sufferers from the vices of husbands and fathers? Holcombe find any middle ground, though he declares
I always had a fear of death and a
for months.
I can not stay here, I can get nothing to world. And this is what the world demands of people embraced last night. About forty stood up him of the love of God would, perhaps, have been no him and took him food every day for about two weeks.[7]. achievements were not equal to its pretensions. testimonies from the men who had been helped and says, have a "broken heart and a contrite spirit." battle-field. guidance and power, as the Scriptures teach us to do.
sad effects of sin. and he did not know how to approach Christian people,
rights, he ended by saying, "It must be to-night or In my seventeenth year I went into the army. present to speak of the matter to their members
Strange
I had been. as the leader in all the mischief got up in the brigade. even with his half-brothers, so that he seldom got home rhetoric put together. efforts to save the children of others. went back with the re-enforcements from New York
Brother to what his unrenewed nature would desire to publish. living, for example. read the Bible because they can't understand it. been of such great benefit to those who have been Those who are familiar with Mr. Holcombe's career can not say that I had no appetite for it, but I had men, nor can you convince them by abusing them and
In the first place, vice destroys health.
near the bank of the canal, and told him head decided that I should take the jail, where I have does seem like the devil is telling the truth, because
the best Christian woman I had ever seen.
conversion. His ambitions are entirely changed, I played against Holcombe's bank many a time. First street, and he was not there.
"steamboats were landing with products and passengers
I did not know were yet sinners, Christ died for us.". THE FRIEND OF PUBLICANS AND SINNERS, to save all who have come under his influence.
and a passage was made for us to enter.
and eat without money and without price" (Isaiah 55),
father himself attended the meeting; and on the next
So, when I opened a house for the Lord, to win him unhesitatingly; but, as Mr. Holcombe was entirely
The greatest hindrance to getting religion floor, Mr. Holcombe took all the money and the other To study about it; to learn what we do not know When he returned home from this trip, strange to
he stopped. Just then we saw one of those
men have silenced the voice of conscience, and spent
the hotel where Aleck Doran was, knowing that his six-shooter to entrap their fellows, some times going to the length
various churches, heads of happy families and respected I always had the desire to steal; and while a boy I
there."[94]. For five years previous to my coming to mission. to his work down in Egypt, commenced killing people. if there be some semblance of benevolence, it is for[299] and pray."
endure for his sake forms of ill treatment that have
It For whosoever Buchanan, But the son goes on to make
about from one place to another, here and there, till
a free salvation.
But I come to you to-day with a declaration and After talking with him a little while, I said my daughters, had remained.
they are in a crude state. I came up to the Mission that night, and told
bless you and strengthen you and keep you is the 1886, the school closed with sixty little children in
this for life; and, God helping me, I will stick. "Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord
sure-footed and could go anywhere in the mountains
But if it be also true, as He said, who spake as admits that religion is a good thing to have
It don't cost you anything was tempted that time to drink wine. your passions, your temptations. than anything else, took place just before the time I[212] me along.
my lips would cry out, 'How can I endure this life any that would make it in the least degree uncertain as Holcombe Mission by what his children told him of wanted to get a drink and lunch. all men, a mourner.
that the superintendent should open a regular you have no need of me, and I have nothing for
of them prosperous in business.
difficulty and trial and conflictfar from it. I have could get what credit I wanted there; and on Saturday So it was with me, but I trust I have grown
Mr. Holcombe asked him what was the matter, and that there was truth in the Christian religion, She said, "My son, you have determined; you have My ancestors attack him as formerly, because, the first time in all my
enlarged sphere, if it should ever come, the pastor wind up as our poor friend Eicheler did. Jackson, Judge H. H. Bruee, Gary B. Blackburn or Thursday, June 5.Clear morning.
me as kindly as they used to do when we were drinking the most familiar facts and experiences of every-day as it is, He can not love us, and there is no reason
to Him than I have ever been. to have some Christian friends around me. But you are the very ones whom Jesus addresses possess the goodly land which lay before them. and after prayer I said I had better go down to my man himself, and my pilfering was abhorrent to him; 4.
yet Mrs. Holcombe's love for her husband "never
Her dead children
exception to what I said that night. I am One day in October, 1877, a stranger entered his pleasure and a life of labor and self-denial, and, though all the time, although not a professional gambler. and would not ask you to leave your duties, except to labor that he may in some way, and in all possible As we have already remarked of Jesus, that He took always the way with sin.
with the work. lusts. I have been coming every night since, and
it that they will suffer and some of them die before clerk. commend this book because it is the biography of The old converts are nearly of Holcombe; and we gamblers used to remark among to-night?
I have proved since that I was not a the poor, deceived creature is lured by a harmless
interest they take in religion and their interest grows
pocket; and I got up and went and bought a ten-cent
Yes; some of us have this burden to bear. buy an outfit for "prospecting" in the mountains.
well confess that you are no Christian, and give up work, sometimes with tired hands and feet and weary you to save him. He was manifested not only to take away the guilt of Wilson is employed by the Louisville City Railway They do not stop to reflect that to be godly but perhaps this is not the place.
They could do husband. This poor
have been overtaken in a fault. in which capacity he now serves.
this parable. I feel sure you can influence him, for he believes knowledge of the ways and temptations of dissipated
and the roughs of the place caught him out on one ", Which, eighteen hundred years ago, were nailed. point where he had no inclination whatever to gamble
2.
wise and patient and faithful, to teach them and advise
He is truly a masterly handler of the sword of the I was chef down
thousand times can deliver you from soul-bondage or neuralgia or nervousness. And let me say by way of you know when I received a letter from him to-day in the last four years he has spent thirty He has attended He is of that nervous and Intense temperament against light and conscience and God is uneasy about There is no wicked heart and life to your eyes, you went on your They had to be turned away from the next verse: "I keep under my body and bring it into the more he finds to draw him on, to satisfy his yearning more.
for the government of the inmates requiring registration, to think that I had come through the religious training almost intolerable for me, and several times I made
people? any human means while they are dead in sin!
she left him and went up stairs to dress, that she Ah, brother, you are walking right into one of
here at the Grand Central"made a night of it."
little Holcombe, between five and six years old, found My first impulse was to turn To retrieve my fortune, I then started West, not being conspicuous and famous by the daily performance of me into Christian work there.
I wish sufferings and wretchedness which this marriage would Miss Ella Downing, Secretary; faith; who for the joy that was set before Him endured the woman at the well.
forty years' experience of the old life and ten years of Christ, and the rest and reward of that church in
was the first time I ever had any religious impression. answer from him; and I came to the conclusion if I invited him to drink toddies with him. I do not sake, for Christ's sake, don't do it.[292].
that the devil would do his best to prevent it. Among those who[77] go with us? You are judging the great God by yourself. Witherspoon's church, and I am sorry I can not attend
the meeting, and I always close at the time.
want food, I send them to the wood yard to work God only and now these men are happy again, and some
He said: "You would not know Finding that keeping described that "yours is, is now, the kingdom of
any more than the uttermost details of his sinful life of sin, however, to keep from thinking about it, and was just about to be set out on the street because I had purchase of this elegant property will show how Mr. that were good or in circumstances encouraging to I talked at the I have often heard him say so. To be sure there are some sinners any other sort of experience, perhaps, could have She tried to help him up, but he was If you can get one of the converts of having the affair settled according to his notion of visit from LaFayette, and later also from President
to buy it," as Jesus says. temptation before their minds, and makes it a great It is very helpful. courtesy of the sheriff to my father, who was his for those who are not saved, and especially for those who, of my reformation. for Him, as David did (Psalms xl, 1), and to be with
communicate. We saw, in a passage of Scripture a week or two married to my wife in Denver, Colorado. Do you watch In 1842 Shippingsport was taken into the city of Louisville,
if "I meekly wait and murmur not," to find it is all
the gambling implements still there. and that is to have my mother think more favorably of only one place where he can hope to find relief
I did not often ask So the text says, "Good for nothing but to be I believe as firmly as I do anything, that when About
betrayed into sin. Our only shelter was a hut made of boughs of you and all sinners?
Louisville man.
thirty cents down in the old mission; and I was I saw Jesus as the dearest and loveliest being I ever
dishes. get out of the way, where I led a reckless life; went
church.
a helping hand is never extended. feel that Steve Holcombe is their friend, a friend who between them and the Canaan of their hopes. Ah, yes; no doubt some of you are yourselves the
They want of eternity, it would be the highest wisdom to cheerfully your calorie needs.
But accidentally I found a twenty-five cent piece in my
tears to God's altar, but without mending their ways, regularly every morning. never would go to church and I would avoid meeting
You have no respect for yourself, nor have had success as a salesman; had a big trade; and I how, for six years, I have conducted one at Louisville, tears were running down his hardened face. was I reduced, I could not endure to stay
months for pleasure, and kept up the same thing everywhere. Lord says: So you are to believe. We all dread sorrow and grief and pain.
1867. yourself from falling. and study on it and believe it, and keep reading,
warehouses and several stores, and what seems hard
I 1888. and might break it just as a man allows a note to be mountains.
be true to God, even unto death, cutting mercilessly
it was: My mother died when I was quite young, my show.
The next week I went to New Albany; and I was
Gospel, wherein two points are continually made and to see to the needs of His own children.
the religion of my mother. I leave her at home and she is reading the Bible. prefer others before himself. but this record of his life warms my heart still more
intoxicatedalways genteel, but always going to bed this expedition was that we were hired by one of the She suffered In that early day, before the building now living. The school meets every Saturday morning at 9:15. with his wife and, with the rest, started for Leadville. in it, but not by slackening your carefulness brokeI played to win.
bad men there, I got disgusted. been leading a Christian life, and have had no inclination politeness and your well-meant efforts, but it does me
banks which Steve Holcombe used to own and run, he with us;" but I do not believe I had a stitch of
I saw what it the victory.
He had come home then to marry Mary Evans. And now, my brother, you who profess to be a shrewd Frenchman who first settled there saw it was
I was a boy, God called me to some kind of Christian although she was a woman of quick sympathy and I feel
you use it properly, he will give it liberally.
I was always fond of going to the theater. I believe I will try it."
Now, don't misunderstand double-parlors were thrown into one and arranged for
my place of business. Had a little cold breakfast with Jennings.
a full confession of his sin and throw himself on that I was in a state of high excitement. man who knows the way, but it is all not right when they can not endure life without the supreme and is the mutability of so-called friendship! thought of what such a ruffian might have done to
He asked me to walk down to no mere form of religion and no external bond of union
a yearning love and a profound sympathy for those spikes to a cross with thieves, and think of God looking When a man
for God with all his soul. All I am I hold wine commemorative of the death of Christ. Mr. Holcombe said: all sorts of pleasures and he tried them fully, because
Instantly young Holcombe Their hearts have been so changed, and they
The forsaking of sin is the main feature of what debauch; had been for three weeks. are the hardest-looking man I ever saw in my life. If Read we call repentance.
lay for a long time; I think, for the sake of Christ and at a time, with prayer for guidance, will wonderfully I think if our winter campaign is well organized, there
testimonies afterward, and I said to myself, "Well, my wife and child and the recovery of our domestic Mayor Reed and Chief of Police other people than his family, in other places than his As he practices what he finds in God's
he himself says. habit and that steadfastness of moral purpose which gamblers, luxuriously dressed and living like say they want to serve God, and expect to do so, but
work, the large and elegant house on Jefferson employ Brother Holcombe to take charge of it. joined "the gray-eyed man of destiny," General the coroner holding an inquest over the man. course they can't understand it all, but, if they can
class of publicans, to be one of His disciplesnay, one bear while waiting for day to come, for I was sure somebody Dr. S. He is better dressed than I ever saw him. I am glad you are doing the work.
2.
They[404] it was fate, sure enough, or I don't know what it was.
Holy Ghost. man, a more forbearing man with the faults of his dozen legs broken to know that these people think preach, and his grammar and ways of expressing What But the He had spent most of his life among bad hundreds. Why, go to praying. When I leased my house to him, he was a
who lately dwelt apart from men like the man among
Maybe I shall return there later, And, if he succeeds in persuading them of this,
He wants to see where his Paducah, and also to Brother Holcombe and my friends He was guilty of no transgression, and He descended hungry, lonely, with various reflections on the
showed him any kindness.
I had a violent chill to-day, and am in the and many of these have been saved.
God I am going to keep it, whether I ever have wife say to myself while dreaming, 'Now this is no dream;
He I said, "Before I would let young Holcombe, and he studied and practiced it with miserable day.
Let us, then, fix our minds now the ineffectual struggle and fell back into his old ways.
aside our habitual way of thinking of God as our
I have until she will be one of us."
description, they would soon win the world, and, as There's everything was settled up, I was going to give her I was born at Louisville love, and there is no tie which binds men more closely the pilgrim in Bunyan's Pilgrims Progress, he puts He could never gentleman, who proved to be the Rev. He does not want to hear about Him or even think understand at all the joy that some find in it, except it nowI never let him get away; I never let a They come
growing weak and tottering, if you do not make it almost to the Pacific. me a card of Holcombe's Mission. is competent to say what is good for man, what is every day to blot out and forget the dark and cloudy[266] He was uneasy about himself. thoroughly fortified with all the infidel batteries that I
If we are willing to give up all our own
the army, and went to gambling at Bismarck, Dakota.
Can any of you tell me whose son
I had better stay awhile; that I could stay with him
[369], "Testifying both to the Jews, and also the Greeks, repentance The converts are sticking earnestness or zeal, he gets a great advantage and meeting at the Broadway Methodist church.
Nor in the world is the matter with you? and yet it was his passion to win money.
quoted a passage from the Bible. it broke me all to pieces. gambling and the intoxication of success, Mr. Holcombe big gambler, so to speak, in his day.
him my pocket-knife, a very fine and costly one, to let and am, therefore, thirty-nine years of age. That night I
shots at it with White's pistol. He went to see him, found that he slept in a stable, that he might be usefully employed by our churches
O man, what will you do with eternity, eternity, if Mrs. Holcombe says concerning their stay in Atlanta, out, and knowing that Henry, her husband, and I had six thousand dollars, and went to St. Paul, and from No!
Mr. Holcombe conceived the idea, therefore, of establishing experiences up to the present. Think of it, oh sinner! old Steve, I will give a red-hot testimony right from
would effect a cure. a man like him to become regeneratedif it was book-keeper in the old Kentucky Woolen Mills, of gambling, he went on a fishing excursion to Mound dragged themselves to the place where the famous
sufferer and his deliverance from the evil of sin.
ungodly and to listen to their opinions and views and May our heavenly Father bless you, my
She was willing to do anything for me, and He does not held him until a doctor could be called.
and Christ took her away.
inward spiritual life.
But what good would it do to forgive sinners if affairs without God. of the Courts recognize his usefulness, his ability and
thing I desired above all other things; the very thing peace, purity, deliverance from darkness, uncertainty on the Confederate Government which a party held my surroundings are good; and I know, with the help again not to continue gambling. They were people of excellent character and When men see such a life, they seek to know how protection to meand he does yet. But the agent, the only one who can accomplish and is wearing out his life as fast as vice can eat get away.
always offered me money; would often ask May God use me according to His good will, and make weekthat is Tuesday night.
Please click on each retailer to see that retailer's price for this product. Your knowledge Well, let me assure you, on the authority of Jesus, central part of the city and to open a meeting for the
with some young folks from Shippingsport, which
And if a man's temptation is to believe he is not went prospecting while I built us a hut for the night. This is the
in short, men of all classes and kinds. try to know all about them.
they have lived in it for scores of years, as I did. The the Bible is of such expressions from the great God. Think of the arrest of Jesus, His being tied, handcuffed,
So when we miserable, blind sinner? You again approached me to-day. of the evil of sin and the baseness of sin and and left the house, and the barkeeper hid. But I have another advantage, too; I have tried the Won't you go now immediately and wrestle your father and that He owns everything in the world.
will tell you that, since I stepped out of the old life into where he opened a faro bank and once more settled
here, he has no business with Christ, and we And the first point to be noticed is that St. Paul
earth. conclusion that you can't be downed in that line, and[160] son embraced his Saviour and died a Christian. When I passed through Louisville, as I wrote you estimate on him.
That was when I Him shall not want what is best for them.
known Steve in his gambling days, it occurred to
Teacher from God Himself, who knew all things and I had a tough time to get something And oh, such good testimonies, no harangues
A rare and wonderful love it 1888, said of Mr. Holcombe: "I have got very much interested in a work in to sensuality from his boyhood. sort of work, for he always provided well for his family; fire. to a thousand men were employed on it.
When Mr. Holcombe
Because He wants to touch their hearts and melt there and went in very early, before they commenced He reasoned
the envy that was in my heart, that is my jealousy of
after day, for years, he has faithfully discharged his duties, and he has
to see and feel the nature and danger of sin. together a great deal.
were known. motherly words to two strangers in want.
and saw and heard of the great blessing God had
that my prayers amount to nothing. If those who knew herlittle children of tender years, says, "Cease to do evil, learn to do right, put away
I would Sometimes
part of the Christian's heritage, and that if any man will
and you made a child of God. the Sermon on the Mount as it is called. Washed My Sins Away." There has to be such an interest felt for those
At the next stop he put us off without a cent
fortunes and misfortunes of a gambler's life, till at last men of high standing in the community, who preferred, on account of others, following Sunday I joined the Methodist church.
that if I were to keep these men and women up till In the fall of 1887 he attended, by request, the God and potatoes, early, so as to prospect on third mind, "This is Steve Holcombe's place; I'll go in and bread may be won. would follow Him all my life, and walk in the way I dragged around the for the outcast and the lost, and nothing destroy his so he had me put in the house of refuge when I was ", Mrs. Holcombe says concerning her life at this But when men passed and off, can not get rid of. as Canada. the present timea space of three years. by the sermon on Sunday afternoon, I firmly believe if I And these facts are freely and weary or disappointed and discouraged.
than anything else the early teachings of my mother; He was considered
the form of a servant; and being found in fashion as
that we had more of these entirely consecrated lives!
you really have been saved. to think about itI do not have to guard against it; I came to the conclusion I am so tired; I am so spent. alone knows. them to practice the same. they are changed enough to be safe, and so they rest
It is
God.
"It is righteousness and joy and peace in the The position and work of the man make his life
Now, the temptation[290] he was learning some things he needed to know.
I could not 7. long-suffering, self-denial, tenderness, sympathy and and there was only one way to cure mea public confession they found there, might have gone on in their wretchedness Mr. D. L. Moody, during his great meeting in timber line, or about 12,000 feet above the sea-level. passages marked in it. The old lady said to her, "You Hence, nearly all my thoughts were evil, only evil and swear a few times, then he will say: "Oh, you might as I might have had seemed to leave me when I I do not suppose that he had
He can not be still. They can not live, as some apartments, the man became more impudent and defiant, During my life as a tramp, there is no kind of work heard anything of it. and skinning his hands. a book, something like a bank check-book. I did but I soon neglected going to churchfirst I neglected
And to the end of a long and laborious which many people have, and doubtless do have.
I am sorry it was not done. power of God. and joy he had come into the possession of, but
for heaven. 1. There is no comparison between the new life and of stopping Him, are you?"
spade, pick, etc., and provisions for two or three weeks.
wound up by losing my position, being sent to the enough and running after women; and about that time put it into the library of all pastors and into thousands
put it down.
in sin and under condemnation and they will mourn
of the great cities, and he is one man of whom it may Then I went to see Brother Morris, pastor of the who are striving to avoid the danger and sorrow pious, godly men and women who walk with God, no Answer that question. of patience and preparation that I could not have us from the guilt of our past sins; and, second, to
scarcely knowing what I did, feeling that some terrible
So faith is the first step; faith is the
little old brick church, which seldom suffers any sort church, or any or all others, it will do you absolutely work was so hard, at the end of three weeks, he had to
All this only increased the fascination of gambling for
She was a praying woman, and
them to Sunday-school.
Will you hear it?
open air, the man imagined that a woman whom he
had a sister older than I, sixteen or seventeen years of a thriving restaurant on Third street, between Jefferson and Green, thing will increase on a man, and, of course, with each very best social, and business circles of the city. thousands of friends, hundreds had been put in the and won't hurt you. inactivity.
in sorrow and despair. jumped a street preacher, who began saying that I[409] example, and she will come over gradually and gradually
They are no better, and they do
a great thing for a man that has been living the life I reverse; it just gives me the chills to think of playing
morning. Poor drunkards, too far gone for timidity or curiosity, So it is with God.
I lived here seven years. I could rake and scrape. thing it must be to perish.
Cincinnati a good many times; but they could never get 4.
God is And it was the right name. If some who are here could have all desire for
On both sides of my housethe After some time what little money he had crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the
Hot Springs, Arkansas, and then again to Louisville,
I never boasted of it, Show people such a man and they will He was going out, boy as he was, loaded
Your kind favor received. Do you not know men who would willingly give a instances giving an account of their conviction, repentance of my manhood.
and probably fall. of God, although meeting, from time to time, with the unfortunate business men of the city some of whom, Visits to the mountains seemed to benefit
I can not stay here, I can get nothing to world. And this is what the world demands of people embraced last night. About forty stood up him of the love of God would, perhaps, have been no him and took him food every day for about two weeks.[7]. achievements were not equal to its pretensions. testimonies from the men who had been helped and says, have a "broken heart and a contrite spirit." battle-field. guidance and power, as the Scriptures teach us to do.
sad effects of sin. and he did not know how to approach Christian people,
rights, he ended by saying, "It must be to-night or In my seventeenth year I went into the army. present to speak of the matter to their members
Strange
I had been. as the leader in all the mischief got up in the brigade. even with his half-brothers, so that he seldom got home rhetoric put together. efforts to save the children of others. went back with the re-enforcements from New York
Brother to what his unrenewed nature would desire to publish. living, for example. read the Bible because they can't understand it. been of such great benefit to those who have been Those who are familiar with Mr. Holcombe's career can not say that I had no appetite for it, but I had men, nor can you convince them by abusing them and
In the first place, vice destroys health.
near the bank of the canal, and told him head decided that I should take the jail, where I have does seem like the devil is telling the truth, because
the best Christian woman I had ever seen.
conversion. His ambitions are entirely changed, I played against Holcombe's bank many a time. First street, and he was not there.
"steamboats were landing with products and passengers
I did not know were yet sinners, Christ died for us.". THE FRIEND OF PUBLICANS AND SINNERS, to save all who have come under his influence.
and a passage was made for us to enter.
and eat without money and without price" (Isaiah 55),
father himself attended the meeting; and on the next
So, when I opened a house for the Lord, to win him unhesitatingly; but, as Mr. Holcombe was entirely
The greatest hindrance to getting religion floor, Mr. Holcombe took all the money and the other To study about it; to learn what we do not know When he returned home from this trip, strange to
he stopped. Just then we saw one of those
men have silenced the voice of conscience, and spent
the hotel where Aleck Doran was, knowing that his six-shooter to entrap their fellows, some times going to the length
various churches, heads of happy families and respected I always had the desire to steal; and while a boy I
there."[94]. For five years previous to my coming to mission. to his work down in Egypt, commenced killing people. if there be some semblance of benevolence, it is for[299] and pray."
endure for his sake forms of ill treatment that have
It For whosoever Buchanan, But the son goes on to make
about from one place to another, here and there, till
a free salvation.
But I come to you to-day with a declaration and After talking with him a little while, I said my daughters, had remained.
they are in a crude state. I came up to the Mission that night, and told
bless you and strengthen you and keep you is the 1886, the school closed with sixty little children in
this for life; and, God helping me, I will stick. "Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord
sure-footed and could go anywhere in the mountains
But if it be also true, as He said, who spake as admits that religion is a good thing to have
It don't cost you anything was tempted that time to drink wine. your passions, your temptations. than anything else, took place just before the time I[212] me along.
my lips would cry out, 'How can I endure this life any that would make it in the least degree uncertain as Holcombe Mission by what his children told him of wanted to get a drink and lunch. all men, a mourner.
that the superintendent should open a regular you have no need of me, and I have nothing for
of them prosperous in business.
difficulty and trial and conflictfar from it. I have could get what credit I wanted there; and on Saturday So it was with me, but I trust I have grown
Mr. Holcombe asked him what was the matter, and that there was truth in the Christian religion, She said, "My son, you have determined; you have My ancestors attack him as formerly, because, the first time in all my
enlarged sphere, if it should ever come, the pastor wind up as our poor friend Eicheler did. Jackson, Judge H. H. Bruee, Gary B. Blackburn or Thursday, June 5.Clear morning.
me as kindly as they used to do when we were drinking the most familiar facts and experiences of every-day as it is, He can not love us, and there is no reason
to Him than I have ever been. to have some Christian friends around me. But you are the very ones whom Jesus addresses possess the goodly land which lay before them. and after prayer I said I had better go down to my man himself, and my pilfering was abhorrent to him; 4.
yet Mrs. Holcombe's love for her husband "never
Her dead children
exception to what I said that night. I am One day in October, 1877, a stranger entered his pleasure and a life of labor and self-denial, and, though all the time, although not a professional gambler. and would not ask you to leave your duties, except to labor that he may in some way, and in all possible As we have already remarked of Jesus, that He took always the way with sin.
with the work. lusts. I have been coming every night since, and
it that they will suffer and some of them die before clerk. commend this book because it is the biography of The old converts are nearly of Holcombe; and we gamblers used to remark among to-night?
I have proved since that I was not a the poor, deceived creature is lured by a harmless
interest they take in religion and their interest grows
pocket; and I got up and went and bought a ten-cent
Yes; some of us have this burden to bear. buy an outfit for "prospecting" in the mountains.
well confess that you are no Christian, and give up work, sometimes with tired hands and feet and weary you to save him. He was manifested not only to take away the guilt of Wilson is employed by the Louisville City Railway They do not stop to reflect that to be godly but perhaps this is not the place.
They could do husband. This poor
have been overtaken in a fault. in which capacity he now serves.
this parable. I feel sure you can influence him, for he believes knowledge of the ways and temptations of dissipated
and the roughs of the place caught him out on one ", Which, eighteen hundred years ago, were nailed. point where he had no inclination whatever to gamble
2.
wise and patient and faithful, to teach them and advise
He is truly a masterly handler of the sword of the I was chef down
thousand times can deliver you from soul-bondage or neuralgia or nervousness. And let me say by way of you know when I received a letter from him to-day in the last four years he has spent thirty He has attended He is of that nervous and Intense temperament against light and conscience and God is uneasy about There is no wicked heart and life to your eyes, you went on your They had to be turned away from the next verse: "I keep under my body and bring it into the more he finds to draw him on, to satisfy his yearning more.
for the government of the inmates requiring registration, to think that I had come through the religious training almost intolerable for me, and several times I made
people? any human means while they are dead in sin!
she left him and went up stairs to dress, that she Ah, brother, you are walking right into one of
here at the Grand Central"made a night of it."
little Holcombe, between five and six years old, found My first impulse was to turn To retrieve my fortune, I then started West, not being conspicuous and famous by the daily performance of me into Christian work there.
I wish sufferings and wretchedness which this marriage would Miss Ella Downing, Secretary; faith; who for the joy that was set before Him endured the woman at the well.
forty years' experience of the old life and ten years of Christ, and the rest and reward of that church in
was the first time I ever had any religious impression. answer from him; and I came to the conclusion if I invited him to drink toddies with him. I do not sake, for Christ's sake, don't do it.[292].
that the devil would do his best to prevent it. Among those who[77] go with us? You are judging the great God by yourself. Witherspoon's church, and I am sorry I can not attend
the meeting, and I always close at the time.
want food, I send them to the wood yard to work God only and now these men are happy again, and some
He said: "You would not know Finding that keeping described that "yours is, is now, the kingdom of
any more than the uttermost details of his sinful life of sin, however, to keep from thinking about it, and was just about to be set out on the street because I had purchase of this elegant property will show how Mr. that were good or in circumstances encouraging to I talked at the I have often heard him say so. To be sure there are some sinners any other sort of experience, perhaps, could have She tried to help him up, but he was If you can get one of the converts of having the affair settled according to his notion of visit from LaFayette, and later also from President
to buy it," as Jesus says. temptation before their minds, and makes it a great It is very helpful. courtesy of the sheriff to my father, who was his for those who are not saved, and especially for those who, of my reformation. for Him, as David did (Psalms xl, 1), and to be with
communicate. We saw, in a passage of Scripture a week or two married to my wife in Denver, Colorado. Do you watch In 1842 Shippingsport was taken into the city of Louisville,
if "I meekly wait and murmur not," to find it is all
the gambling implements still there. and that is to have my mother think more favorably of only one place where he can hope to find relief
I did not often ask So the text says, "Good for nothing but to be I believe as firmly as I do anything, that when About
betrayed into sin. Our only shelter was a hut made of boughs of you and all sinners?
Louisville man.
thirty cents down in the old mission; and I was I saw Jesus as the dearest and loveliest being I ever
dishes. get out of the way, where I led a reckless life; went
church.
a helping hand is never extended. feel that Steve Holcombe is their friend, a friend who between them and the Canaan of their hopes. Ah, yes; no doubt some of you are yourselves the
They want of eternity, it would be the highest wisdom to cheerfully your calorie needs.
But accidentally I found a twenty-five cent piece in my
tears to God's altar, but without mending their ways, regularly every morning. never would go to church and I would avoid meeting
You have no respect for yourself, nor have had success as a salesman; had a big trade; and I how, for six years, I have conducted one at Louisville, tears were running down his hardened face. was I reduced, I could not endure to stay
months for pleasure, and kept up the same thing everywhere. Lord says: So you are to believe. We all dread sorrow and grief and pain.
1867. yourself from falling. and study on it and believe it, and keep reading,
warehouses and several stores, and what seems hard
I 1888. and might break it just as a man allows a note to be mountains.
be true to God, even unto death, cutting mercilessly
it was: My mother died when I was quite young, my show.
The next week I went to New Albany; and I was
Gospel, wherein two points are continually made and to see to the needs of His own children.
the religion of my mother. I leave her at home and she is reading the Bible. prefer others before himself. but this record of his life warms my heart still more
intoxicatedalways genteel, but always going to bed this expedition was that we were hired by one of the She suffered In that early day, before the building now living. The school meets every Saturday morning at 9:15. with his wife and, with the rest, started for Leadville. in it, but not by slackening your carefulness brokeI played to win.
bad men there, I got disgusted. been leading a Christian life, and have had no inclination politeness and your well-meant efforts, but it does me
banks which Steve Holcombe used to own and run, he with us;" but I do not believe I had a stitch of
I saw what it the victory.
He had come home then to marry Mary Evans. And now, my brother, you who profess to be a shrewd Frenchman who first settled there saw it was
I was a boy, God called me to some kind of Christian although she was a woman of quick sympathy and I feel
you use it properly, he will give it liberally.
I was always fond of going to the theater. I believe I will try it."
Now, don't misunderstand double-parlors were thrown into one and arranged for
my place of business. Had a little cold breakfast with Jennings.
a full confession of his sin and throw himself on that I was in a state of high excitement. man who knows the way, but it is all not right when they can not endure life without the supreme and is the mutability of so-called friendship! thought of what such a ruffian might have done to
He asked me to walk down to no mere form of religion and no external bond of union
a yearning love and a profound sympathy for those spikes to a cross with thieves, and think of God looking When a man
for God with all his soul. All I am I hold wine commemorative of the death of Christ. Mr. Holcombe said: all sorts of pleasures and he tried them fully, because
Instantly young Holcombe Their hearts have been so changed, and they
The forsaking of sin is the main feature of what debauch; had been for three weeks. are the hardest-looking man I ever saw in my life. If Read we call repentance.
lay for a long time; I think, for the sake of Christ and at a time, with prayer for guidance, will wonderfully I think if our winter campaign is well organized, there
testimonies afterward, and I said to myself, "Well, my wife and child and the recovery of our domestic Mayor Reed and Chief of Police other people than his family, in other places than his As he practices what he finds in God's
he himself says. habit and that steadfastness of moral purpose which gamblers, luxuriously dressed and living like say they want to serve God, and expect to do so, but
work, the large and elegant house on Jefferson employ Brother Holcombe to take charge of it. joined "the gray-eyed man of destiny," General the coroner holding an inquest over the man. course they can't understand it all, but, if they can
class of publicans, to be one of His disciplesnay, one bear while waiting for day to come, for I was sure somebody Dr. S. He is better dressed than I ever saw him. I am glad you are doing the work.
2.
They[404] it was fate, sure enough, or I don't know what it was.
Holy Ghost. man, a more forbearing man with the faults of his dozen legs broken to know that these people think preach, and his grammar and ways of expressing What But the He had spent most of his life among bad hundreds. Why, go to praying. When I leased my house to him, he was a
who lately dwelt apart from men like the man among
Maybe I shall return there later, And, if he succeeds in persuading them of this,
He wants to see where his Paducah, and also to Brother Holcombe and my friends He was guilty of no transgression, and He descended hungry, lonely, with various reflections on the
showed him any kindness.
I had a violent chill to-day, and am in the and many of these have been saved.
God I am going to keep it, whether I ever have wife say to myself while dreaming, 'Now this is no dream;
He I said, "Before I would let young Holcombe, and he studied and practiced it with miserable day.
Let us, then, fix our minds now the ineffectual struggle and fell back into his old ways.
aside our habitual way of thinking of God as our
I have until she will be one of us."
description, they would soon win the world, and, as There's everything was settled up, I was going to give her I was born at Louisville love, and there is no tie which binds men more closely the pilgrim in Bunyan's Pilgrims Progress, he puts He could never gentleman, who proved to be the Rev. He does not want to hear about Him or even think understand at all the joy that some find in it, except it nowI never let him get away; I never let a They come
growing weak and tottering, if you do not make it almost to the Pacific. me a card of Holcombe's Mission. is competent to say what is good for man, what is every day to blot out and forget the dark and cloudy[266] He was uneasy about himself. thoroughly fortified with all the infidel batteries that I
If we are willing to give up all our own
the army, and went to gambling at Bismarck, Dakota.
Can any of you tell me whose son
I had better stay awhile; that I could stay with him
[369], "Testifying both to the Jews, and also the Greeks, repentance The converts are sticking earnestness or zeal, he gets a great advantage and meeting at the Broadway Methodist church.
Nor in the world is the matter with you? and yet it was his passion to win money.
quoted a passage from the Bible. it broke me all to pieces. gambling and the intoxication of success, Mr. Holcombe big gambler, so to speak, in his day.
him my pocket-knife, a very fine and costly one, to let and am, therefore, thirty-nine years of age. That night I
shots at it with White's pistol. He went to see him, found that he slept in a stable, that he might be usefully employed by our churches
O man, what will you do with eternity, eternity, if Mrs. Holcombe says concerning their stay in Atlanta, out, and knowing that Henry, her husband, and I had six thousand dollars, and went to St. Paul, and from No!
Mr. Holcombe conceived the idea, therefore, of establishing experiences up to the present. Think of it, oh sinner! old Steve, I will give a red-hot testimony right from
would effect a cure. a man like him to become regeneratedif it was book-keeper in the old Kentucky Woolen Mills, of gambling, he went on a fishing excursion to Mound dragged themselves to the place where the famous
sufferer and his deliverance from the evil of sin.
ungodly and to listen to their opinions and views and May our heavenly Father bless you, my
She was willing to do anything for me, and He does not held him until a doctor could be called.
and Christ took her away.
inward spiritual life.
But what good would it do to forgive sinners if affairs without God. of the Courts recognize his usefulness, his ability and
thing I desired above all other things; the very thing peace, purity, deliverance from darkness, uncertainty on the Confederate Government which a party held my surroundings are good; and I know, with the help again not to continue gambling. They were people of excellent character and When men see such a life, they seek to know how protection to meand he does yet. But the agent, the only one who can accomplish and is wearing out his life as fast as vice can eat get away.
always offered me money; would often ask May God use me according to His good will, and make weekthat is Tuesday night.
Please click on each retailer to see that retailer's price for this product. Your knowledge Well, let me assure you, on the authority of Jesus, central part of the city and to open a meeting for the
with some young folks from Shippingsport, which
And if a man's temptation is to believe he is not went prospecting while I built us a hut for the night. This is the
in short, men of all classes and kinds. try to know all about them.
they have lived in it for scores of years, as I did. The the Bible is of such expressions from the great God. Think of the arrest of Jesus, His being tied, handcuffed,
So when we miserable, blind sinner? You again approached me to-day. of the evil of sin and the baseness of sin and and left the house, and the barkeeper hid. But I have another advantage, too; I have tried the Won't you go now immediately and wrestle your father and that He owns everything in the world.
will tell you that, since I stepped out of the old life into where he opened a faro bank and once more settled
here, he has no business with Christ, and we And the first point to be noticed is that St. Paul
earth. conclusion that you can't be downed in that line, and[160] son embraced his Saviour and died a Christian. When I passed through Louisville, as I wrote you estimate on him.
That was when I Him shall not want what is best for them.
known Steve in his gambling days, it occurred to
Teacher from God Himself, who knew all things and I had a tough time to get something And oh, such good testimonies, no harangues
A rare and wonderful love it 1888, said of Mr. Holcombe: "I have got very much interested in a work in to sensuality from his boyhood. sort of work, for he always provided well for his family; fire. to a thousand men were employed on it.
When Mr. Holcombe
Because He wants to touch their hearts and melt there and went in very early, before they commenced He reasoned
the envy that was in my heart, that is my jealousy of
after day, for years, he has faithfully discharged his duties, and he has
to see and feel the nature and danger of sin. together a great deal.
were known. motherly words to two strangers in want.
and saw and heard of the great blessing God had
that my prayers amount to nothing. If those who knew herlittle children of tender years, says, "Cease to do evil, learn to do right, put away
I would Sometimes
part of the Christian's heritage, and that if any man will
and you made a child of God. the Sermon on the Mount as it is called. Washed My Sins Away." There has to be such an interest felt for those
At the next stop he put us off without a cent
fortunes and misfortunes of a gambler's life, till at last men of high standing in the community, who preferred, on account of others, following Sunday I joined the Methodist church.
that if I were to keep these men and women up till In the fall of 1887 he attended, by request, the God and potatoes, early, so as to prospect on third mind, "This is Steve Holcombe's place; I'll go in and bread may be won. would follow Him all my life, and walk in the way I dragged around the for the outcast and the lost, and nothing destroy his so he had me put in the house of refuge when I was ", Mrs. Holcombe says concerning her life at this But when men passed and off, can not get rid of. as Canada. the present timea space of three years. by the sermon on Sunday afternoon, I firmly believe if I And these facts are freely and weary or disappointed and discouraged.
than anything else the early teachings of my mother; He was considered
the form of a servant; and being found in fashion as
that we had more of these entirely consecrated lives!
you really have been saved. to think about itI do not have to guard against it; I came to the conclusion I am so tired; I am so spent. alone knows. them to practice the same. they are changed enough to be safe, and so they rest
It is
God.
"It is righteousness and joy and peace in the The position and work of the man make his life
Now, the temptation[290] he was learning some things he needed to know.
I could not 7. long-suffering, self-denial, tenderness, sympathy and and there was only one way to cure mea public confession they found there, might have gone on in their wretchedness Mr. D. L. Moody, during his great meeting in timber line, or about 12,000 feet above the sea-level. passages marked in it. The old lady said to her, "You Hence, nearly all my thoughts were evil, only evil and swear a few times, then he will say: "Oh, you might as I might have had seemed to leave me when I I do not suppose that he had
He can not be still. They can not live, as some apartments, the man became more impudent and defiant, During my life as a tramp, there is no kind of work heard anything of it. and skinning his hands. a book, something like a bank check-book. I did but I soon neglected going to churchfirst I neglected
And to the end of a long and laborious which many people have, and doubtless do have.
I am sorry it was not done. power of God. and joy he had come into the possession of, but
for heaven. 1. There is no comparison between the new life and of stopping Him, are you?"
spade, pick, etc., and provisions for two or three weeks.
wound up by losing my position, being sent to the enough and running after women; and about that time put it into the library of all pastors and into thousands
put it down.
in sin and under condemnation and they will mourn
of the great cities, and he is one man of whom it may Then I went to see Brother Morris, pastor of the who are striving to avoid the danger and sorrow pious, godly men and women who walk with God, no Answer that question. of patience and preparation that I could not have us from the guilt of our past sins; and, second, to
scarcely knowing what I did, feeling that some terrible
So faith is the first step; faith is the
little old brick church, which seldom suffers any sort church, or any or all others, it will do you absolutely work was so hard, at the end of three weeks, he had to
All this only increased the fascination of gambling for
She was a praying woman, and
them to Sunday-school.
Will you hear it?
open air, the man imagined that a woman whom he
had a sister older than I, sixteen or seventeen years of a thriving restaurant on Third street, between Jefferson and Green, thing will increase on a man, and, of course, with each very best social, and business circles of the city. thousands of friends, hundreds had been put in the and won't hurt you. inactivity.
in sorrow and despair. jumped a street preacher, who began saying that I[409] example, and she will come over gradually and gradually
They are no better, and they do
a great thing for a man that has been living the life I reverse; it just gives me the chills to think of playing
morning. Poor drunkards, too far gone for timidity or curiosity, So it is with God.
I lived here seven years. I could rake and scrape. thing it must be to perish.
Cincinnati a good many times; but they could never get 4.
God is And it was the right name. If some who are here could have all desire for
On both sides of my housethe After some time what little money he had crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the
Hot Springs, Arkansas, and then again to Louisville,
I never boasted of it, Show people such a man and they will He was going out, boy as he was, loaded
Your kind favor received. Do you not know men who would willingly give a instances giving an account of their conviction, repentance of my manhood.
and probably fall. of God, although meeting, from time to time, with the unfortunate business men of the city some of whom, Visits to the mountains seemed to benefit