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from totally new listeners---who never heard the program on radio.
TV is bringing us a totally NEW AUDIENCE. It is carrying the
Gospel to multiplied THOUSANDS, and soon, MILLIONS, who have never
heard it before! But these people are not going to accept and be
moved by the TRUTH, and start sending in money to support it, right
away. Most of you didn't.
Before I tell you about last Sunday's first TV program, and
the results, may I add one bit of real PERSONAL news? I think I
mentioned on the radio that we have a new grandson---born to our
son Ted, and his wife Shirley. Little David Dale Armstrong was
born almost a month ago, over in Texas where we had sent Ted to
preach and baptize new converts the first half of the summer. They
arrived home last evening, and as soon as they telephoned to let us
know they had arrived Mrs. Armstrong burst into an enthusiastic
urge of impatience for me to stop eating in the middle of my dinner
and rush over to their house "to see 'Markie-doodle,'" as we've
affectionately nicknamed their oldest son, (not yet two), Mark
Allen. Well I did finish my dinner, then we hurried over. I, too,
was thinking mostly of seeing "Markie-doodle." (You'll think we're
crazy, calling a grandson such an outlandish pet-name!) You see,
we had never yet seen our youngest grand-son. Mark was splashing
around having fun in the bath-tub after a long, hot automobile trip
from Texas, and we saw the new baby on the way to the bath-room.
Little David Dale stopped me in my tracks. It was love at first
sight! Seemed like I'd never seen such a pretty, lovely, fine-
looking little baby! Then I remembered back over the years, and
said to Mrs. Armstrong, --"Why, he's just another of OUR BABIES---
looks just like our own children, and our other grandchildren all
did!" All you grandparents will know what I mean. Our own
grandchildren seem just like our very own, and in a way we can't
explain, different from all other babies, don't they? So now if
you'll pardon that little personal paragraph, I'll get back to our
more serious problem.
Here in Pasadena, I lived thru a nightmare last Sunday
evening. EVERYTHING, it seemed, worked against our first TV
program on the local station, KTLA, Channel 5. First, the station
had failed to get the program listed in the newspaper logs. Then
of course I knew that first program was by far the poorest I've
done, so far as my speaking is concerned. The program before ours
got off 8 minutes late. I knew that late starting meant the loss
of thousands of listeners.
Then the suspense really did become a nightmare. The
picture was fuzzy, like an old worn-out silent-movie film of 40
years ago being resurrected. The sound was not normal or natural,
or resonant, but muffled. Seeing it this way, in comparison to
other TV programs, it seemed to me to be a total flop, a dud, a
failure. I got very little sleep that night. I saw visions of
total failure of our great television effort.
Immediately after I had long distance calls from Portland,
Oregon, and from Gladewater, Texas, saying the program was good at
each of those places, and even trying to tell me they were
enthusiastic about it. I thought they were saying it to keep me
from feeling too badly. Next morning, our Hollywood director and