Steve P. Holcombe, the Converted Gambler: His Life and Work. Alexander Gross

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СКАЧАТЬ further, "When Willie would see his father on the street drinking, I have seen him, when twelve years old, jump off the car, go to his father and beg him with tears to go home with him. And I never saw Mr. Holcombe refuse to go."

      In this way the boy grew up with a disgust and horror of drunkenness and drinking, and when in the year 1877 the great temperance movement was rolling over the country and meetings were held everywhere, and in Louisville also, though the boy had never drunk any intoxicating liquor in his life, he signed the pledge. He took his card home with his name signed to it, and when his father saw it, he was very angry about it. And yet, strange to say, on that very evening the father himself attended the meeting; and on the next evening he went again, in company with his wife. During the progress of the meeting he turned to his wife and said, "Mary, shall I go up and sign the pledge?" Concealing her emotions as best she could, lest the show of it might disgust and repel him, she replied, "Yes, Steve, Willie and I would be very glad if you would," and he did so.

      Some time after that, Willie asked his father and mother if they would accompany him to the Broadway Baptist church in the city to see him baptized. While witnessing the baptism of his son, Mr. Holcombe made up his mind that he would quit gambling, and as he went out of the church, he said to his wife, "I will never play another card."

      Some friend of his who overhead the remark said to him, "Steve, you had better study about that." He answered, "No, I have made up my mind. I wish you would tell the boys for me that they may count me out. They may stop my interest in the banks. I am done."

      His wife, who was hanging on his arm, could no longer now conceal her emotions, nor did she try. She laughed and cried for joy. God was saying to her, "Mary, thy toils and tears, thy sufferings and patience have come up for a memorial before me, and I will send a man who will tell thee what thou oughtest to do, and speak to thee words whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved."

      Mr. Holcombe was as good as his word. He did give up gambling from that time. But he had had so little experience in business that he was at a great loss what to do. Finally, however, he decided to go into the produce and commission business as he had had some experience in that line years before in Nashville, and as that required no great outlay of money for a beginning. All the money he had was tied up in the houses which he had bought in Portland, the western suburb of Louisville. He was living in one of these himself, but he now determined to rent it out and to remove to the city that he might be nearer his business.

      One day in October, 1877, a stranger entered his place of business, on Main street, and, calling for Mr. Holcombe, said: "I see you have a house for rent in Portland."

      "Yes," said he, "I have."

      "Well," said the stranger, "I like your house; but as my income is not large, I should be glad to get it at as low a rent as you can allow."

      Mr. Holcombe replied: "I am rather pressed for money now myself, but maybe we can make a trade. What is your business?"

      "I am a Methodist minister, and am just sent to the church in Portland, and you know it can not pay very much of a salary."

      "That settles it then, sir," said Mr. Holcombe, with that abruptness and positiveness which are so characteristic of him, "I am a notorious gambler, and, of course, you would not want to live in a house of mine."

      He expected that would be the end of the matter, and he looked to see the minister shrink from him and leave at once his presence and his house. On the contrary, the minister, though knowing nothing of Mr. Holcombe's recent reformation, yet seeing his sensitiveness, admiring his candor and hoping to be able to do him some good, laid his hand kindly on his shoulder and said:

      "Oh no, my brother; I do not object to living in your house; and who knows but that this interview will result in good to us both, in more ways than one?"

      Mr. Holcombe's impression was that ministers of the Gospel were, in their own estimation, and in fact, too good for gamblers to touch the hem of their garments, and that ministers had, for this reason, as little use and as great contempt for gamblers as the average gambler has, on the very same account, for ministers. But he found, to his amazement, that he was mistaken, and when the minister invited him to come to his church he said, not to the minister, yet he said:

      "Yes, I will go, I never had a good man to call me 'brother' before. And he knows what I am, for I told him. I am so tired; I am so spent. Maybe he can tell me what to do and how to go. If Sunday ever comes, I will go to that man's church."

      And when Sunday came the minister and the gambler faced each other again. With a great sense of his responsibility and insufficiency the preacher declared the message of his Lord, not as he wished, but as he could. To the usual invitation to join the church nobody responded. After the benediction, however, Mr. Holcombe walked down the aisle to the pulpit and said to the minister: "How does a man join the church?" He had not attended church for twenty-three years, and had been engaged in such a life that he had forgotten what little he knew. The minister informed him.

      "Then," said he, "may I join your church?"

      "You are welcome, and more than welcome," replied the minister, and the people wondered.

      "From the day I joined his church," says Mr. Holcombe, "that minister seemed to understand me better than I understood myself. He seemed to know and did tell me my own secrets. He led me into an understanding of myself and my situation. I saw now what had been the cause of my restlessness, my wanderings, my weariness and my woe. I saw what it was I needed, and I prayed as earnestly as I knew how from that time. I attended all the services – preaching, Sunday-school, prayer-meeting, class-meeting in any and all kinds of weather, walking frequently all the way from Second street to Portland, a distance of three miles, because I was making too little to allow me to ride on the street-cars. But with all this, I felt something was yet wanting. I began to see that I could not make any advance in goodness and happiness so long as I was burdened with the unforgiven guilt of forty years of sin and crime. It grew worse and heavier until I felt I must have relief, if relief could be had. One day I went in the back office of my business house, after the others had all gone home, and shut myself up and determined to stay there and pray until I should find relief. The room was dark, and I had prayed, I know not how long, when such a great sense of relief and gladness and joy came to me that it seemed to me as if a light had flooded the room, and the only words I could utter or think of were these three: 'Jesus of Nazareth.' It seemed to me they were the sweetest words I had ever heard. Never, till then, did the feeling of blood-guiltiness leave me. It was only the blood of Christ that could wash from my conscience the blood of my fellowman."

      As in his case, so always, in proportion as a man is in earnest about forsaking sin, will he desire the assurance of the forgiveness of past sins, and vice versa. But Mr. Holcombe did not find this an end of difficulty and trial and conflict – far from it. Indeed, it was the preparation for conflict, and the entrance upon it. Hitherto, in his old life, he had made no resistance to his evil nature, and there was no conflict with the world, the flesh and the devil. But such a nature as his was not to be conquered and subjected to entire and easy control in a day. His passions would revive, his old habits would re-assert themselves, poverty pinched him, people misunderstood him, failure after failure in business discouraged him. Hence, he needed constant and careful guidance and an unfailing sympathy. And he thus refers to the help he received from his pastor in those trying days:

      "Seeing the great necessity of giving me much attention and making me feel at home in his presence and in the presence of his wife, he spent much time in my company, and with loving patience bore with my ignorance, dullness and slowness. In this way I became so much attached to him that I had no need or desire for my old associations. He led me along till I was entirely weaned from all desire for my old sinful life and habits. I think he gave me this close attention for about two years, when he felt that it was best for me to lean more upon God and less upon him."

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