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"So we started selling tractors and gave away tractors as prizes. Then we sold cookbooks, and it became a huge success: Favorite Recipes of American Home Economics Teachers and Favorite Recipes of New England, … of the Deep South, … of Lions Clubs: A Lion in the Kitchen. We sold them by the millions. But all of that was for one purpose: making a lot of money."

I had to interrupt the sermon I saw coming. "But what if you do that and give away half of it? Is it wrong in itself to try to get rich?"

"My point is," he says looking at me and not at the road, "when you decide to do one thing, you preclude doing something else. It's like anything in life. You can drink alcohol in moderation, and it has no negative influence. But if it be comes an obsession, it can wreck your life. I was obsessed with making money."

* * *

The Alabama countryside streaming by the windshield made Fuller nostalgic. "I married Linda when I was a senior in law school. I virtually abandoned her when we went to Montgomery. I got her a big house and a Lincoln Continental, with a driver and a maid and everything. But she had no husband, because first thing in the morning I would go to work. I might or might not come home for supper. If I did, I went back to the job, and I was there till midnight.

"I never abandoned the church. In fact, Linda and I started a church in our living room. But it was not first in my life.

"You know, the Bible teaches you to seek the kingdom first. Church and the kingdom were not even close to the top of my list." Linda begged and pleaded with Millard to spend time at home with her and the growing family. Nothing got through to him until the day she left for New York City to get counseling and decide if the marriage should continue. "When I almost lost Linda, it was a very traumatic event, because I had lost my mother when I was three. My wife and my family were very important to me. I realized that I had gone into this headlong rush for material wealth, and I paid a heavy price for it."

Millard followed Linda to New York to try to convince her to come back. She was not easily convinced he could change. "We were in a taxi right after Linda and I had a very tearful session. We'd gone to Radio City Music Hall and they showed the movie Never Too Late. It was about a woman getting pregnant after she thought it was too late. The message was that it's never too late to change anything. I had a sensation of light in that taxi. It was not anything spooky. All I can say is it just came in my head: give your money away, make yourself poor again, and throw yourself on God's mercy. I turned to Linda and said, 'I believe that God just gave me the idea to give all our money away; give everything away.'

"She said, 'I agree. Let's do it.' "

Friends, family, even pastors tried to talk them out of it. "I told them no, if I think about it I won't do it, because it's not logical. But I believe that God is calling us to do this."

The only person who thought it was a wonderful idea was Clarence Jordan. "Somebody once said, When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. When we went back to south Georgia, I met Clarence Jordan."

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June 14 1999, Vol. 43, No. 7