<TITLE>11. Par 36-39</TITLE>L-36 It was a real cold morning. He was tired; he had been up all night long. He must've dreamed all night that he could see, and he woke up late. And in them days, there were many beggars. They set along the street sides, and the people coming in, the merchants going to their work, perhaps had an alm to give to them. And the first beggar he met, he gave his alm, and that settled it for the day; he had nothing else he could give. So many of them had stalls like, or places where they'd set and waited for someone to pass by and give them an alm. And if they missed it, well, then they done without through the day.
Many time they had little things to give, little enchantments like. I was in India recently, and they... Each one's got a--a cobra snake, or a little monkey, or--or something another to attract the attention of tourists.

L-37 This must've been a cold morning, chilly; it was springtime, near Easter. And he was ragged, and he come in late. And his place was to set at the gate of Jericho. His name was Bartimaeus. And you... We're told that he was married and had a little girl. But being that he was up all night, did not get much sleep, he got up late, and he missed his--his time of begging alms. Most of the outside merchants that lived outside of the city had done went in; it was getting along up in the day.
So I can picture our scene tonight as it opens at the north side of the gate leading up towards--up towards Jerusalem, the north gate of Jericho. Many of the old stones was still laying there that was shook down during the time when the people shouted, and Joshua and the priests sounded the trumpets, and the walls of Jericho fell down.

L-38 Let's imagine Bartimaeus now setting on one of the rocks, near where the cobblestone highway still stands as it was in ancient day. It runs down, on down along towards the Jordan.
And as he set there, he must have been thinking, "Now, I'll probably have to do without something to eat, my family tonight. For I was too late; I couldn't get in. All the merchants has gone by, and I won't get anything today. But I couldn't help it; I was so tired and worn out this morning when I got here."
And he set down. Let's believe that he begin to think about, "Oh, if I could've only--that dream could've been a reality, that I could again see. I've been blind now for many years," he'd say. "And if I could just see like I used to."

L-39 Then his mind begin to wander back to when he was a little boy. He used to play out there in the springtime, which would be just a--oh, a few days later. And how on the hills of the banks of Jordan, little buttercup flowers bloom all up-and-down, and little blue flowers. And what a beautiful sight it is. And how it... That he used to think when he was a little boy, how he would roam up-and-down that hill and frolic and play with the other little boys.
And then, he remembers, that along after his sweet Jewish mother would call him in for his noonday meal; after he would have his dinner, she would get out on the porch, and she would put him on her lap, and stroke his little hair back out of his eyes. And she'd look at him, and he'd see how pretty she was, and how he'd...
She'd say, "Bartimaeus, your little eyes is as blue as the skies above."
Oh, he'd think about, "I could just once more live those days over, when I could see the flowers, and chase the bees around, and see--hear the pretty birds and see them, and see my lovely mother. But alas, old age struck her; and she wrinkled up and finally died, and we buried her many years ago. And here I am old, and poor, and poverty stricken, setting here begging, blind."


<A HREF="P12">Next Page</A>