<TITLE>02. Par 4-7</TITLE>L-4 I want to... This is Sunday school, and, oh, Sunday school I usually don't preach over three or four hours, and so I... We got plenty of time this morning, and I--I'd just like to say I've been noticing some of the Tabernacle folks down here. I didn't get to see them, and I--or talk to them. And I begin now this morning, it being a different kind of a light (not an artificial light--it's a light from the sun), I see some of my friends that I...
For my first time I seen... I see Brother Welch Evans and his wife setting back there, and family, from Tifton, Georgia. Every time I speak at the Tabernacle that man drives a trip of fifteen hundred miles, him and his family, every Sunday to hear the Gospel. Brother Welch, I just wished you and Sister Evans, family there, would stand up just a minute. Fifteen hundred miles... Thank you.

L-5 I remember very well first time seeing Brother Evans. Brother Mercier said, "There's a man wants to meet you in the morning." I was in Philadelphia when it taken place, and when I was getting up out of the bed I saw the man. And he's kind of a sportsman, likes to fish. And I saw him doing a violation. So the morning when I met him I told Meda about it.
She said, "You wouldn't say that to that strange man."
I said, "I'll find out what he is first."
So then, after talking to him, seeing he was just a real fellow, I said, "Say, just recently you was on a fishing trip back, like in a bayou. You had a whole sack full of fish, and you had to hide them three times to keep away from the game warden." My.
Looked at me, said, "Yes, sir. I--I..." What--what... He wondered what I was going to say.
I said, "There's just one request. Will you take me fishing back there?"

L-6 His brother had been bitten by a snake back there, which is a ground rattler. I don't know whether they have them here in Louisiana or not. And he's a nasty little thing. And that boy, hospitalized (he's not a Christian, young, little younger than Brother Evans here), and he had to have a brace on his leg--walked on a hoop, months.
And so, right back in the same place... You know, the Lord kinda told me to go back there. And I--I caught some of the finest bass (Oh, my.), great big fellows. And I had one great big one hooked on, was trying to get him out with a bumblebee popper, you know, and so... And he was so big, his mouth about like that, and that little bumblebee in there. He'd stand right up on his tail (you fishermen know), and he'd flip that thing out. And you just have to hold it. If you don't, you pull it out, and kinda hard. He was angry, and I throwed it back, and had him on three or four times. He'd have been a twelve, fourteen, pound fish.
So Brother Evans seen me. And oh, he's just a good country boy, you know--had his trouser legs rolled up, 'cause he'd gotten wet. And so he said, "He must be old Big Jim."
I said, "He sure must." So I threw out again, and I--I got one.
He said, "That's him."
I said, "No, now not quite him." It was a nice bass.

L-7 And we carried little pistols on our hips, because you had to fight your way through alligators and--and cottonmouths to get in there, just swamp, seventeen thousand acres in this ranch. And it's been... A dredge line went through, and that years ago. And that's where we was fishing.
And so, we was had to wade through water and everything to get in there, and gators, snakes, just in wads. And so, we'd take a pole, and move around. If we seen a ground rattler, just shoot him, and then just walk on in the water (See?), keep on going, 'cause he'd be laying on top of the lily, or something, coiled ready to strike.


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