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

What brought me to realize my condition more than anything else, took place just before the time I first met Brother Holcombe. I was out on Second street mending umbrellas; for that was the way I made my living. I had become thoroughly hardened. I would have cut my throat, only cowardice kept me from it. Well, I was mending umbrellas out on Second street, and Mrs. Werne heard me as I was calling out, and knowing that Henry, her husband, and I had been to school together – had been boys together, she called me and said, "Fred, I want you to come in." She insisted on my coming to their house to dinner the next day. "Fix up," she said, "and come to dinner with us;" but I do not believe I had a stitch of clothes except what was on my back. She insisted however, on my coming; some of my friends would be there. That brought me to realize to what depths I had fallen.

The next week I went to New Albany; and I was told to leave the town, and I left the town under the escort of two policemen. To such abject wretchedness was I reduced, I could not endure to stay among friends, and I was in such a plight strangers could not endure me among them. But once I was coming down the street, and heard the singing in the Holcombe Mission; and I was considerably touched to think that I had come through the religious training of a Christian home and of church and Sunday-school; and that is all it amounted to. I went that evening to the courthouse steps, and heard Mr. Holcombe preach there; and from that day to this I have not drank a single drop; and it is only through God's grace that I realize that I am able to resist temptation. I felt that I was not worth anything; I felt that there was no power in myself. My skepticism all melted away. The view I took of it was that if God could help Holcombe, he could and would help such a one as I. I knew Mr. Holcombe very well. When I was deputy sheriff, I had a warrant for his arrest one time from Franklin county, and went there armed, knowing his dangerous reputation. I thought if Holcombe could be saved, there certainly was some hope for me, and under the inspiration of that hope I turned to God. It was my last and only hope. But it was not disappointed, for He has saved me.

I remember the first time I went up to be prayed for; I felt that I would from that time have strength – I had no doubt that I would have it from that time on. It was in the back room of the old mission. I felt – I don't know why it was – I felt then and there that, by God's help, I would make a man of myself; and I went out with that feeling, although I had been under the influence of liquor for months before. I can not say that I had no appetite for it, but I had strength to resist it. That was the 25th of June, 1883.

I would do anything for whisky when I wandered around. I did not gamble, but I was licentious. I lived for nothing else; I had no other aim in life but to gratify my passions, and I would adopt any extreme to do it, and did do it. I left nothing untouched – I would sell my coat to gratify my passions. If I wanted a drink of whisky and my hat would pay for it, I would let it go. Once, on coming back from New Orleans, my mother gave me a suit of clothes; and I did not keep that suit of clothes three days. All of the time I was tramping around, my mother was living in Louisville, worth seventy-five thousand dollars. She was willing to do anything for me, and suffered much because of my wicked ways. I remember on one occasion, when I left her to go to Denver, Colorado, she begged me to stay at home, and reminded me how she would suffer from anxiety about me, day and night, till I should return. But I had just been released from jail for drunkenness and I did not want to stay in Louisville. So I left my mother in sorrow and despair.

One thing I am thankful for to-day; that after my conversion I did not get into anything right away; that I made a bare living with my umbrellas; and that continued two years before I got into a permanent situation. I believe those were the two happiest years of my life. I had a tough time to get something to eat sometimes, but that was good for me. I pegged away at an old umbrella for twenty-five or thirty cents down in the old mission; and I was thankful to get them to fix. It seemed to me it was sweeter; I enjoyed it more.

There is no comparison between the new life and the old. I thought at one time that I was enjoying myself; but I have had to suffer in my new life for all the enjoyment that I had in the old – I have to suffer physically – even yet. I am an old man before my time. Even to-day on my coming in contact with it the influence of the old association will crop out. Sometimes my passions worry me considerably. The only relief I find is by keeping close to God. I realize that from day to day if I do not do that – pay strict attention to my religious duties – I will fall. I know that if I neglect them for one week, I get away off. I am happy in being placed where I am. My place is a kind of rendezvous for religious people; and their society and conversation help to strengthen me. Since my conversion, I was offered a position in a liquor house, but I would not take it, because I was afraid of it, and the very next day I obtained a situation with the Finzer Brothers. I went to a minister and made it the subject of prayer as to whether I should accept the situation; and finally decided to decline it, and the next day I got a situation that I had filled in years gone by, with Finzer Brothers in this city. It is now the height of my ambition to have the opportunity to convince the people who were and are my friends in Louisville that there is something in me, and by the grace of God I am no longer the failure I was.

JAMES THOMPSON HOCKER

I was born in Shelby county, Kentucky, in 1837, and no man had better advantages for being a Christian or becoming one than I had. I had a pious mother and father, and all the influences of my home were of that character. My father and mother were both members of the Baptist church, and I recollect that they used to have me go to Sunday-school, but I think now I went there because they asked me to go. Thinking over my condition, I did not have any other incentive at that time than to obey my mother's request. At about the age of fifteen I left my home, and it seems to me now when I did do so I left behind me all good impulses and all good feeling, and any religious inclination I might have had seemed to leave me when I stepped over the threshold; and I think the devil joined me then and told me he would keep me company all the rest of my life, and he did do it pretty closely for thirty years. I do not suppose that he had a better servant, or one who did his behests more faithfully than I.

Whether I inherited the appetite for drink has been a question with me. On both sides of my house – the Old Virginia stock – I had several relatives who drank to excess; and it seems to me that the appetite must have passed through our family to me. I remember the first drink I ever took in my life; it was whisky, and I liked it. Most people don't like the first drink.

When I came to this city I went into business as a clerk. The devil and I dropped into company as hail fellows well met. He persuaded me to think it was proper for young men to take a drink before calling on their lady friends. He prompted me to go in with the boys. "This is the right way for you to do," he would say, "I am your friend." I had the usual compunctions of conscience that the young man feels when he goes into bar-rooms. I took wine at first, but the devil said: "That is not the thing; whisky is better." I obeyed him; I took whisky, until whisky pretty nearly took me forever.

Along in 1871 – March, 1871 – I was working at a clothing house, and I married a lady who was thoroughly conversant with all my habits; who knew that the habit for drink had fastened itself on me; but who, with a woman's faithful, trusting heart, married me, hoping, as they generally do, that her influence might reform me. Perhaps for a year or so the devil and I rather separated, but he had me in sight all the while. This continued for six or seven months, until, on one occasion, I went out to a fishing party. We carried two or three gallons of whisky, and two or three pounds of solid food. I went fishing with two or three personal acquaintances, who prevailed on me to indulge with them in drinking, and from this time forward, until about one year ago, I was as fully devoted to my old ways as ever.

The appetite for drink was on me, and dragged me down day by day, deeper and deeper into the mire; and still, through all this, my wife's loyal heart never faltered, unwavering as she was in her trust in me, that I would yet reform. She still, when others failed me, remained my faithful friend. My wife was forced, however, by my conduct, to return to her mother's home, because, instead of supporting her, I was spending all my earnings for whisky and in debauchery of other kinds.

I shall have to go back a little in my story. About eight years ago I was working in a clothing house at the corner of Third and Market streets. I noticed across the street, one morning, a man whom I knew setting out on the sidewalk a lot of vegetables, apples, etc. I looked at him, and recognized him as Steve Holcombe, a man who had recently reformed his way of living, and abandoned his old life. In the meantime, I had become an infidel, I had begun to doubt the divinity of Christ, and even doubted that there was a God. I read all of Ingersoll's books, and went back and read Paine's essay on Reason and Common Sense. I was thoroughly fortified with all the infidel batteries that I could bring to bear on Christian people. As soon as I laid eyes on Brother Holcombe I started across the street and opened on him; and I kept this up for months. I fortified myself with a couple of drinks, so as to be very brave, and went over and tackled him regularly every morning.

At last, I stood and watched him one morning. I reasoned this way: "There is a man I have known for twenty-five years. I know of no man who was more thoroughly steeped in wickedness, who was a more persistent sinner, and I have tried to batter him down with my infidel batteries for months, and he is as solid as a stone wall;" and all this led me to think that there was something in the religion of Jesus Christ; and, thinking this way, I rather refrained from my attacks upon him and his position; but I often thought of him afterward, and the thought occurred to me, there must be something in this thing, for no power living, or anything that I know of, could sustain that man in his position. It must be something beyond human.

The 20th day of last April I was on a protracted debauch; had been for three weeks. My brain was thoroughly stunned with the effects of the liquor I had drunk. I was sitting in a bar-room at seven o'clock in the evening, as far as my memory now serves me, and I appeared to see the face of my wife and child; and then one of my boon companions said, "Join us in a drink." Just then I could no more have taken that drink than I could have transformed myself into an angel of light. At that moment I thought some impending calamity that neither I nor any human power could avert was about to crush me. The next thing that came into my mind was that I must see Mr. Holcombe; and I went out of that saloon into the night, scarcely knowing what I did, feeling that some terrible accident was going to happen; but still this impulse moved me to go to the man I had fought so long and so persistently. I happened to find him before the old Mission, on Jefferson street, near Fifth. He seemed to think that I had now some other object in view than to attack him as formerly, because, the first time in all my career, he was the only man who did reach out his hand and said, "God bless you, my brother." I said: "I want to talk to you; I want you to pray for me." He said, "God bless you, I am the happiest man to meet you that I know of." He asked me to walk down to the Mission. The services were about to commence. I stayed with him that evening. In the morning he made a special prayer for me; and during all my wanderings, I had felt that, perhaps, the prayers of my mother and father would, in the end, reach the throne of grace; and I had never lost my faith in the efficacy of prayer. When he prayed for me, I felt my mother's hand on my head and heard her saying, "God bless and keep my boy." When I left him he said, "Won't you go to your room to-night and pray?" I had no room. He loaned me the money to get a room. I went to the hotel and procured lodging. He said to me, "Say any prayer you think of." The only prayer I could recall was one I had heard in my childhood, "Lord, have mercy upon me, a sinner!" When I made that prayer before the Christian's God, I did it with fear and trembling, for it seemed profanity for a wretch like me, who had defied God's laws, to prostrate himself at His feet and ask the Christian's God to have mercy on him; but I kept up that prayer in my weak, broken way. And to-day, having tried this life one year, you don't know of a man happier than I am. My wife, no longer broken-hearted as in those years of darkness and sorrow, now daily bids me welcome to our happy home. And we recognize together that nothing but this religion of Jesus Christ could have brought this about. I know, from the experiences I have had, that God has forgiven me, the sinner.

I had from a child been the most inveterate swearer. Since my conversion I have not sworn an oath; I never have taken a drop of beer or anything that might intoxicate me, and I have never had a return of the appetite. And I hope, by God's mercy, that when the last call shall come I shall be found fighting for God; and I feel I want to fall with "my back to the field and my feet to the foe." Immediately after my conversion I attached myself to the Fifth and Walnut-street church; and if you inquire of those who know me, they will tell you that, since I stepped out of the old life into this, I have walked consistently.

I have told you a true story. I can think of no more to say. I may add, however, that since I have come into this new life, under God's mercy, I have been the humble instrument of bringing into the light three of my acquaintances, of whose conversion I know personally. I was the only wandering, wayward, prodigal son in my father's family; and there is probably not now a happier household in the State.

Note. – Mr. Hocker is at present engaged in business in one of the large clothing houses of Louisville.

SAMUEL P. DALTON

I was born in Shelbyville, Tenn., January 20, 1849, and am, therefore, thirty-nine years of age. My father and mother were both members of the church; and they tried to bring me up as a Christian. I went to Sunday-school and church almost all my life. My father has been dead twenty odd years. My mother is still living. As I say, I was brought up a Christian, and I was converted when I was about seventeen years of age, while a boy clerking in a brickyard alone. I was licensed soon afterward to exhort in the Methodist church. After that I married; I removed to Paducah, Ky., and I was a member of the church there for several years. After that I lost my wife, broke up housekeeping and went to traveling. I traveled awhile, and then moved to Louisville. I lived here seven years.

In the meantime, I became indifferent to Christianity and formed the habit of moderate drinking; I was a moderate drinker for a couple of years, and gradually I drifted farther and farther away till at last I came to believe in Ingersoll's teachings. I formed this idea, that the world was made to enjoy, and that we had a right to enjoy it in any way we wished. I never would go to church and I would avoid meeting any of my church friends as much as possible. I became very unhappy and miserable in my irreligious life, and found that serving the devil was hard.

One day while in this unhappy condition my attention was called to a crowd of people on Jefferson street, near the courthouse. Going over to satisfy my curiosity, I found they were a Christian band from the Holcombe Mission preaching the Gospel. Of course, I would not go to church, and when I went over there to see what they were doing, I looked upon them as so many cranks; but there was one prayer that touched my heart. It was this: "Oh Lord, if there are any persons in this audience who are miserable or unhappy on account of their sins, I pray Thee to give them no peace until they give their hearts to God." And God answered the prayer in my case. I had no peace until I gave my heart to God and renewed my vows to the church. After hearing this prayer I went home very miserable and unhappy, and fought the feeling for six months afterward – tried to drive it away by drinking; but could not do so. Finally one night about midnight, in my room, I gave my heart to God and made new vows. I was again brought back to God on the 15th of October, 1882.

Then I went to see Brother Morris, pastor of the Fifth and Walnut-street Methodist church, and told him what I had done. Of course, he met me with open arms, and invited me to the church, and on the following Sunday I joined the Methodist church. Directly afterward Mr. Morris introduced me to Brother Holcombe. He said: "Brother Dalton, here is a man you ought to know and be with. His Mission is the place for you to do Christian work." He saw, I suppose, that I ought to be doing some good, and he wanted me right there.

I went, then, to Brother Holcombe's Mission, and remained with him for about two years, working there almost every night for these two years, keeping door, and doing, to the best of my ability, all the good I could. I can say that my connection with the Mission, I have no doubt, has had all to do with strengthening me in the Christian life and leading me into usefulness, giving me strength and energy to engage in saving others, and confirming myself in Christian character.

I have witnessed some of the most remarkable conversions at Holcombe's Mission that I think ever were known anywhere, and I regard Holcombe as one of the most remarkable men on earth for mission work. It seems that he can use more means to put men to thinking than any other man that I know of.

I was always fond of going to the theater. After I had become a Christian, I had an idea that I could still continue going to theaters, and so stated to Brother Holcombe and Brother Alexander. They simply said this: "Brother Dalton, if you get the love of God in your heart you will find a great deal more pleasure in God's service than you will in attending theaters;" and from my own experience I have found it true. I have no desire to go to theaters; my own pleasure is in Christian work; and I do not think a man can make a practice of attending theaters regularly and exert the same influence for the salvation of others as if he did not attend.

I believe as firmly as I do anything, that when I was a boy, God called me to some kind of Christian work; and I was the most miserable man in the world when I lost my religion. After meeting with Brother Holcombe, he seemed to be a great wall of protection to me – and he does yet. He has infused into my life more Christian zeal than I ever had before. I am of a temperament that is easily led off – easily influenced; and I feel that God, in His wisdom, leads me into Christian work in order to save my own soul as well as others. Since I have been away from Louisville, in Cleveland, Ohio, in business, I think there has not been a day or night but what I have thought of Brother Holcombe and the Mission. It seems to have such an everlasting effect on me, that at all times I feel a restraining influence which comes out from that Mission. If at any time I am tempted to become discouraged, the remembrance of him and the mission work that he is engaged in, seems to be a protection, something that upholds me in my Christian faith; and I have learned to love Brother Holcombe as I never loved any man on earth who was no kin to me. He is a man whom I have watched very closely, and understand thoroughly; and believe he is one of the most honest, earnest and upright Christian men that I ever met in all my life, and one who will do more, and endure more, to lead a man to Christ than any one I ever knew.

The result of that Christian experience which I had while associated with Brother Holcombe has been the means of my seeking an opportunity for Christian work in the city of Cleveland, Ohio, where I am now residing. I joined the Franklin-avenue Methodist church, of Cleveland, a grand body of Christians, too, about 650 members; and it seemed that the Lord had opened the way into this church to harness me into Christian work there. Being a man from the South, I hardly expected them to receive me as cordially as they did; but it seemed that, after watching me, and knowing me, when I was not expecting it, I was elected one of the stewards of that church a very short time after joining it; and I have been put on different committees, and have been treated as well as a Christian gentleman could possibly desire to be treated, and I have learned to love them. My aim and object in life now is to do all the good I possibly can in this new field of labor.

The Lord has been very good to me since I reentered His service, and I have found complete happiness and contentment in this Christian life, and no man on earth is happier than I when I am doing Christian work, and I am quite unhappy when I am not, being fully convinced that the Lord has a Christian work of some kind for me to engage in, and always being blest in the least effort I make for the salvation of others.

God has prospered me in business, too. I have been very successful in my business life, not getting rich, but making a good, honest living, having the confidence and respect of my employers, and the full confidence of those who work for me. I have endeavored, to the best of my ability, to use every means within my power to exert as good an influence over the men in my employ as I possibly can under the circumstances. I correspond with Brother Holcombe regularly, and have for the last three years, and I very often use his letters in endeavoring to bring others to Christ; and frequently in my talks and Christian work I take a great pride in referring to the Mission in Louisville, and believe there has been some good done in simply telling of these remarkable conversions that I have witnessed there, convincing me that the Mission is not only exerting a good influence in the city of Louisville, but is being felt all over this country.

After being away a little over three years, I returned to Kentucky on a visit to my mother and family in Paducah, and also to Brother Holcombe and my friends in Louisville, and stopped with Brother Holcombe. Of course, he received me with open arms and a hearty welcome, and I had the pleasure of meeting many of those men whom I had known when they were in their sinful lives, bound by the power of strong drink, and it did my heart good to look into their happy, shining faces, sober as they are, and active in business, and engaged in Christian work, thereby receiving new strength and stronger faith in the Blessed Gospel of Christ. I am fully persuaded there is no other power under heaven that would save men from these terrible habits except the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Coming into the presence of Brother Holcombe seemed to have a peculiar effect upon me. It seemed that I received a new baptism of the Holy Ghost. I do not know what it is; I know that God's blessing is just as rich and precious in Cleveland as it is in Louisville, but having been associated with Brother Holcombe in this Christian work, and witnessing such wonderful conversions, and God's blessings having been bestowed upon us so richly, it seems that the place is precious to my soul, and the remembrance of those things so cheers my heart that it gives me new strength and new zeal, and I never could, under any circumstances, in my future life, doubt the reality of the Christian religion.

COLONEL MOSES GIBSON

My birthplace was Bowling Green, Rappahannock county, Virginia. I was born May 7, 1837. My ancestors were Quakers, and my grandfather a Hicksite Quaker. He married a Methodist, and was, consequently, turned out of the church. The family originally came from the north of Ireland, opposite Glasgow; non-conformists. They came to this country about the time Penn did, and got over into Loudon county, Virginia. On my mother's side I am descended from Nathaniel Pendleton, who is a brother of Edmund Pendleton, and aid-de-camp of General Green during the Revolutionary war. On both sides a considerable number of the men were in both legal and literary pursuits. My mother was raised in the Presbyterian church – joined the Presbyterian church. I was baptized by the Rev. Dr. Foot, one of the corner-stones of the old school church. My father was never a member of any church until very late in life. My mother had me baptized by the Rev. Dr. Foot when I was six years old.

I was always, as a boy, religiously inclined; and never cared for those enjoyments and pleasures that boys indulge in so much, like playing ball, hunting and fishing, tobogganing, coasting and all such kind of sport. I was more of a house boy. I liked to stay at home and read, and was very affectionate in my disposition. Very early in life I started out in the world, and when I was fourteen years old I was a store boy; and even with all that, my early training, to a certain extent, kept me out of bad company, although I slept in the store, and was really under no restraint from the time I was about fourteen. I generally, when I found I was too far gone, pulled up stakes and went somewhere else; and in that way I grew up. I very rarely failed to go to church twice every Sunday; and I looked upon religion more as a pleasure and a matter of pride for the respectability of it. I liked the church, even after I grew up to be a man. But during the latter part of the war, I became impressed. I believe it was in October, 1864, I professed religion in a little church in New Market, Virginia; and after the war, I went to Baltimore, and united myself there with the Episcopal church. I never was confirmed, however, until some time in 1868, here in Calvary church in Louisville. But I always considered myself a member of the church, went to Sunday-school, and attended to my duties very particularly. I never drank anything, and never kept bad company. My association was always the most refined, principally that of ladies. I was fond of society, parties, theaters and things of that kind, which our church never objected to very particularly, but I kept myself in bounds.

It was only about 1874 or 1875 that I became associated with some gentlemen here who were very learned, and who were very earnest men; and we got into the study of the Bible in search of truth. We got all the books of modern thought on the subject that we could. We conversed together and talked together a great deal. We got all the modern authors, and studied them very thoroughly; and studied so much, that we finally studied ourselves into infidelity. We studied Draper, Max Muller, Ledyard, Bishop Colenzo and Judge Strange. Judge Strange's was the most powerful book, to me, of any. It was a reference to the Old Testament legends and the miracles of the New. I gradually by the association, and by reading these modern treatises on theology, etc., drifted into that thoughtful infidelity, which is the worst sort in the world, because I had a great respect for religion, but did not believe it. I believed in a God, but could not consistently believe that he was the God of the Bible, or that the Bible itself could be an inspired book, because so much of it was inconsistent with demands of human reason.

Following these convictions, I gradually drifted into the most complete infidelity that a man ever did on earth. I did not believe anything, still I did not attempt in any way to have my associates and friends believe that I was an infidel. I never boasted of it, I never made light of religion. I continued to go to church, continued to keep in the church; and when Ingersoll was here I would not go to hear him. I was satisfied that Ingersoll's teachings were, to a great extent, what I believed; but I did not like to hear a man get up and ridicule my mother's God; and my answer to those who wanted me to go was that I would not listen to any man who tried to ridicule the religion of my mother.

About 1878 I commenced drinking. I was then about forty-one years old. I got to taking a drink here and there, but do not suppose I took over a hundred drinks during the year. In 1879 I got to drinking a little more. In 1880 I got to drinking pretty hard. During the year 1879 I took rarely less than three, and very often six to eight drinks, a day, and in 1881 I was a confirmed, genteel tippler. I rarely took less than three or more than I could stand, but in a genteel way and in a genteel saloon.

I sold out my business and traveled seven or eight months for pleasure, and kept up the same thing everywhere. I seldom gambled. I played poker for twenty-five cents ante, and bet on horse races. I never was a profane man except when I was intoxicated; then I would be a little profane. I always remembered more than anything else the early teachings of my mother; they clung to me. I had respect not only for the church but respect for the ministry and respect for Christian people.

After I commenced drinking I would have given anything in the world if I could have stopped. I would get up in the morning and I would feel a lassitude – feel debilitated. I would not care to eat anything – a biscuit and a cup of coffee – and by eleven o'clock that was all emptied, and my stomach would crave something. Probably if I had sat down at a restaurant and made a good dinner it would have helped me; but it was so much easier to get a toddy, and that toddy did away with the craving, and probably in an hour and a half I would want the same thing, and, instead of going to dinner, I would take another drink, and about three o'clock I would want this toning of the stomach again.