Читать книгу Steve P. Holcombe, the Converted Gambler: His Life and Work - Alexander Gross - Страница 6

The initiation of Mr. Holcombe into the game of faro was an epoch in his life. He was so fascinated with it, and saw so much money in it, that he now finally and deliberately gave up all attempts at any other business or occupation, and, removing again to Louisville, in partnership with a gambling friend he "opened up a game" or established a house of his own for playing faro in that city. He sent for his family thinking he was settled for life. Alas! how little he knew of that heart of his that knew so little of God. He found out later what St. Augustine has so beautifully said for all humanity: "Thou hast made us for Thyself and our hearts find no repose till they repose in Thee." It was not long before he had lost all his money and was "dead broke" again. It was about this time and during this residence at Louisville, that, uncontrolled by the grace and power of God, and untouched by the love that can forgive as it hopes to be forgiven, he committed the greatest crime of his life.

A young man was visiting and courting a half-sister of his at Shippingsport, and, under promise of marriage, had deceived her. When Mr. Holcombe found it out, he felt enraged, and thought it his duty to compel him to marry her. But knowing himself so well, and being afraid to trust himself to speak to the young man about it, he asked his two older half-brothers to see him and get the affair settled. They refused to do so. Mr. Holcombe then got a pistol and looked the man up with the deliberate intention of having the affair settled according to his notion of what was right, or killing him. He met him at Shippingsport, near the bank of the canal, and told him who he was – for they scarcely knew each other. Then he reminded him of what had occurred, and said that the only thing to be done was to marry the girl. This the man declined to do, saying: "We are as good as married now." He had scarcely uttered the words when Mr. Holcombe drew his derringer and shot him. When he fell, Mr. Holcombe put his hand under the poor man's neck, raised him up and held him until a doctor could be called. He was touched with a great feeling of pity for his victim, and would have done anything in his power for him. But all his pity and repentance could not bring back the dying man. He went into a neighboring house and washed the blood from his hands, but he could not wash the blood from his conscience. In after years the cry of another murderer, "Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O, God!" was to burst from his lips, and faith in the blood of a murdered Christ was to bring the answer of peace to his long troubled soul. But alas! alas! he was to add crime to crime and multiply guilt manifold before that time should come.

He was soon arrested and taken to jail, where, after some hours, he was informed that the man was dead. Some time afterward he was tried by a jury and acquitted, though the Commonwealth's Attorney, assisted by paid counsel, did all he could to procure his conviction. But no human sentence or approval of public opinion can quiet a guilty human conscience when awakened by the God whose sole prerogative of executing justice is guarded by His own solemn and awful words, "Vengeance is mine; I will repay," saith the Lord. When the conscience is pressed with a great sense of guilt, it seeks relief by the way of contrition and repentance, or it seeks relief by a deeper plunge into sin and guilt, as if the antidote to a poison were a larger dose of poison. There is no middle ground unless it be insanity. Nor did Mr. Holcombe find any middle ground, though he declares that he never allowed himself to think about the killing of Martin Mohler, and could not bear to hear his name. He had to keep very busy in a career of sin, however, to keep from thinking about it, and that is exactly the second alternative of the two described above.

"After this," says Mr. Holcombe, "I continued gambling, traveling around from place to place, and at last I settled down at Nashville and dealt faro there. I took my family with me to Nashville. I gambled there for awhile, and then came back to Louisville, where I opened a game for working men. But when I looked at their hard hands and thought of their suffering families, I could not bear to take their money. Then I turned my steps toward the South and landed in Augusta, Georgia. I went to Augusta in 1869 in connection with a man named Dennis McCarty. We opened there a big game of faro, where I did some of the biggest gambling I ever did in my life. On one occasion I played seven-up with a man and beat him out of five thousand dollars, which broke him up entirely."

Let us now take a peep into his home-life: Mrs. Holcombe says that in Augusta he was in the habit of staying out for several days and nights at a time, a thing which he had never done before. They lived in Augusta something over two years, and during all that time she had not one day of peace. He was more reckless than he had ever been before. She suffered most from his drunkenness and his ungovernable temper. Sometimes he would come into the house in a bad humor and proceed to vent his wrath on her and the furniture; for he was never harsh to his children, but on the contrary, excessively indulgent, especially to his sons. During his outbursts of anger, Mrs. Holcombe always sat perfectly still, not in fear, but in grief; for she knew as little of fear as he. Many a time he has come into the house in a bad humor and proceeded to upset the dining-table, emptying all the food onto the floor and breaking all the dishes. On one occasion he came home angry and found his wife sitting on a sofa in the parlor. He began to complain of her and to find fault with her, and as her silence seemed to provoke him, he began to curse her; and as she sat and wept in silence, he grew worse and worse, using the most dreadful oaths she ever heard. When he had fully vented his passion, he walked out and stood awhile at the front gate as if in a study. Then he walked back into the house where she sat, still weeping, and said, in a mild and gentle tone: "Well, Mary, I was pretty mad awhile ago, wasn't I?" Then he began to apologize and to tell her how sorry he was for having talked to her so harshly, and wound up by petting her. He was at times almost insanely jealous of his wife, and if he saw her even talking with a man, no matter whom, it put him in a rage which ended only when he had vented it in the most abusive language to her.

On another occasion, while they were living in Augusta, an incident occurred which illustrates at once her unexampled devotion and his unexampled depravity. On the night in question she had gone to bed, but not to sleep. About midnight he came staggering in and fell full length on the floor at the foot of the stairway. She tried to help him up, but he was so dead drunk she could not lift him. She left him lying at the foot of the stairway and went back to bed. But, though she was very tired, she could not endure the thought of lying in a comfortable bed while her husband was on the floor. She got up, therefore, and went down stairs again and sat on the floor beside him in her night-dress till morning. Then she left him and went up stairs to dress, that she might be prepared for the duties of the day. When, some time afterward, she came back to where he was lying, he abused and cursed her for leaving him alone, and, before his tirade was ended he was sorry, and tried to smooth it over by saying: "I did not think you would leave me."

Mrs. Holcombe says concerning her life at this period: "I usually walked the floor, after the children were in bed, till past midnight waiting for him to come home. One night in particular, between eleven and twelve o'clock, I heard a shot fired and I heard a man cry out not far from the house. I thought it was Mr. Holcombe, and my agony was almost more than I could bear while waiting for day to come, for I was sure somebody had shot him. But between three and four o'clock In the morning he came in, and his coming brought me great relief." "Then another time," she goes on to say, "I was sitting by the window when an express wagon drove up with a coffin in it. The driver said to me, 'Does this coffin belong here?' I understood him to say, 'Does Mr. Holcombe live here?' I thought it was Mr. Holcombe and that he had been killed and sent home to me in his coffin. The driver repeated his question twice, but I was so paralyzed I could not answer him a word."

From Augusta Mr. Holcombe removed with his family to Atlanta, where he made a good deal of money. Mrs. Holcombe says concerning their stay in Atlanta, "My life at Atlanta was no better than it had been at Augusta. Much of my time was spent in walking the floor and grieving. Often in my loneliness and sorrow my lips would cry out, 'How can I endure this life any longer?' I had not then become a Christian and did not know what I do now about taking troubles and burdens to God. And yet I believe that it was God who comforted my heart more than once when my sorrow was more than I could bear. I cried to Him without knowing Him. All these years I tried to raise my children right, and I taught them to respect their father. I hid his sins from them when I could, and when I could not, I always excused him to them the best I could." But Mr. Holcombe instead of aiding his wife's efforts to bring up their children in the right path, often perversely put obstacles in her way and increased her difficulties, though he did try to conceal his drinking from them, and would never allow his boys to have or handle cards. So in many things he was a combination of contradictions. He could not endure, however, for his wife to punish the children, and especially the boys. On one occasion he came home and the younger son was still crying from the punishment inflicted by his mother for wading in a pond of water with his shoes on. Mr. Holcombe asked him what was the matter, and when he found out, he was so angry he made the boy go and wade in the pond again with his shoes on. And yet Mrs. Holcombe's love for her husband "never wavered," and she loved him "when he was at his worst."

While Mr. Holcombe was living in Atlanta he attended the races in Nashville, and while there, two men came along that had a new thing on cards, and they beat him out of five or six thousand dollars – broke him, in fact. After he was broke, he went to one of the men by the name of Buchanan and said, "I see that you have got a new trick on cards, and as I am well acquainted through the South, if you will give it away to me, we can go together and make money." The man, after some hesitation, agreed to do so. They went in partnership and traveled through the South as far as Key West, Florida, stopping at the principal cities and making money everywhere. At Key West he and his partner had a split and separated. From Key West Mr. Holcombe crossed over to Cuba, and spent some time in Havana. In seeking adventures in that strange city he made some very narrow escapes, and was glad to get away. On landing at New Orleans, though he had a good deal of money, the accumulations of his winnings on his late tour through the South, he got to playing against faro bank and lost all he had. But he fell in with a young man about twenty years of age, from Georgia, on his way to Texas, and became very intimate with him. Finding that this young man had a draft for $1,050, by the most adroit piece of maneuvering he got another man, a third party, to win it from him for himself, and gave this third party $50 for doing it. Then he took charge of the young man in his destitution and distress, paid his bill for a day or two at a hotel in New Orleans, and gave him enough to pay his way on to Texas. The young man departed thinking Mr. Holcombe was one of the kindest men he had ever met. The gentle reader, if he be a young man who thinks himself wise enough to be intimate with strangers, might learn a useful little lesson from this young Georgian's experience as herein detailed.

From New Orleans, Mr. Holcombe went by river to Shreveport, Louisiana, where he met again with his former partner, Buchanan. They made up their differences and went into partnership again, and were successful in winning a good deal of money together. But afterward their fortunes changed and they both lost all they had. This soured Buchanan, who had never cordially liked Holcombe since their quarrel and separation at Key West. Mr. Holcombe himself shall narrate what took place afterward: "During this time we had been sleeping in a room together. Buchanan knew that I had two derringer pistols. He got Phil Spangler to borrow one, and I feel satisfied he had snaked the other. A friend of mine, John Norton, asked me to deal faro bank, and I got broke, and the night that I did, I put the box in the drawer pretty roughly, and made some pretty rough remarks. Buchanan was present, but took no exception to what I said that night. The next morning, however, in the bar-room he began to abuse me, and we abused each other backward and forward until I had backed clear across the street. During this time I had my derringer pistol out in my hand. He had a big stick in his hand and a knife in his bosom. When we got across the street I made this remark, 'Mr. Buchanan, I do not want to kill you,' He was then about ten feet from me, and made a step toward me. I took deliberate aim at his heart and pulled the trigger, but the pistol snapped. He walked away from me then. I ran up to the hotel where Aleck Doran was, knowing that his six-shooter was always in good condition. I borrowed it and started to hunt Buchanan up, and when I found him, he came up to me with his hand out. We made up and have been good friends ever since. After we left there, these parties with whom we had been playing, got to quarreling among themselves about the different games, and the result was that John Norton killed Phil Spangler and another one of the men. And such is the life of the gambler." And such is too often, alas! the death of the gambler.

From Shreveport he went back to Atlanta where his family, consisting now of his wife, two sons and two daughters, had remained. But he could not be contented at any one place. It seemed impossible for him to be quiet, no matter how much money he was making. Indeed, the more he got the more disquieted he seemed, and yet it was his passion to win money. Sometimes he would go to his home with his pockets full of it and would pour it out on the floor and tell the children to take what they wanted. He was so restless when he had won largely that he could not sleep; and his wife says she has known him to get up after having retired late and walk back to the city to his gambling house to find somebody to play with. He seemed to want to lose his money again. In fact, he seemed happier when he was entirely without money than when he had a great deal.

Not contented, then, at Atlanta, he went from there to Beaufort, South Carolina, to gamble with the officers of the navy. He got into a game of poker with some of them and won all the money. Then he was ready to quit and leave the place, but he got into a difficulty with a man there whose diamond pin he had in pawn for money lent him, and though it be at the risk of taxing the reader's patience with these details, yet, in order to show vividly what a gambler's life is, we shall let Mr. Holcombe give his own account of the affair:

"This man was the bully of the place. I had his diamond pin in pawn for seventy-five dollars, and another little fellow owed me eighteen dollars, or something like that, and I wanted him to pay me. Instead of paying me, however, he began to curse and abuse me; and I hit him on the nose, knocked him over and bloodied it, and he was bleeding like everything. He got over into the crowd; and under the excitement of the moment, I drew my pistol and started toward him. This big bully caught me gently by the vest, and asked me quietly to put up my pistol. I did so. Then he said, 'You can't shoot anybody here,' I said 'I do not want to shoot anybody.' I then asked him to turn me loose. He again said 'You can't shoot anybody here.' I then said, 'What is the matter with you? Are we not friends?' And he said 'No,' and made the remark, 'I will take your pistol away from you and beat your brains out.' I struck him and knocked him over on a lounge, but he rose up and came at me, and we had quite a tussle around the room. The others all ran and left the house, and the barkeeper hid.

"When we separated, the big fellow had quite a head on him; was all beaten up. He then went into the other room and sat down, and the barkeeper came in where I was. I was willing to do or say anything to reconcile this man, and I said to the barkeeper that I was sorry of the difficulty, as I liked the man, which was a lie, and a square one, for I hated him from the moment I saw him. When he heard what I said, he came sauntering into the room, and I said to him, 'I am sorry this occurred, but you called me such a name that I was compelled to do as I did. You know that you are a brave man; and if any man had called you such a name, you would have done just as I did.' He called me a liar, and at it we went again. We separated ourselves every time. I got the best of the round. After that he stepped up to the sideboard and got a tumbler; but I looked him in the eye so closely that he could not throw it at me, and he put it down. After a little more conversation, he started to lift up a heavy spittoon of iron. I stepped back a foot or two, drew my pistol, and told him if he did not put that down, I would kill him. He put it down. I then told the barkeeper he must come in there and witness this thing, because I expected to have to kill him. After the barkeeper came in, the man went out, saying, 'You had a gun on me to-night, and I will have one on you to-morrow.' Feeling satisfied if I remained, one of us would have to be killed; and feeling that I did not want to kill him, neither did I want to get killed on a cold collar, I concluded to walk out of the place. I got the barkeeper to promise to ship my trunk to Atlanta, and walked through the swamps to a station fourteen miles away, arriving there some time next day." Other such experiences Mr. Holcombe had enough to fill a volume perhaps, but these are sufficient to give an impression of what a gambler's life is and to show what was the life of that same Steve Holcombe who now for eleven years has been a pattern of Christian usefulness and zeal.

After spending a short time at Atlanta, he went to Hot Springs, Arkansas, and then again to Louisville, where he opened a faro bank and once more settled down for life, as he thought. At any rate for the first time in his life he thought of saving a little money, and he did so, investing it in some houses in the West End. Poor man! he had wandered nearly enough. He had almost found that rest can not be found, at least in the way he was seeking it, and the time was approaching when he would be prepared to hear of another sort and source of rest. Until he should be prepared, it would be vain to send him the message. To give the truth to some people to-day would be to cast pearls before swine, to give it to them to-morrow may be re-clothing banished princes with due tokens of welcome and of royalty. To have told Steve Holcombe of Christ yet awhile would probably have excited his wonder and disgust; to tell him a little later will be to welcome a long-lost, long-enslaved and perishing child to his Father's house and to all the liberty of the sons of God.

So he thought of saving a little money and of investing in some cottages in the west end of Louisville. And God was thinking, too, and He was thinking thoughts of kindness and of love for the poor wicked outcast. He was more than thinking, He was getting things ready. But the time was not yet. A few more wanderings and the sinning one, foot-sore, heart-sore and weary will be willing to come to the Father's house and rest. Truth and God are always ready, but man is not always ready. "I have many things to say to you, but you can not bear them now."

His income at Louisville at this time was between five and seven thousand dollars a year. He had a large interest in the bank and some nights he would take in hundreds of dollars. But he could not be contented. The roving passion seized him again, and in company with a young man of fine family in Louisville, who had just inherited five thousand dollars, he set out on a circuit of the races. But in Lexington, the very first place they visited, they lost all they had, including the young man's jewelry, watch and diamond pin. They got more money and other partners and started again on the circuit and they made money. At Kalamazoo, Michigan, Mr. Holcombe withdrew from the party, just for the sake of change, just because he was tired of them; and in playing against the faro banks at Kalamazoo he lost all he had again. Then he traveled around to different places playing against faro banks and "catching on" when he could. He visited Fort Wayne, Cleveland, Utica, Saratoga and New York. At New York he was broke and he had become so disgusted with traveling around and so weary of the world that he determined he would go back to Louisville and settle down for life. He did return to Louisville and got an interest in two gambling houses, making for him an income again of five thousand dollars a year.

During all these years his faithful wife, though not professing to be a Christian herself, endeavored in all possible ways to lead her children to become Christians. She taught them to pray the best she could, and sent them to Sunday-school. After her first child was born she gave up those worldly amusements which before she had, to please her husband, participated in with him – a good example for Christian mothers. She was in continual dread lest the children should grow up to follow the father's example. She always tried to conceal from them the fact of his being a gambler. The two daughters, Mamie and Irene, did not, when good-sized girls and going to school, know their father's business. They were asked at school what his occupation was, and could not tell. More than once they asked their mother, but she evaded the question by saying, "He isn't engaged in any work just now," or in some such way. Mrs. Holcombe begged her husband again and again not to continue gambling. She says, "I told him I was willing to live on bread and water, if he would quit it." And she would not lay up any of the money he would give her, nor use any more of it than was necessary for herself and the children, for she felt that it was not rightly gotten. And because she would neither lay it up nor use it lavishly, she had nothing to do but let the children take it to play with and to give away. Under the training of such a mother with such patience, love and faith, it is no great marvel, and yet perhaps it is a great marvel, that Willie, the eldest child, notwithstanding the father's example, grew up to discern good, to desire good and to be good. While he was still a child, when his father came home drunk, the wounded and wondering child would beg him not to drink any more. Mrs. Holcombe says of him 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."

Mr. Holcombe received continual kindness and encouragement from the minister's wife also, who not only had for him always a cordial greeting and a kindly word of cheer, but who took great pleasure in entertaining him frequently in their home. It was a perpetual benediction to him to know her, to see the daily beauty of her faithful life, to feel the influence of her heavenly spirit. With quick intuition she recognized the sincerity and intensity of Mr. Holcombe's desires and efforts to be a Christian man; with ready insight she comprehended the situation and saw his difficulties and needs, and with a very Christlike self-forgetfulness and joy she ministered to this struggling soul. Not only Mr. Holcombe, but all who ever knew her, whether in adversity or prosperity, whether in sickness or in health, admired the beauty and felt the quiet unconscious power of her character. As for Mr. Holcombe himself, his mingled feeling of reverence for her saintliness and of gratitude for her sisterliness led him always to speak of her in terms that he did not apply to any other person whom he knew. He could never cease to marvel that one of her education, position and tender womanliness should take such pains and have such pleasure in helping, entertaining and serving such as he. A few years only was he blessed with the helpfulness of her friendship. In 1885, when she was just past the age of thirty-one, her tender feet grew so tired that she could go no further in this rough world, and Christ took her away. Few were more deeply bereaved than the poor converted gambler, and when he was asked if he would serve as one of the pallbearers on the occasion of her funeral, he burst into tears and replied, "I am not worthy, I am not worthy." If those who knew her – little children of tender years, young men and women, perplexed on life's threshold and desiring to enter in at the strait gate, people of rank and wealth, people in poverty and ignorance, worldly-minded people whom she had unconsciously attracted, experienced Christians whom she unconsciously helped, and, most of all, her husband and children who knew her best – if all these should be asked, all these would agree that St. Paul has written her fitting epitaph:

It was not long after Mr. Holcombe's conversion before his entire family became members of the church. Though this was to him cause of unspeakable joy and gratitude, it did not mark the limit of his love and zeal. From the time of his conversion he had a deep and brotherly sympathy for all who were without the knowledge and joy he had come into the possession of, but he felt a special interest in the salvation of the wretched and the outcast, and of the men of his own class and former occupation who were as ignorant as he was of these higher things and as shut out from opportunities of knowing them. So that from the very beginning of his Christian life he undertook to help others, and when they were in need, not stopping to think of any other way, he took them to his own house. This, with the support of his own family, increased the cost of his living to such an extent that he was soon surprised and pained to find that he could not carry on his business. He had taken to his home, also, the father of his wife, whom he cared for till his death. And in a short time he was so pressed for means that he had to mortgage his property for money to go into another kind of business.

When it was first reported that Steve Holcombe, one of the most successful, daring and famous gamblers in the South, had been converted and had joined the church, the usual predictions were made that in less than three months, etc., he would see his mistake or yield to discouragements and return to his old life of self-indulgence and ease. But when men passed and repassed the corner where this man had a little fruit store and was trying to make an honest living for his family, their thoughts became more serious and their questions deepen Steve had got something or something had got him. He was not the man of former times. And most of his friends, the gamblers included, when they saw this, were glad, and while they wondered wished him well. But there was one man engaged in business just across the street from the little fruit store, who with a patronizing air bought little fruits from Mr. Holcombe, and then spent his leisure in discussions and arguments to prove not only that he had made a big blunder in becoming a Christian, but that religion was all a sham, the Bible a not very cunningly devised fable and that Mr. Ingersoll was the greatest man of the day, because he had shattered these delusions. Mr. Holcombe patiently heard it all, and perhaps did not frame as cogent or logical an answer to this man's sophistries as he could do now, but he felt in his own heart and he saw in his own life that he was a new man. He felt a profound pity for his friend who knew not nor cared for any of these things, and he lived on his humble, patient, uncomplaining Christian life. It may not be out of place to add as the sequel of this little episode that the testimony of this man across the way, who was such an unbeliever and scoffer, is given elsewhere in this volume, and doubtless will be recognized by the reader. Mr. Holcombe's life was too much for his logic.

When Mr. Holcombe had failed in every kind of business that he undertook, his property was forced on the market and nothing was left him from the sale of it. Christian men of means might have helped him and ought to have helped him, but for reasons known to themselves they did not. Perhaps they were afraid to take hold of so tough a case as Steve Holcombe was known to have been, perhaps they saw he was not an experienced business man, perhaps they felt indisposed to help a man who was so incapable of economy and so generous in entertaining his friends and helping the needy. Greatly pressed, he went at last to his half-brother with whom in former years he had been associated as partner in business, and putting his case and condition before him asked for employment. But his half-brother declined on the spot, giving as his short and sole reason that he believed Mr. Holcombe was a hypocrite and was making believe that he was a Christian for some sinister purpose.

This was "the most unkindest cut" of all and for days the poor wounded man felt the iron in his soul. During his former life he would have cared nothing for such treatment. A ruined character is benumbed like a paralyzed limb, but a revived and repentant soul is full of sensitive nerves and feels the slightest slight or the smallest wound. He found out months afterward, however, that his half-brother was already losing his mind and was not responsible for this extraordinary behavior. He tried and his friends tried everywhere and every way to find employment for him, but he could get nothing to do. His money was all gone, his property was all gone, he sold his piano, he sold his Brussels carpets, he removed from place to place, following cheaper rent till at last he took his family to a garret. It was now two years since his conversion. During these two years he had done nothing to bring reproach on his profession or to give ground for a doubt of his sincerity. He had not only lived a consistent life himself, he had striven earnestly to help others to do so. He assisted in holding meetings in Shippingsport, and the people marveled and magnified the grace of God in him. But he was with his family on the point of starvation. When at last everything had been tried and no relief was found, in his desperation he thought of the improbable possibility of finding something, at least something to do, in the West, and he decided to go to Colorado.

In Louisville, where he was suffering and where his family was suffering, he could have returned to gambling and have been independent in a month. He could have been living in a comfortable house; he could have had, as he was wont, the best the market afforded for his table, he could have decked himself with jewelry and diamonds, he could soon have been once more in position to spend, as he had regularly done, from two to ten dollars a day for the mere luxuries of life. He could have done all this and he could do all this even yet; for even yet he is in the prime of life and power. But he did not, and he does not. He did not turn Christian because he had played out as a gambler. He did not turn to Christianity because fortune had turned away from him. But he turned away himself from fortune when he was fortune's pet, in order to turn to a better and worthier life.

When he had decided to go to Colorado, he went to his pastor and told him. The pastor was astonished, alarmed. After two years and more of faithful and self-denying service was his friend and brother about to give away? Was this a plan to get away into a "far country" where he might turn again to sin? He reasoned with him, he appealed to him, he besought him. He tried to picture the perils of the journey and the perils of the place. He reminded Mr. Holcombe of the condition, as far as he knew it, of his family. But all to no purpose. He committed his friend trustfully to God and gave it up.

"But," said the pastor, "how are you going to get there?"

"I am going to walk from place to place and work my way out. I can not stay here, I can get nothing to do and I must try elsewhere. I am desperate."

"Then," said the pastor, "if your mind is made up and you are going, I can let you have some money. I have about sixty-one dollars in bank which I laid aside when a single man, to use for Christ, and if that will pay your way out, you can have it. Christ has called for his own."

He accepted it with tears, left a few dollars of it with his wife and, with the rest, started for Leadville.

When he first landed at Denver, he met an old friend, John Chisholm, with whom he had gambled in Atlanta. This man had left Atlanta on account of having killed somebody there, and had made a considerable amount of money in California. He had now come to Denver and opened a game of faro. When he saw Mr. Holcombe on the street, he said: "You are just the man I want. I have opened a game of faro here, and I am afraid I can not protect myself. I will give you a good interest if you will go in with me."

Mr. Holcombe replied: "Yes, John; but I am a Christian now, and can not deal faro."

"I know," said the man, "you were a Christian in Louisville, but you are a long ways from there."

"Yes," Mr. Holcombe said, "but a true Christian is a Christian everywhere."

Notwithstanding, he insisted on Mr. Holcombe's going to his room to see another old Atlanta friend. He did so, but felt so much out of place there that he did not remain ten minutes.

From Denver he concluded to go to Silver Cliff instead of Leadville. When he arrived in that strange village, his money was all gone and he lacked fifteen cents of having enough to pay the stage-driver. "It was about sundown," says he, "when I got there. I did not know a living soul. I had not a cent of money. My courage failed me. I broke down and wept like a child."

Having a good trunk he knew he would not be asked to pay in advance, and he went to a hotel and spent the night. In the morning he walked out after breakfast to see what sort of a place he had gotten into. As he stood at the post-office, he saw across the street what he recognized as a gambling-house, "everything wide open," no attempt at concealment or privacy. He asked some one out of curiosity who was the proprietor, and found that two of his old acquaintances were running the house. He could easily, and at once, have gotten a situation with them, and could soon have had money to relieve his own wants and the wants of his family. But he had already stood severe tests, and had now arrived at a point where he had no inclination whatever to gamble and felt no temptation to procure money in that way or from that source. He did not even look for the proprietors of the establishment or let them know he was in the village. But while he was standing there, thinking of his condition and wondering what he should do, he overheard a man say that a dining-room waiter was wanted at the Carbonate hotel, the one at which he had spent the night. He went at once to the hotel, made application for the place, and was accepted at a salary of twenty-five dollars a month and board.

He was filled with thankfulness and joy, and he has declared since, that though, on one night during his gambling life, he had won three thousand dollars in money, the satisfaction which he felt then could not be compared with that which he felt now when the hotel-proprietor gave him this position of dining-room waiter at a salary of twenty-five dollars a month. He entered at once upon his duties. To his great surprise he found several Louisville gentlemen stopping at the hotel, some of whom had known him in other days and circumstances, and whom he had boarded with at hotels where he paid five dollars a day, with two to four dollars a day, extra, for wine and cigars. But, notwithstanding that, he was not ashamed of his present position. On the contrary, he was very thankful for it and happy in it. He did such faithful service there that the proprietor became interested in him and showed him much kindness.

During his stay at Silver Cliff he did not neglect any opportunity of doing good to others.

One day, when he was standing in the door of the post-office, a man, whose name he afterward found to be James Lewis, came in, got a letter and sat down on the step right under Mr. Holcombe to read it. As he read it, he was much affected and tears were running down his hardened face. Mr. Holcombe became so interested that he read the man's letter over his shoulder. It was from his wife, who, with her three children, had left her husband on account of his drunkenness. Mr. Holcombe made up his mind he would see if he could do something for the poor man to better his condition, and, if possible, bring about the reunion of the family. He did not like to approach him then and there. He watched him till he got up and moved away and started down through an alley. As he emerged from the alley, at the farther end, Mr. Holcombe, who had gone around another way, met him. Little did the man suspect that the stranger who accosted him knew his trouble and his family secrets. Mr. Holcombe, with that tact which his knowledge of men had given him, spoke to him kindly, but in a way that would not arouse his suspicions. He told him, after a little while, his own condition in that far-off land away from his family and friends. He found out from the man where he stayed. He went to see him, found that he slept in a stable, provided him with some things he needed, and then got down on his knees there in the stable and prayed for him.

Finally, when the proper time had come, Mr. Holcombe showed him a Murphy pledge and asked him if he would not sign it. He told him what he himself had been before, and what he had become, since signing that pledge. The man gave Mr. Holcombe his confidence, unbosomed himself to him and eagerly sought counsel. He signed the pledge also and said he would, by God's help, give up his sins that had separated him from a loving wife, and would try to live a better life. Mr. Holcombe wrote to the man's wife informing her of the change in her husband and the effort he was making to do right. She came at once to Silver Cliff and Mr. Holcombe had the pleasure of seeing them reunited and ate with them in their humble cabin.

When he had been some time at the Carbonate hotel, he found a position where he could make more money and worked there till he had saved enough to buy an outfit for "prospecting" in the mountains. This outfit consisted of a little donkey, several "agricultural implements for subverting terra firma" such as spade, pick, etc., and provisions for two or three weeks. Having procured these and packed his burro, as the donkey is called out West, he and his partner started for the mountains. Mr. Holcombe kept a sort of diary of this part of his Western trip, and we give it here, including the time from his leaving Silver Cliff to his return to Denver.

DIARY

Tuesday, May 27, 1879. – I entered into partnership with a man by the name of J. E. White from Wisconsin for prospecting in the mountains. He had some blankets at Oak Creek, a distance of thirty miles from Silver Cliff. We walked out there one day and returned the next. The road was very full of dust and gravel. My shoes would get full of it. Every little mountain stream we came to I would stop and wash my feet, which was very refreshing. This made me think of the blessed Son of God and why, when he was a guest at different places, they brought him water for his feet,

Wednesday, May 28. – After having bought a burro and a two weeks' grub-stake, J. E. White and myself started for the Sangre de Christo mountain, a wild, high range of the Rockies. We paid for our burro twenty-one dollars, and for our grub seven dollars. It consisted of flour, coffee, sugar, bacon, salt, pepper, potatoes and baking powder. We had a coffee-pot, frying-pan, tin cups. We used our pocket-knives instead of table-knives. We had a butcher-knife and some teaspoons. With these and some other things we packed our burro and started. It was a funny sight. It all looked like a house on top of the poor little animal which was not much larger than a good sized Newfoundland dog. But it was strong, faithful and sure-footed and could go anywhere in the mountains that a man could. We traveled this first day about ten miles and camped in a gulch at night. Had a hard storm. Our only shelter was a hut made of boughs of trees, Indian fashion.

Thursday, May 29. – We moved up the gulch as far as we could for the snow. Did some little prospecting of which neither of us knew very much, and, of course, we found nothing. Every once in awhile, White would pick up a rock, look at it wisely and say "This is good float. I think there is a paying lode up on this mountain somewhere." Up the mountain we go about 9,000 feet above the sea level. We turned over all the stones and dug up the earth every now and then and toward night we went to work to make our hut which we got about half finished. During the night snow fell about three inches. We were on the side of the mountain. Could hardly keep the fire from rolling down the side of the mountain. Could hardly keep our victuals from upsetting. This and the snow made me weaken considerably, and I did say in my heart I wished I was back home.

Friday, May 30. – We prospected the second ridge, south of Horn's Peak, going up about 300 feet above timber line, or about 12,000 feet above the sea-level. There were no indications of minerals. About five miles off we could see a beautiful lake. I was very anxious to go to it, but White objected. Said it would be dangerous, might be caught in a snow-storm. The sun was shining brightly. Weather was very pleasant. I could not conceive of a snow-storm on the 30th of May. So I persuaded him to go. After we had gone some distance, all of a sudden it began to blow up cold and in a little while to snow. We turned our faces toward camp. Just then we saw one of those beautiful Rocky mountain spotted grouse. We were so hungry for something fresh to eat, we took several shots at it with White's pistol. But the blinding snow made it impossible for us to hit it. We had no grouse for supper.

It grew cold very rapidly and in a very short time it seemed to me as cold as I ever felt it in my life. My moustache froze stiff. At last the storm got so heavy, and, the evening coming on, we could hardly see our way. The side of the mountain was full of dead timber, which was slick like glass and, as everything was covered with snow, we could not always see where to put our feet down, and to have slipped would have been almost certain death. Once White did slip and but for having the pick and sticking it in a soft place, he would have been killed. We got lost and wandered about over the mountain side till late in the evening when we providentially struck on our camp. We were hungry, tired and wet. Our bedding was covered with snow. Before going to bed I read the first chapter of Romans.

Saturday, May 31. – Cloudy morning. Four inches of snow. No wind. Felt very well. We moved our camp. Stopped at a deserted cabin. Found a grindstone and ground our hatchet. We pitched camp about three miles South-east. Built a hut of boughs. We got wet. I had but one pair of pants and one pair of socks. My feet were soaking wet. At bedtime I read Romans, second chapter.

Sunday, June 1, 1879. – Snowed Saturday night. When I awoke our blankets were wet. I had symptoms of rheumatism in knees and wrists. I read Romans, third chapter, and we had prayer together. White sang "Tell Me the Old, Old Story" and "Safe in the Arms of Jesus." It made me think of my family so far away, of my dear pastor, Brother – , and the dear old Portland church, and the tears streamed down my face. Spent the day in camp.

Monday, June 2. – Woke up very cold. Our hut of pine boughs was not sufficient to keep us warm. So much snow on the mountains that we prospected the foot-hills and found what we thought were indications of mineral. At night read Romans, fourth chapter. Much encouraged by Abraham's faith. So cold I had to get my hat in the night and put it on my head to keep warm. Dreamed that I was at home with my precious wife. Tried to wake her up, but she was dead. What awful feelings!

Tuesday, June 3. – A beautiful bright morning. Read Romans v. Partner wanted to go deer hunting with a pistol. Seemed to me so foolish I would not go. I stayed at camp and was very lonesome.

Wednesday, June 4. – Bright, clear morning. Read Romans vi. Had our breakfast, bread, bacon, coffee and potatoes, early, so as to prospect on third mountain south of Horn's Peak. Started for the mountains. Went up above timber line. Ate lunch up there. Too much snow to go any higher. Found what we thought were indications of mineral. Saw a gray eagle sailing around. It looked very grand away up above that lonely mountain. Suppose its nest was near. In evening returned to camp very tired. Read Romans vii., and it did me a great deal of good.

Thursday, June 5. – Clear morning. Prospected some around the foot-hills. Found nothing. Began to get disgusted with prospecting. Struck camp about ten or eleven o'clock a. m. Packed our burro and crossed valley about fifteen miles. Very hot crossing. Pack slipped out of place several times. Very troublesome. White got out of humor. Was inclined to quarrel, but I would not quarrel with him. After getting across the valley we had trouble finding a place to camp convenient to water, but found it at last. While we were unpacking a big rabbit jumped up. White fired three or four shots at him with his revolver. Followed him up the side of the mountain. At last he killed him. He came down the mountain swinging old Brer Rabbit, and I think he was as happy looking a man as I ever saw. No doubt a smile of satisfaction might have been seen on your Uncle Remus' face, too, when I saw that rabbit. That was the first thing in shape of fresh meat we had had for about ten days.

SUPPER – BILL OF FARE

Fried Rabbit, Fried Bread, Potatoes, Coffee

After supper we raised a few poles and threw our blankets over them for shelter. Read Romans viii., and went to sleep, feeling satisfied that if I died before morning, I would wake up in heaven.

Friday, June 6. – Bright morning. Fine appetite. Good breakfast. Read Romans ix. We moved from the foot-hills and went up into the mountain. White went prospecting while I built us a hut for the night. When he came back he said he had found some very good float. Very cold night. Our burro got loose in the night and made considerable noise moving around. We were sure it was a mountain lion, but, of course, we were not afraid. I had my hatchet under my head and he had his pistols. Of course, we were not afraid.

Saturday, June 7. – Very cold morning. Prospected. Found a lode of black rock. Felt sure we had struck it rich. Dug a whole in the ground and staked a claim. Read Romans x, at night. Slept cold. Got to thinking. Thought it was easier to find a needle in a haystack than a paying mine in the Rocky mountains.

Sunday, June 8. – Morning clear and bright. Owing to the disagreeable place in which we were camped, we thought our health justified us in moving even on the Lord's day. Found an old cabin. It was worse than any horse stable, but we cleaned it out. Made a bed of poles, which we cut and carried some distance. This was on the Pueblo and Rosita road.

Monday, June 9. – Bright, cold morning. Ice on the spring branch. After breakfast we started prospecting. Found nothing, except another old deserted cabin of the Arkansaw Traveler's style. Returned to camp in the evening. Read Romans xii. and xiii. and slept like a prince.

Tuesday, June 10 – Another bright, clear, cold morning. We prospected some. Staked off a claim, more in fun than anything else, for we knew it was worth nothing. The locality is called Hardscrabble. And it was the right name. Our provisions had about given out, and it was a hard scrabble for us to get along. Concluded to return to Silver Cliff, go to work, get another grub stake, and take another fresh start. In the afternoon we rested. Read Romans xiv., xv. and xvi.

Wednesday, June 11. – Another beautiful Colorado morning. Read 1 Cor., i. Started for Silver Cliff about 7:00 a. m. I carried White's pistol. On the way I killed two doves. Had them for dinner about 3:00 p. m. How sweet they did taste! Arrived at Silver Cliff about dark.

Thursday, June 12. – Concluded the best thing I could do was to get home as soon as possible. We sold our burro for $15.00, and with my part ($7.50) I started with a friend by the name of Hall for home. We got a cheap ride in a freight wagon from Silver Cliff to Pueblo. The country through which we passed is the wildest and grandest I ever saw anywhere in my life. Hardscrabble canon is one of the most picturesque in the world, and then the beautiful mountain stream all the way, winding like a serpent down the valley. We crossed and re-crossed it several times. That night we slept in the wagon. I never neglected praying any day while I was on the prospecting tour.

Friday, June 13. – Arrived at Pueblo about 2:00 p. m. Had a little money. Got a bite to eat. At that time there was a railroad war. Men were killing each other for three dollars a day for corporations. The excitement about this, and the moving bodies of men all anxious for news, kept me from thinking of my condition till night. At night I went out to the commons, on the edge of the city, and, with other tramps, went to sleep on the cold ground.

Saturday, June 14. – Had a little money. Some others of the tramps had a little. We pooled it, bought a little grub, and at 12:00 o'clock started on a tramp to Denver, a distance of about one hundred and twenty-five miles. I felt fresh and strong. We walked about six miles and slept on the ground at night.

Sunday, June 15. – Got up early. Had a little breakfast. Started about 6:00 a. m. Walked about three miles when, two of our party having such sore feet, we stopped. I had a voracious appetite. Went to cooking. We had some canned tomatoes and canned syrup. I cooked some tomatoes and ate them. Then I went to a ranch, bought a nickel's worth of milk, fried some cakes, ate them with the syrup, drank the milk and was – sick. Did not feel strong again all the time. I had had no experience in tramping and tried to carry too much luggage. My feet got sore. Every day's tramp after that was a drag. One of the party left us and went on ahead by himself. We never saw him again. Another was so broken down we had to leave him. Hall and I went on sick and tired. About dark we went up to the house of a ranchman, and I told him my story. He took us in. I found out he was a professing Christian. I read Romans vii., and prayed with the family. His name is John Irvine, El Paso, Colorado.

Monday, June 16. – Left John Irvine's soon after breakfast. Walked five miles to a water-tank where the train had to stop for water. We waited till the train came along, and boarded her. The conductor did not see us till we had passed Colorado Springs some distance. When he did see us, I made the appeal of my life on account of myself and my friend, whose feet were so sore he could, with difficulty, hobble along. I told the conductor my own condition, and of my anxiety to get home to a suffering family. When I saw he would not believe what I said, I offered him my pocket-knife, a very fine and costly one, to let us ride a short distance further, but he was like a stone. At the next stop he put us off without a cent of money or a bite to eat. We walked about six miles, lay down on the ground, with the sky for a covering, and slept like logs.

Tuesday, June 17. – We started about daybreak, without anything to eat. Walked about eight miles to a little place called Sedalia. Saw a German boarding house. Sent Hall in to see if we could get anything to eat. Had no money, but told him to tell her I would give her a butcher-knife and a silver teaspoon, which I had brought from home, for something to eat.

She said to him so I could hear her: "Breakfast is over, but I will give you what I have." That was enough for me. In I went. Sat down to a real German lunch, and never did a breakfast taste sweeter to me than that. God bless that good old German woman, not only for her good breakfast, but for her kind, motherly words to two strangers in want. It taught me a lesson which I have not forgotten yet, and I pray God I never may.

I left Sedalia feeling comfortable. Walked about four miles. Hall was about done. He could go no further. While we were sitting there, a Christian man by the name of Jennings came along, took pity on us, took us in his wagon, gave us something to eat and brought us to Denver. We arrived there about 6:00 p m., without one cent, nothing to eat, no place to go. Slept that night in a stable-yard under Jennings' wagon.

Wednesday, June 18. – Got up next morning about daybreak. Had a little cold breakfast with Jennings. Knocked about town a little. Had a baker's blackberry pie and a cup of water for dinner.

Here the diary of the prospecting tour and the tramp to Denver ends.

Mr. Holcombe continued the next day to knock about town, not knowing what to do, when his old friend, Frank Jones, by nature one of the kindest-hearted men in the world, chanced to meet him and insisted on sharing his room with him. As his friend Jones, however, was himself broke, he could render Mr. Holcombe no further assistance and it was necessary for Mr. Holcombe to look about for something to do. He spent a week in this occupation, or want of occupation, and at the end of that time found employment in a brickyard. But the work was so hard, at the end of three weeks, he had to give it up. After some time what little money he had was expended and again he was destitute. And at one time he was so pressed that he went into a grocery store and offered his fine pocket-knife again for something to eat, but it was refused. Several times he passed the Young Men's Christian Association rooms. Each time he stopped, looked wistfully in and debated with himself whether they would probably believe him and help him if he ventured to go in and make his condition known. But he had never been used to asking favors, and he did not know how to approach Christian people, and so his heart failed him.

At that time and in that condition he was assailed by a sore temptation. The devil, he says, suggested these thoughts to him: "This is a fine condition for Steve Holcombe to be in. Before you heard of God and this religion, you could stop at first-class hotels, wear fine clothes, live like a gentleman, have a good home and all that money could buy for your family. Now, you say you are serving God. You say He is your father and that He owns everything in the world. Yet here you are without food and clothing and your family is at home in want. You have not enough to buy a meal for them or for yourself. Can you afford to trust and serve such a master as that?"

But he had not been serving God two years and more for naught. He had learned some things in that time. One of them was that trials and privations are a part of the Christian's heritage, and that if any man will live godly in this present world, he must expect to suffer. So his reply was ready and he met the temptation with decision. "Yea, and though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." And the sequel will show whether he made a mistake in trusting Him.

When he saw it was useless for him to remain longer away from home, he informed his friend, Mr. Jones, of his purpose to leave at once for Louisville. Mr. Jones got him money enough to buy a ticket to Kansas City, and there the great temperance lecturer, Francis Murphy, having found out his character and condition, gave him enough to get home.

Whether God can or not, at any rate He does not pour wisdom into a man as we pour water into a bottle. He does not so favor even His own children, if favor it could be called. But He gives a man opportunities of self-discipline, and if, aided by His divine help and grace, the man is willing to go through the process, he comes out with larger knowledge and better equipment for life and service and usefulness.

Without the experiences and lessons of this Colorado trip, Mr. Holcombe could not have been the efficient man he is to-day. That season of loneliness and self-searching and severe testing and humiliation was to him, though a painful, yet a helpful, and perhaps necessary, stage in his Christian life.

Indeed, all the trying experiences that had come to him since his conversion were helpful to him in one way or another. He needed to learn patience, he needed to learn economy, he needed to learn self-control. The disposition to practice all these was given him at the time of his conversion, he needed now to be put to the test and to "learn obedience, practically, by the things which he suffered." Moreover, if he was to serve efficiently the poor and the tempted, he needed to become acquainted with their condition, their sorrows, their conflicts, by passing through them himself.

The endurance of the evils which give occasion for the exercise of self-denial and for the acquisition of self-control is a far less evil than the want of self-denial and of self-control. So Mr. Holcombe was willing to suffer all these things rather than to decline them and be without the blessing which comes through them. This reflection justified his past sufferings and prepared him for any that might come in the future. He knew what he had been and he had learned that he was to be purified by fire. So he felt that if God would be patient with him, he would be patient with God's dealings. When he arrived at home he found his family in a very needy condition. Shortly after his departure for Colorado, his wife had to remove from the house she was occupying, because she could not pay the rent. She had never taken care of herself before or done any sort of work, for he always provided well for his family; but now she saw it was necessary for her to support the family. Accordingly, she took in sewing, and in that way did support them till Mr. Holcombe's return. For six weeks after his return he could find nothing to do, and Mrs. Holcombe, brave, noble woman, continued to support the family with her needle. The time of her full deliverance was coming, but it was not yet. Nor did she know when it would come, or that it would ever come. But all the same she waited, and while she waited, she served, and with a glad heart, too, for had not her husband turned his face heavenward? And poverty seemed now a small thing.

Some time after Mr. Holcombe's return, his friend, Major Ed Hughes, was elected Chief of the Fire Department in Louisville, and he made application to him at once for a position. Major Hughes gave it to him unhesitatingly; but, as Mr. Holcombe was entirely without experience, it had to be a subordinate one, in which the salary was not large, being only a dollar and a half per day. It was impossible for him to support his family on so little, and though Mrs. Holcombe undertook to help him out by keeping boarders and doing all the work herself, they got behind all the time he was in the fire department. Finding that keeping boarders after Mrs. Holcombe's liberal fashion was entirely unprofitable, she gave that up and commenced taking in sewing again. She even learned to make coats for clothing stores in Louisville, and continued that for some time.

Meanwhile, he was having a hard time in his subordinate position in the fire department. In the first place he was required to be at the engine-house night and day and Sundays, with the bare exception of a half hour or such a matter at meal time. For a man of his nature and habits this confinement was almost intolerable, and would have been quite so, if he had not been radically changed. In the second place he was subject to the orders of his superiors, though he had never been obliged to obey anybody, and as a matter of fact never had obeyed anybody since he was a mere infant. In the third place, notwithstanding his experience, his knowledge of the world and his capacity for higher work, he was required to do work which a well-trained idiot might have done just as well. One of his duties was to rub the engine and keep it polished. In order to clean some parts of it, he would have to lie down on the floor under it flat on his back; and in order to clean other more delicate parts of the machinery, he had to work in such places that he was always bruising and skinning his hands.

If repeated failure in business in Louisville was hard, if starving in Colorado was harder, the confinement and drudgery of his position at the engine-house were hardest. It would require some effort to think of a position more thoroughly disagreeable and trying than this one which Mr. Holcombe filled to the satisfaction of his superiors for two mortal years. But he was learning some things he needed to know. He was passing through a necessary apprenticeship, though he did not know it, for something vastly higher. It perhaps should be added that Mr. Holcombe was practically isolated and alone at the engine-house, for none of the men there employed were congenial companions. However, to their credit, be it said, they showed great respect for him and for his Christian profession; they quit gambling, they refrained from using obscene or profane language in his presence, and, in general, were very kind to him.

Nothing could lessen Mr. Holcombe's sympathy for the outcast and the lost, and nothing destroy his zeal for their salvation. Though he was not allowed to leave his post even on Sunday, without hiring, at his own expense, a substitute, yet he frequently went to Shippingsport and other places to hold services among the poor "with the hope," as he says, "of helping and blessing them." He incurred the expense of a substitute that he might, once in awhile, go out bearing light and blessing to others, and he even took to his own home men who were trying to reform and live better lives. In view of the condition of his family, this was doubtless more than he ought to have done, and in after years he saw it was a mistake, but such was his insatiable longing to help and bless others, he let his zeal, perhaps, go beyond his prudence in that single particular. Most of us err very far on the other side. He did not hesitate to take to his home in some instances men who had gone in their dissipation to the extent of delirium tremens. One such case was that of a fine young fellow who belonged to an excellent family in Louisville, but who through drink had gone down, down, down, until he had struck bottom. During his drinking sprees he was the most forlorn and wretched looking man in Louisville. He was at this time, by Mr. Holcombe's invitation, staying at his house. He ate there, he slept there; it was his home. But on one occasion, some time after midnight, he was attacked with a frightful spell of delirium tremens, or, as he said, the devils got after him. They told him, he said, that if he did not kill Mr. and Mrs. Holcombe and their baby, they would kill him. He heard them. They told him to go and get his razor, and he did it. Then they advanced on him and he backed from them, his razor in hand. As they advanced he retreated. He opened Mr. Holcombe's door (for he had hired a substitute and remained at home on the night in question in order to help his man through his spell). He backed to the bed in which Mr. and Mrs. Holcombe were sleeping. He struck the bed as he retreated from the devils, and Mrs. Holcombe awoke to find a demonized man standing over them with a drawn razor. She woke her husband. He jumped out of bed, caught the man's arm and took the razor from him. After that Mr. Holcombe sat up with him the remainder of the night, and during most of the time the man was talking to imaginary devils. About daylight he snatched up a brickbat out of the hearth and rushed toward the door saying there were three big men out there who had come to kill him. Mr. Holcombe kept him with himself all next day. The next night while they were walking together in the open air, the man imagined that a woman whom he knew to be dead was choking him to death, and he was on the point of dying with suffocation when Mr. Holcombe called a physician to his aid.

Such was the kind of men Mr. Holcombe, even in those days of poverty and discouragement, was trying to help and rescue, and such were his efforts and trials and perils in rescuing them.

When Mr. Holcombe's pastor saw the grace of God that abounded in him, it was plain to him that he might, in future, when a suitable opening should come, make a very useful helper in the work of the church. In order, therefore, that Mr. Holcombe might be prepared for an enlarged sphere, if it should ever come, the pastor proposed to teach him in certain lines and did so, visiting him regularly at the engine house for that purpose. Mr. Holcombe studied very industriously, but it was with extreme difficulty that he could apply himself to books at that time. Later, however, he overcame to a great extent this difficulty and has gotten now to be quite a student. He has attended also, for two years, with great profit, the lectures of Dr. Broadus in the Baptist Seminary in Louisville.

As has been said elsewhere, Mr. Holcombe remained in the fire department for two years, enduring the confinement, performing the drudgery and trying, as best he could, to help and bless others. Four years and more had now elapsed since his conversion. It was a long stretch and at times a heavy strain. But he endured it, and grew strong.