<TITLE>02. Par 5-7</TITLE>L-5 Billy told my just now that they've taken a love offering. Is that right? A love offering for me. I appreciate that. I--I didn't come for that; I never ask for that. I never took a offering in all my life. I've never took a offering. I've been a minister twenty-seven years, and I never took one offering in my life, or never had one penny of salary in my life. I just live by the alms of the people.
I worked seventeen years as game warden and for a electrician, as a public service company, and pastored the Baptist Tabernacle at Jeffersonville, taking what tithe that was giving in, never even seen it, passed right through the church, and built the church and so forth. And paid tithes and offerings to the church, seventeen years without one penny. And I wo--wished I had a job that I could go to with a pick and shovel, or a hammer, or something another, is about all I could--got gumption enough to do, dig a ditch or something, work, some electrical work, and wouldn't have to take up an offering any time. If I could do it, I'd gladly do it. I'm not as young as I was then, and...

L-6 I had a birthday the other day, and let's see; I think I was... My wife's setting here, so I have to be careful; I think I was twenty-five. I was just a little over twenty-five; I was born in 1909, so that makes me a little over twenty five, doesn't it, just a--just a little over twenty five? So I'll hear from this.
I remember one night... She always gets after me for saying this. I... We had a close time, when I almost had to take a offering once; we couldn't make ends meet. Did you ever hit that place? And so I said, "Honey, I'm going to take up an offering tonight."
She said, "I'm going over and watch you do it." So she set down.
And I said, "Folks, I'm going to take an offering; I'm just in a little tight place. If you all got ten, fifteen cents you could throw in and help me get over this snag, I appreciate it." I said, "Uncle Jim Wiseheart (one of the deacons)," I said, "would you get my hat?" We didn't even have an offering plate. He went over to get my hat. Little old woman, used to set right down to my right, prayed for me all the time. She's in heaven tonight. She had one of them little old aprons on that you had the pocket on the inside. How many ever seen one of them, you Southern women? Sure.
Grandma used to have one; she'd carried her pipe and her tobacco on the inside there, little old cane and long clay pipe. Did you ever see one? Sure, Grandma had one. The man folks would come, she'd stick it under here and hold her finger on it, and then, to keep it from burning her apron till the... Didn't make any difference about the hand, you know.

L-7 But she, this little old woman reached down there, and got one of those little pocketbooks with snaps over the top, begin to reach down there for those nickels; I couldn't do that. "Oh," I said, "I was just teasing you." That thing would've haunted me the rest of my life, if I took that woman's nickels. I said, "I was just teasing you, see what you would say." And Uncle Jim standing there with my hat in his hand, he said, "What do you mean, Billy?"
I said, "Hang my hat up, Uncle Jim. I was just teasing you."


<A HREF="P3">Next Page</A>