<TITLE>08. Par 23-25</TITLE>L-23 So then, he said, "Anybody--anybody that's relation to Jim Wood's boy can hunt anywhere he wants to." Said, "Just help yourself." Said, "I have five hundred acres here of all virgin timber. Just help yourself."
He said, "I got my pastor along with me. You won't mind if he goes?"
He said, "Wood, you don't mean to tell me you got low enough down till you have to carry a preacher with you wherever you go."
And so he said, "Well..." said...
And I thought it about time for me to get out then, you know. So I got out of the car and walked around the side, and I said, "How do you do?" And Mr. Wood was going to introduce me. Before he had time to do it... And oh, whiskers two weeks long, and squirrel blood, and stink like a pole cat. So I started around there, and I said, "How do you do, sir?"
He said, "And you're a preacher?"
I said, "Well, I'd like to be. I..."
And he said, "Well, I just... You know," he said, "I'm supposed to be an infidel."
I said, "It's not much to brag about, is it, sir?"
And he said--he said, "No, I reckon it's not." He said, "There's just one thing that I got against you fellows."
And I said, "Yes, sir. If it's just one thing that's--you're pretty good shape." Some of them I've met to they had... I got a lot of Christians, that's supposed to be, has got more than that against me. So I said--I said, "Well, that's--that's pretty good."
He said, "What I got against you guys is this: you're always hollering about something that you know nothing about."
I said, "For instance, what, sir?"
And he said, "You're talking about God, and there is no such a thing."
"Oh," I said, "that's what it is?"
He said, "Yeah, that's it."
I thought, "Lord, You help me."

L-24 Now, there's just two ways to approach anything, my brethren; that's the right way and the wrong way. I think... May I stop here a moment in my story, and say I think that's what's the matter with me, and many of us brethren. We've got a great product here, but we're approaching the public wrong with it too much, making us isolationists. See? It'll sell itself. Just live it. See? "Ye are the salt of the earth." And salt, as long as the savour's in the salt, it'll save if it contacts. But if it's lost its savour, no matter how loud we shout down here, and how much we jump up and down, there's got to be a life out here that backs that up.

L-25 So I looked at the old gentleman; I thought, "Lord, poor old fellow, hammered around on these old clods here. My daddy would've lived, he'd have been about that age. Now, there's just a little something here that You could help me to say, no doubt, that'd help the old fellow to see." And I've seen many that call themselves infidels, and I've stood by some of them when they were going. They're not infidels. They're just popping off. See? And so... That's the street expression, but that's the way you'll understand it: popping off, and letting off steam.
And I said, "Well, it's a... That's 'course," I said, "that's opinion, of course."
And we stood there a moment. And we were setting under an apple tree. He said, "I been to them meetings, and they're just like a lying dog." He said, "I used to have an old lying dog, and I shot him." He said, "I'd follow him every night. Take him out here and he'd be barking, and go up there... And he's supposed to be a coon dog." And said, "The coon would be up the tree." And said, "Then the first thing you know, he'd be barking up this tree like that, and I'd go around there and shine the light all up. The coon had done went out through the top."


<A HREF="P9">Next Page</A>