An old minister has been hanging around here on the street; I met him the other day up here on the street, jumping just as high as he could singing, “Old Time Religion.” Name’s John Ryan. Got long hair and beard; he’s been around here for a few days. He—he was—rode an old bicycle down there. And he give me that bicycle. And I painted that old bicycle, and sold it for five dollars and paid off the debt. I didn’t need to take up the offering, and we made the ends meet. So that was very fine. God knows all about things, doesn’t He? But if I have to stand tonight before the judgment, that’s one thing… There’s three things that I’ve watched in my life, in the reading of other ministers, when God blesses a minister just a little bit on the…Now, we’re all friends, aren’t we? When He blesses him just a little bit above maybe someone else, or—or give him an opportunity to do a little more work for Him or something, the first thing that Satan goes to working with that minister is three things, major things. The first thing is money, women, popularity. He will work on him with money, or if he can get him to…Like his first bait, that’s like in the garden of Eden. Well, or if he can get him to thinking he’s something when he ain’t nothing, he’s got him right then.

The Second Miracle, 1951-07-29, Erie, PA, §20