tobacco and stuff like that. Most black people loved him, but that
little man got beat up on many times, got his store robbed time
and time again, but he just loved the Lord. I mean, he just loved
God. Billy loved to hear Bill Henderson tell him about the Scrip-
tures. He lived them; it wasn’t weekend Christianity. And he could
pray. He’d pray for Billy and his young ministry. And he witnessed
all the time.”
“Did this influence Billy’s focus on evangelism?”
“Absolutely,” replied Melvin. “In the afternoons Billy would
go there and just sit and talk to him. He’d sit on an old crate—I
don’t think they had a chair in the place—and let Bill teach him.”
Melvin’s word picture is instructive: the young Billy Graham,
fresh from air travel all over the country to address large audi-
ences, taking time to sit on a crate to learn from a humble,
authentic witness in the trenches. The image blends with his con-
stant learning from executives, professors, pastors, presidents—
and his candid, well-read wife. We heard over and over again,
“He was always learning, always teachable.”
■ ■ ■Billy himself said of his early ministry, “Learning was an insatiable
desire with me. I burned to learn, and I felt my limitations of
schooling and background so terribly that I determined to do all
I could through conversations, picking up everything I could from
everybody.” Near the end of his ministry, in his mid-eighties, he
said, “I am a man still in process.”
Billy Graham has been a passionate student ever since his con-
version. A recent study revealed how high achievers very often
have the capacity to identify, attract, and bond with high-quality
mentors. Billy was a master at doing this.
He especially resonated with those who were both spiritual
and intellectual; when these two traits came in the same package,
the attraction was irresistible. In Oxford in 1947, Edwin Orr was
writing his doctoral dissertation on the Second Great Awakening.
In that academic atmosphere, he and Billy talked of Wesley and
The Leadership Secrets of Billy Graham