top part is just regular window glass, just regular glass. And the bottom part has got some kind of a grind in it, that I can read it close, you know, like that. So I just hate to put them on; I do.


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