<TITLE>21. Par 74-77</TITLE>L-74 I must close. I just feel so good, I hate to do it. But we got a big prayer line coming up. Listen. I was in Mexico about four years ago, and they told us we could have the bull ring. General Valdena had brought me down, first American non-Catholic that had ever been brought down. When the bishop of the Catholic church went up before the president, and said, "Your honor, sir, this man is coming in here non-Catholic," and said, "he gets government support, from General Valdena, military support." Said, "Our nation doesn't stand for that."
And so the president said back. He said, "The man's a reputable man."
Said, "Oh, he's--he's just a renegade."
Said, "I don't think tens of thousands of people would go out to hear a renegade."
And he said--he said, "But you see, sir," the bishop said to the president, "you see, sir, only the poor and illiterate is the only thing that goes to hear him."
He said, "You've had them for five hundred years. Why are they poor and illiterate?" That was a good question.

L-75 They wouldn't let us have the bull ring, so we got a great big place out there. And those poor Mexicans. Thinking: we set in here listening for an hour and a half and get tired. Many times those people come there at eight or nine o'clock in the morning: no seats. They stood up leaning against one another all day. I wouldn't be in the pulpit until about eight or nine o'clock that night. But they stood there so they'd get a place to stand, about thirty thousand. And there they was, all leaning against each other.
I was just to be there three nights. And I remember one night there (second night), coming across the platform was a... I seen him standing on the platform. Billy had led him up, an old Mexican man. His feet was calloused all over, and his pants all ragged, no shirt on, just a coat wrapped around him, it ragged, an old hat tied up with strings. He was blind. He kept saying something. When he got close to me, took out little beads and went to saying a "Hail, Mary." I had him put it up.

L-76 So I put my arm around him. I looked, and me with a good pair of shoes on and a suit of clothes. Got just as much right to have a pair of shoes and suit as I have. Yes, sir. So I thought, "I--I'll give it to the old man. See?" My, his feet was much bigger than mine, his shoulders way out like that. I looked at his gray hair, blind. I thought, "If my daddy would lived, he'd been about that age. And maybe he's somebody's daddy."
I put my arms around him, started praying. And when I opened my eyes like this (They don't interpret the prayer.), I seen the old man going around looking as well as, you know, he could see, and everything, in the vision. I just held real still. Directly I heard him holler, "Gloria a Dios," means "Glory to God." He could see as good as I could. Oh, down through there he went lippity, clippity, hard as he could. The amazing grace...

L-77 The next night there was a rick much longer than this platform, piled that high, of old shawls and coats laying up there to be prayed over. And when I got on the platform that night... It'd been raining since about ten o'clock in the morning. Those people stood right through the rain, them Mexican women with their hair all down in their face and just soaking wet.
And I had to get on a ladder and come down a wall. They picked me up from the car, and let me down on these ropes on a ladder, to get on the platform right beside the wall where I had to come around the wall in a car.
And I was speaking. And Billy come over to me and said, "Daddy..." A Mexican man... (I don't know what his name was. I called him "Maana," which means tomorrow. He was so slow. And so he was always)... He'd come and get me, and he was about... They brought him because that he couldn't talk to me. Nobody talks to me when we're coming to the meeting. And he couldn't talk English, so I just called him Maana. And so he would blabber off something. I didn't pay any attention 'cause I didn't know what he was saying.


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