APtx 06/23 0249 Minister-Attack By WALTER C. PUTNAM Associated Press Writer DALLAS (AP) --

APtx 06/23 0249 Minister-Attack

   By WALTER C. PUTNAM Associated Press Writer

   DALLAS (AP) -- The Rev.  Walker Railey said he tried to commit
suicide  eight  days after his wife was almost strangled to death
out of despair and a lapse of faith in which he "let God down."

   "Somehow I grew oblivious to the fact that I  didn't  have  to
bear  it  by myself," Railey said in an interview Monday. "Had it
not been for some act of grace, we  would  not  be  sitting  here
today.

   "I think I let God down, but God picked me back up."

   In the week after his wife was choked into a coma, Railey said
he  felt for the first time that he carried a burden too heavy to
bear.

   Railey said he does not fear an indictment because  "when  you
are not guilty you don't have to worry about things like that.

   "There  are  people who are playing `Murder She Wrote' with my
life and the lives of my  family,"  he  said.  "Everyone  on  the
street corner seems to have some speculation on what happened and
who did  it.  I didn't do it, but there are times when I feel I'm
the only one in the world that thinks that."

   Railey said his attorney had advised  him  against  discussing
details of the April 21 attack on his wife, Margaret.

   A  month before the attack, Railey began receiving a string of
threatening letters, which later were traced to a  typewriter  at
the  6,000-member  First  United Methodist of Dallas, of which he
was senior pastor.

   Railey took an overdose of pills May 1, the day police  wanted
to  question him about what they said were inconsistencies in his
story.  Saturday, he left Timberlawn Psychiatric Hospital,  which
he had checked into several days after his suicide attempt.

   Railey,  who  turns  40  this  week,  is  on  leave  from  the
pastorship of First United Methodist Church.

   As he spoke in the living room of his home Monday,  he  choked
back  tears  as  he  looked  at the pictures on the mantle of his
children, Ryan, 5, and Megan, 2.

   "It's real scary thinking that they may have just one parent,"
he said.

   Mrs.  Railey, 38, has been in a coma at Presbyterian  Hospital
since  the  choking attack and Railey said he did not know if she
would ever recover.

   "I'm not a pessimist," he said. "I'm  not  a  blind  optimist,
either.  The doctors are not very encouraging."

   Railey  said  he  has continued to receive threatening, racist
letters similar to the ones that came before the assault  on  his
wife.

   He  said  he  had  been  studying  at  libraries  at  Southern
Methodist University and arrived  home  late  to  find  his  wife
unconcious on the garage floor.

   Railey  said  he was too irrational to think how it might look
to others when he took the overdose of tranquilizers.

   He said he had been keeping a  journal  that  since  has  been
interpreted as  a  suicide  note.  In it, he said, he had written
that he had reached a crisis of faith and felt  as  though  there
were a demon inside him.

   "I don't believe in witchcraft," Railey said. "I don't believe
the devil runs around with a pitchfork trying to undo our lives."

   However,   he   said,  sometimes  people  find  themselves  in
situations in which "there is a battle going on inside us."

   "The battle is the demon," he said.

   But he said, "My taking of those drugs was not a  premeditated
act."

   Railey said that he always believed he would spend the rest of
his life preaching.

   "At  this  point,  I  don't  know  if another church is a real
possibility," he said.

   "There might be a chance somewhere down the road to teach at a
university, or a seminary," Railey said.

Last page !