Steve P. Holcombe, the Converted Gambler Part 16

I received your message sent by Brother Cleveland. I would like you to come over about the middle of next week. I think we will have some of the slain of the Lord for you to look after by that time. Our meeting moves off gloriously. I have never seen a better start anywhere. Thank G.o.d for the prospect of a glorious victory in this wicked city. The house is packed day and night, and the preachers and people stand shoulder to shoulder with me.

Love to your family. Affectionately,

SAM P. JONES.

FROM REV. DR. WILLITS (Warren Memorial Church).

_Mr. Steve Holcombe:_

DEAR SIR: The bearer, Ch. H., is a stranger to me; but he will tell you his story. It is the old story of fight with appet.i.te, and you will be better able to advise him than myself.

Truly yours,

A. A. WILLITS.

FROM DR. JOHN A. BROADUS.

MARCH 23, 1885.

_Dear Brother Holcombe_:

The bearer is Mr. B., once a merchant in Richmond, Va., fallen by drinking habits, separated from wife and children, _lost_. He spoke to me after sermon yesterday morning, and came to my house this morning. He does not ask immediate relief, having some money; but wants to find employment, and thinks he can stop drinking. He is evidently an intelligent man, and earnestly desirous of regaining himself. He used to be an Episcopal communicant. Now, if you can in any way help Mr. B., I shall be exceedingly glad.

Your friend and brother,

JOHN A. BROADUS.

The following letter is from one of the converts whose testimony is given elsewhere, but it is interesting as an independent account given soon after his conversion.

LOUISVILLE, KY., January 28, 1884.

_Rev. G. Alexander_:

DEAR SIR AND BROTHER: The few brotherly words you spoke to me during our short acquaintance, and your kindness toward me, a poor drunken outcast at the time, will ever be remembered. Often I make inquiries of Brother Holcombe regarding you and your health. At his suggestion, I write you and give a brief history of my life, in hope it may encourage some poor fellow whom you are seeking to save for a better life, and give him renewed courage to battle against sin; and for the glory of our Saviour Jesus Christ.

My father, as a wealthy man, determined to give his children the benefit of a good education. With this end in view, he left my younger brother and myself in Germany in 1864, after a visit there with the family. We stayed until 1867, when we returned to Louisville, I to enter the banking house of Theodore Schwartz & Co. With them I stayed until 1869, when my father became bondsman for the sheriff, Captain John A. Martin.

Out of courtesy, Captain Martin made me, although only nineteen years of age, one of his deputies. From that time I date my downfall. Money flowed in freely; and, being young and inexperienced, I spent it just as freely, if not more so. In two years, at the age of twenty-one, I was considered about as reckless a young man as there was in the city. My father was always proud of his oldest son, and indulged me in almost everything. The habit of intemperance was gaining a sure hold; and when he died, in 1872, I was considered by some a confirmed drunkard.

Gradually I sank lower and lower, until I became what I was when you first saw me eight months ago--a poor miserable outcast from society, and a burden to myself and friends. I was forsaken and despised by all.

I shudder to think that my life should ever flow in the same channel again. During all these years of dissipation I wandered all over this country--from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the Atlantic almost to the Pacific. I drifted aimlessly with no other object in view but to gratify a terrible longing for strong drink. I had been in the city but a short while when I heard of Brother Holcombe's efforts to redeem the fallen. Having known him before his conversion, curiosity led me to listen to him. During all this time I knew and felt that a day of reckoning would come, but whenever such thoughts entered my mind, I dismissed them, as they made me tremble at the very idea of having to give an account of the misdeeds of a wasted life. On the 25th of last June I was pa.s.sing up Jefferson street, and heard singing in the bas.e.m.e.nt at No. 436. My first impulse was to turn and go away, as I was in no suitable dress to go into a place of wors.h.i.+p. Then the thought came into my mind, "This is Steve Holcombe's place; I'll go in and see what it looks like." Thank G.o.d, I did go in. The songs of those Sunday-school children awakened chords in my heart which I thought had died long ago. Tears came into my eyes, and then and there I vowed, if by G.o.d's help salvation was possible for me, I certainly would make the trial. Glorious have been the results. That evening I heard Brother Holcombe once more; introduced myself to him and promised him I would attend evening service, which I did.

From that day to this I have been growing in grace. The Lord has blessed me wonderfully. My worldly affairs have prospered; and, what is worth more than all the world to me, I am continually happy. Nothing disturbs my peace, and I allow nothing to interfere with it. My trust is in my Saviour; He has promised to care for those who trust Him, and I have implicit faith in that promise. My old appet.i.te and desires are all taken away and I find pleasure and joy in things that in former years I considered ridiculous.

Very truly yours,

FRED ROPKE.

TESTIMONIALS.

CAPTAIN EGBERT J. MARTIN.

I was born in Louisville in 1842; was educated in New York and Virginia; served in General Lee's army during the war on the staff of my uncle, General Edward Johnson. The only commission I received was received on the third day of July, 1863, at the battle of Gettysburg.

My first drinking commenced in Georgia, where I was planting rice with General Gordon. That was in 1867. I did not drink during the war at all except that I might have taken a drink occasionally when I met with friends. My uncle would not permit liquor about his headquarters. On leaving Georgia, I went to New York, and went into business. I acquired quite a reputation there, and had a good income. My periodical drinking continued, however, and each year became greater and greater. Nothing was said about it for seven years and a half. I would not drink around my place of business. When I felt the spell coming on me, I would quit and go off, and be gone seven or eight days, and be back to business again when I had straightened up, and nothing was said about it; but the thing will increase on a man, and, of course, with each succeeding year the habit became stronger, and the intervals shorter.

I conceived the idea that a change of climate would do me good. Visits to the mountains seemed to benefit me, and I thought I would go West, and the change would effect a cure. I went to Colorado, made friends there, went into business, and was successful. I was married to my wife in Denver, Colorado. I believed as my wife did, that my drinking was a matter under my control. I had been leading an aimless life, with no family ties; and after I was married, I thought a strong effort on my part would stop it. I wanted to get back to salt water again, and have everything in my favor; and the next morning after we were married, I started for California. I was very successful there. I was in a short time made special agent of the California Electric Light Company, at a salary of three thousand dollars a year. They wanted to make a contract with me for five years, giving me three thousand dollars a year, if I would bind myself not to drink during the five years. I found it was not such an easy thing to quit drinking. I consulted physicians there. There was a doctor in Oakland who said he had a specific for drunkenness; and he gave it to me. The result was that when I wanted a drink, I threw the medicine away and got the drink. What I always wanted, and tried to get, was something to take away the appet.i.te for drink. There were times when I had no more desire for drink than you or any other man; but when it seized me, it seized me in an uncontrollable way, and I would drink for the deliberate purpose of making myself sick and getting over it as quick as possible. I knew it had to be gone through with, and I drank until I made myself sick.

I never attended to business when I drank liquor. I never mixed up my business affairs with my drinking. Everybody I had anything to do with knew I was thoroughly reliable. I never lied about being drunk. I never said I was sick or had the cholera infantum or anything of that sort.

Everybody who employed me knew as much about it as I did.

When my little boy was born, I felt a sacred duty was imposed upon me; and I tried to encourage my ideas of morality. I had always been a moral man, and, although an infidel, had never sought to break down the religious opinions of any one, because I had nothing to give them instead. My rationalism satisfied me. It was a belief, an opinion, with which I was willing to face my Maker, because I believed I was right. I believed in the existence of a Supreme Being, but I did not believe that the great Ruler of the universe thought enough of us insignificant human beings to interest Himself in our affairs. I did not believe in the Christians' G.o.d. There in Virginia I had been surrounded by members of the church. Everybody was either a Baptist, a Methodist, or a member of some other denomination; drunkards and saloon-keepers and all belonged to the church. They could do wrong and afterward go straight to church.

That kind of religion disgusted me, and that kind of religion confirmed my skepticism. I wanted to get away and I even planned to go to Australia. After my little boy was born, I stayed sober for six months, and then I commenced drinking again. I did not conceal the truth from myself. I said, "You are false to everything that is manly; you are a disgrace to yourself." I decided to go back to Virginia (my wife had never been there) and settle up a lawsuit I had pending in the courts.

But after a short stay in Virginia I had an offer to return to New York and go to work, and went to New York; and after I had been there a month, I received a dispatch stating that a compromise had been agreed upon without consulting me at all. I went back to Richmond and rejected the compromise.

A decision was made in my favor, but the case was taken to the Court of Appeals. I had used up everything I had in litigation; and when, at last, I got a telegram that the Court of Appeals had reversed the case, and we had lost everything, it just broke me down. It took me more than a month to realize that it was a fact--I could not get it into my head; and it broke me down completely. I loved my wife and I loved my child, and was troubled about them, and for the two years I was fighting these Virginia gentlemen I was in a state of high excitement. I had nothing to do except to worry, and I drank more than ever in my life. I said, "My G.o.d! it is awful. I have lost everything. I know I am a drunkard; it is no use denying it, because the appet.i.te is on me all the time." And many a time I threw myself down in the woods and sobbed aloud if Fate would have mercy on me. I had given up all hope. I thought the good fortune which had followed me all my life would never return. I had sent my wife off; so I had lost her, too. She went to her sister's, in Ohio; and I arranged that my mother should remain at the old place. I wrote to a cousin of mine whom I had not met since the war. He used, frequently, to come to our home, a delightful and healthful place, thirteen miles from Richmond. I thought I would write him that I desired to get out of Virginia, and had not the means, and would make Louisville my objective point. So I wrote him, but received no reply. I wrote to another man, stating the circ.u.mstances--that I wanted to get out of Virginia and go to work; but I received no answer from him; and I came to the conclusion if I wanted to get out of Virginia I would have to walk. I had secured my wife and child, and as for myself it little mattered what befell me or how I fared.

I was walking through the woods one day and saw a man getting out railroad ties. He told me of a place near by, called the "Lost Land." A year before that, my uncle's executor gave me a deed that was taken from the old house at my oldest uncle's death. It was for a little slip of land--an avenue--that my grandfather had bought in 1815. Well, I thought nothing of it. I told the old negro woman that when everything was settled up, I was going to give her that land; and I put the deed away with other papers and forgot all about it. When I was worrying about the means, and making efforts to get the means to get out of Virginia, this man, who was hewing in the woods, told me about the little piece of woodland that had so much sill timber on it, and he spoke of it as the "Lost Land," and his speaking of the "Lost Land" reminded me of this deed, and I hurried home, found the deed, and saw that it located the land at about where he mentioned. I went to the County Surveyor, who had succeeded his father and grandfather in the office, and we found that the property of which this formed a part had been sold in large lots, and it was there between the lines of the other property, unclaimed by any one, and for seventy-three years had escaped taxation, because the deed conveying it had never been recorded in the county books, and it was supposed by the county officials that all of the original tract had been divided off in the larger subdivisions. We found it, ran the lines around it, and I sold ten acres for one hundred dollars--enough to pay a grocery bill, buy me a suit of clothes and land me in Louisville.

I had loved the old place--loved it all my life, because I had spent many days there when a happy, careless boy. My mother was born there, my grandmother and my great-grandfather lie buried there. It was bought in 1782 by my great-grandfather, who was not only a gentleman but a scholar. He graduated at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Edinburgh, and afterward spent seven years in Europe. I was very much attached to the old place, and on leaving it I drank to deaden the pain.

I came here to Louisville, and I drank after I got here to keep from thinking. I tell you things looked blue, and I tell you the fact, the liquor I drank every day made me feel worse and worse, and my brain was affected from the excitement I had pa.s.sed through. I found myself in a second or third-cla.s.s hotel which stood nearly on the spot where I was born. I lay in my room for three days. I came to the conclusion there was no use kicking; the end was at hand. Fate had brought me back here, where I was born, to die. I even said it to myself, "Destiny has brought you back here, to the city where you were born, to die; and to die by your own hands. You have no respect for yourself, nor have others respect for you. You know by living you will bring further disgrace upon the wife and child you love so well. If you will commit suicide people will say, 'He was an unfortunate man, but a brave one; his only fault was his drinking.'" I tried to shut out all thoughts of my wife and child, but I could not. I said to myself, "I was born here; I have not outraged the law; I have done nothing dishonorable; nothing why any man related to me should shun me. But I have lost everything; I am accursed; I am alone here. My wife's people know I am here, but do not communicate with me. And they tell me there is a G.o.d." A man came to my room in the hotel and said they wanted the room. "You say you have no money and no friends, so we can not keep you here any longer. You must give us the room." Under these circ.u.mstances I was coming nearer and nearer the final determination to commit suicide when a man, a stranger, came into my room who was himself a drunkard. I told him my condition and my determination. He said, "Wait till I send that man Holcombe down to see you. Maybe he can help you." Mr. Holcombe dropped everything and came to me at once. I did not know who he was. He said, "My name is Holcombe: I am from the Mission." Well, sir, if he had commenced at me as most preachers would have done, and told me in a sort of mechanical way that I had brought it all on myself, I would have said, "I am much obliged to you for your politeness and your well-meant efforts, but it does me no good, and I am very much distressed and would much prefer to be alone."

He said, "There is no use trusting in yourself; you can not save yourself." That struck me at once as a correct diagnosis of my case, and I said, "That is just the conclusion I have come to myself." Then he told me what had been done for him, and he got down on his knees and prayed. And when he prayed for me and my wife and child, that is what reached my heart. I said "There is _something_ in that man's religion at any rate. I do not believe in this stuff I have seen in the churches; but there is something in that sort of religion. It is the last straw I have to catch at. I will try it." I got up out of bed where I had been for three wretched days, and came up to the Mission. There I came in contact with some influence I had never felt before. I came to the conclusion that there was truth in the Christian religion, and I said, "That is all right, but that is not what I want. I want that inward consciousness that I am not going to drink." I might get up and say, "I am ready to confess I am wrong; I believe religion is right; I have seen evidences of it; I believe you are right and I am wrong. But I had no inward consciousness of any change in me, and I did not feel secure or in any way protected against the habit of drinking." I knew if there was anything in religion, there must be something a man would be conscious of. I said, "There is something in this religion, but I have not got the hang of it." It occurred to me that perhaps after all, my chief motive and desire in all this was the welfare of my wife and child and the recovery of our domestic happiness. And lying on that bed I said, "I am willing to do anything. There is nothing that I am not willing to do, if I can only get rid of this appet.i.te. I will get up and state that I was a drunkard; I will acknowledge every tramp as my brother; and, although I have no desire to do it, I will go out and preach. Just let me know that I am free from this thing and that I can go on in life;" and all at once--I could not connect the thought and result together--there came upon me a perfect sense of relief. I was just as conscious then of divine interposition as I ever was afterward; and I said to myself, "This is what they call regeneration," and turned over and went to sleep. From that time I commenced a new sober life; and I never have wanted liquor; I never have had a desire for it since, and it is now going on two years.

I think many men are called, but few are chosen. There are a great many men who get far enough in the surrender to feel good and change their opinions; but they do not get down to the bed-rock of regeneration. I do not believe in any change, or in any doctrine that says there is regeneration through anything except a complete surrender. Men are ready to believe that Christ was the son of G.o.d, but go straight home and continue their old way of life. They must say, "I will not only quit serving the devil, but I will commence serving G.o.d." "Thou shall love the Lord thy G.o.d with all thy heart, with all thy soul and with all thy strength."

I do not let theological opinions disturb me now. My simple faith and theology is this: That I have the peace of G.o.d and He keeps me. I have knowledge of G.o.d's power and mercy, and feel that G.o.d keeps me.

My wife and child have come back and are now with me, and are as happy as they can be; and there is not a man in this country with less money and more happiness than I. I am happier than I ever was in my life.

NOTE.--Captain Martin is now engaged in business in the house of Bayless Bros. & Co., Louisville.

R. N. DENNY.

I was born in 1846 in the State of Illinois. At that time, before there were many railroads, it was a comparatively backwoods country where I was raised. Our nearest market was St. Louis, sixty miles from where we lived. My father kept a country store there, and hauled his produce to St. Louis. My father was a professed Christian, so also was my grandfather, yet each of them kept a demijohn of whisky in the house.

They would prepare roots and whisky, and herbs and whisky, which was used for all kinds of medical purposes and for all kinds of ills that flesh is heir to; and I believe at that time I got the appet.i.te for whisky, if I did not inherit it. I have drunk whisky as far back as I can remember. I had a great many relatives who were Christians; but I gloried in my obstinacy and would have nothing to do with Christianity.

In my seventeenth year I went into the army. Of course, being among the Romans, I had to be a Roman, too; and consequently, the drinking habit grew upon me; and I acquired also a pa.s.sion for gambling. After the war I did not do much good. I drifted about from place to place for something over a year, and then joined the regular army. I belonged to the Seventh Regular Cavalry, Custer's command, which was ma.s.sacred on the Little Big Horn. At that time I did not belong to the command, as my time had expired some time before.