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

The tribute which the people of Louisville paid to the work and worth of Steve Holcombe before his death was hardly less.

On Monday, the day following his misfortune, Mr. Holcombe's room was, nearly all the day long, full of people of every grade, from the mayor and the richest and finest people on Broadway and Fourth avenue, down to the poor drunkard and outcast, who forgot his shabby dress and pressed in among those fine people in order to see "Brother Holcombe," and find out how he was. The ministers of the leading churches of every Protestant denomination came with words of sympathy and prayer. Fine ladies came in their carriages, bringing baskets of fruit and all sorts of delicacies. Those who could not go sent letters and messages. And Mr. Holcombe lay in his bed and wept – not for pain, but for gratitude and humble joy. "Why," said he, "I would be willing to have half a dozen legs broken to know that these people think so much of me and of my poor efforts to be useful."

This, then, was the first compensation and blessing.

He learned also that it would be absolutely necessary for him to watch more closely his impulsive and fiery temper, and get a better control of it. For he does not deny that he was inexcusably hasty and severe in his treatment of the impudent intruder.

And then he was temporarily relieved from the incessant demands and the constant strain of his daily activity and his nightly anxiety. He had time and opportunity, as far as the importunity and kindness of his friends would allow, to get calmed, to look down into his own heart, to analyze his motives, to study his own nature, to see his own faults, to find out his own needs and to pray. He had been told by one of his friends, that while he did not work too much, he did not pray enough, and that he was, therefore, liable to be overtaken by some sudden temptation and be betrayed into sin.

That same friend, in conducting service in one of the churches of the city on that very Sunday morning, had offered special public prayer for Mr. Holcombe and his work. He prayed specifically that if Brother Holcombe needed a thorn in the flesh, to keep him humble, God would send it. It was thought to be a special and speedy answer, that before sundown of that very day, Mr. Holcombe did receive almost literally a thorn in the flesh; a messenger of Satan it was withal to buffet him. And Mr. Holcombe was the first to acknowledge that he needed this trial and the threefold blessing which came with it.

The perpetrators of the cowardly deed were, some time afterward, caught and imprisoned – every one of them. One of them has been pardoned and released, and through Mr. Holcombe's kindly intervention the other two probably will be, while through his friendly counsels one of them has been brought to realize his own sinfulness, and has promised to live a better life.

It would be out of the question to reproduce here all the written messages of sympathy which Mr. Holcombe received during his confinement from the injury he received. But one of them is too touching and beautiful to be left out. It was written by Miss Jennie Casseday, a lady of culture and refinement, who has, for eighteen years, been confined to her "sick bed." She is well known as the originator of the "Flower Missions," which, all over this country, have been the bearers of blessing to many unblessed and unloved ones:

"Sick Bed, January 18, 1887.

"Dear Christian Friend:

"I send you some lines which have been a great blessing to me:

"'I can not say,Beneath the pressure of life's cares to-day,I joy in these;But I can sayThat I had rather walk this rugged wayIf Him it please."'I can not feelThat all is well, when darkening clouds concealThe shining sun;But then I knowGod lives and loves, and say, since that is so,"Thy will be done.""'I can not speakIn happy tones; the tear-drops on my cheekShow I am sad;But I can speakOf grace to suffer with submission meek,Until made glad."'I do not seeWhy God should e'en permit some things to be;When He is Love;But I can see,Though often dimly, through the mystery,His hand above."'I do not knowWhere falls the seed that I have tried to sowWith greatest care;But I shall knowThe meaning of each waiting hour belowSometime, somewhere.'

"Selected with tender sympathy.

"Your friend,"Jennie Casseday."

CHAPTER VI

In conclusion it will not be out of place to glance for a moment backward and to call attention definitely to some plain facts.

Mr. Holcombe inherited from his parents a diversely perverse and bad nature. Already in his childhood he was cross, irritable, spiteful. In his boyhood his temper was savage and revengful. In his manhood he took the life of a fellowman. He inherited the love of drink from his father, who was a confirmed drunkard before the child was born; and the child himself was drunk before he was twelve years old. He was given to sensuality from his boyhood.

His education was not good – as far as the educating power of daily example goes, it was bad, positively bad, continually bad. His associations outside of home were, for the most part, of the worst sort. His boyish companions were given to gambling, pilfering, fighting, and in all these things they called him chief. But the companionship of boys did not long satisfy him and already before he was fifteen, he drank and gambled with grown men in the bar-rooms of the village.

He had an impulsive sympathy for helpless suffering when it was before his eyes. He had a vague, faint fear of the Power that makes for righteousness, so that in his youth he made three or four ineffectual efforts to get the mastery of his evil nature and to become better. He provided well for his family in meat and drink and the like. He was generous to his friends. When this is said, about all is said on that side. Apart from these things he gave himself up for forty years to the indulgence of all his passions without let or hinderance from parental authority, domestic bonds, fear of God or regard for man. So that the adverse power of evil habit, strengthened by forty years of indulgence, was superimposed upon the moral helplessness of an inherited bad nature made worse by bad education and bad associations.

Such he was. The preceding pages have described in part what he is. And only in part. The uttermost details of the purity of his life since October, 1877, could not be stated without violating delicacy any more than the uttermost details of his sinful life could be uncurtained without injuring the innocent and offending the public. The candid reader will bridge for himself the past and present of Mr. Holcombe's life. These are the facts. And these facts are freely and fully recognized by all classes of the community in which he lives his daily life. Thousands of eyes have watched him for years and no one has detected any immoral practice or act or found any fault of a serious nature in him.

Candor requires us to say that he is sometimes over-sensitive, that he has his own views as to the best methods of conducting his work and is sometimes a little domineering in carrying them out; that he sometimes uses unnecessary harshness in his public addresses in dealing with the sins and shortcomings of people, especially of the converts of the Mission, a thing which is probably due to his over-anxiety for them; that he has not yet learned economy and the best way of conducting his financial affairs, and that owing to his own former wicked life he would be a trifle too severe in the control of his family but for the good sense and prudent firmness of his wife. But these are minor matters and when they are said, about all is said on that side.

And Mr. Holcombe has come to occupy a unique and commanding position in the city of Louisville. All classes respect him, all classes look up to him and people from all classes seek his counsel and aid in certain emergencies.

Mothers in distress over the sins of their sons, sisters in sorrow over the dissipation of their brothers, wives in despair over the wickedness of their husbands, all these go to Steve Holcombe for advice, comfort, encouragement and help; and when they can not go, they write; sometimes from distant places, as far away as Canada. The ministers of Louisville refer to him those extreme cases which they meet with in their ministry, and which they feel his experience and his knowledge of the ways and temptations of dissipated men enable him to handle, as a letter from Dr. Broadus and one from Dr. Willits, elsewhere reproduced, will show. And the dissipated men themselves, the drunkards, the gamblers, the outcast, the lost – all these feel that Steve Holcombe is their friend, a friend who has the willingness and the power to help them up, and they go to him when they are in distress or when they awake to a sense of their wretched condition and desire to rise again. And through his instrumentality many a one has risen again, and to many a mother, wife, sister, family, has come through him a resurrection of buried hope and joy.

And those gamblers who have never yet come to distress or to religion regard him with admiration and affection. The following letter from Mr. A. M. Waddill, one of the leading sporting men of the South, was written in answer to an inquiry as to how Mr. Holcombe is looked upon by the gamblers:

"Louisville, Ky., August 13, 1888.

"Rev. Gross Alexander:

"Dear Sir: In writing of my friend, Steve P. Holcombe, I will say that his adoption of the pulpit has not lowered him in the esteem of his former associates – the gamblers. Far from it. They are his admirers and his friends, and, when they have the funds, are as willing supporters of his work as any. They can not show him too much respect and can not exhibit a more profound love than is shown him every day by some one of his old companions. He has wielded a wonderful influence over them for good, both here and elsewhere, and has made many converts from their ranks, who could not have been influenced probably by any other minister of the Gospel. I myself have been, I am happy to say, wonderfully benefited by the influence of his benevolent character.

"Very respectfully yours,"A. M. Waddill."

The esteem in which he is held by the leading business men of the city is shown by the fact that the Board of Directors of the Mission is composed of such men as John A. Carter, J. P. Torbitt, L. Richardson, J. B. McFerran, R. J. Menefee, J. T. Burghard, H. V. Loving, Arthur Peter, John T. Moore, J. K. Goodloe, P. Meguiar, C. McClarty, W. T. Rolph, John Finzer, with P. H. Tapp as Treasurer.

He has the confidence and esteem of the officers both of the city and State, and he has a large influence with them.

The Mayor, the Chief of Police, and the Judges of the Courts recognize his usefulness, his ability and his efficiency by co-operating with him, as far as may be, and by adopting his views and suggestions as to the treatment of criminals charged with lesser crimes and misdemeanors.

The Governor, J. Proctor Knott, readily granted pardon to the only man for whom Mr. Holcombe ever asked it, and the testimony of this now happy man is given in this volume.

Not only is Mr. Holcombe thus in honor and demand at home; he is in demand all over the country. Until it came to be known that he would not leave his own work in Louisville, he was constantly receiving requests to attend or conduct meetings of one sort or another in all parts of Kentucky and in several other States.

Year before last, in the summer of 1886, he was, by appointment of the Governor of the State, a Commissioner from Kentucky in the National Convention of Corrections and Charities at Washington.

In the fall of 1887 he attended, by request, the Convention of Christian Workers of the United States and Canada, in the Broadway Tabernacle in New York City, and made two addresses, both of which are printed among his sermons in this book. He was appointed a member of the Executive Committee of that body, in which capacity he now serves.

But not only in direct results has the power of God been manifested through this instrument. Mr. Holcombe's conversion and work have had the effect of quickening the faith and zeal of all the churches of the city. It has not only drawn them nearer together in fostering and furthering a common enterprise into which they entered of their own motion, and without solicitation, but it has revived the languishing faith of all classes. Not only has the Gospel saved Steve Holcombe and others, he (let it be said reverently and understood rightly) has, in one sense, saved the Gospel. Many had lost faith in it. They thought it was an old, worn-out story. It had lost its novelty and vitality, and it had not the power it claimed to have. Its achievements were not equal to its pretensions. Some of the men who have been brought to a better life through Mr. Holcombe's instrumentality have said that, though they did not, out of respect for other people, publish the fact, they had lost all faith and were, at heart, utter infidels. Some of them continued to attend church and to give to the church of their means, and to give respectful attention to the preaching, but it was out of deference to relatives or respect for custom, or for mere Sunday pastime. But the conversion of Steve Holcombe, and the life he was living, arrested their thought, awakened inquiry and revived their faith, and many of these have been saved.

The conversion of these has in turn resulted in the conviction of others and so the stream has broadened and deepened. As Mr. Holcombe says in one of his addresses, "There is naturally in the minds of men a doubt as to the truth and divinity of the religion which fails to do what it proposes to do, and so in times of religious deadness men lose faith and unbelief gets stronger and more stubborn while they see no examples of the power of the Gospel to save bad men. But when bad men have been reached and quickened and made better through the Gospel, and this continues year after year, then the tide turns, and faith becomes natural and easy not to say contagious and inevitable."

These effects have demonstrated the reality of conversion in opposition to the view that it is an effect of the excitement of the imagination. "One hears," it is said, "the narration of the experience of others who claim to be converted, and he works at himself till he works himself up to the persuasion that he also has got it." But, as one of the converts in narrating his experience said, "Imagination could not take the whisky habit out of a man. It never did take it out of me. But the power of this Gospel which Steve Holcombe preaches has taken it out root and branch."

Another thing is shown also by the history of this work. A distinguished minister said once, "We must get the top of society converted and then we may expect to reach the lower classes." Mr. Holcombe, on the contrary, in accordance with the example and words of Jesus and of Paul, of Luther and of Wesley, has given his time and labor primarily and largely to the lower classes and the lost classes, and through these he has reached also the higher classes, exemplifying again what was said by the most apostolic man since the Apostles, that the Gospel "works not from the top down but from the bottom up."

If you should ask what is the explanation of Mr. Holcombe's success, it may be answered that it is due to three things. The extraordinary change which has taken place in his character and in his life arrests attention and produces conviction.

In the second place is his intense and pitying love for those who are not saved, and especially for those who, besides being most utterly lost, are, either by their own suspicions and fears or by the customs and coldheartedness of society, or both, shut out from all sympathy and opportunity. He has a very mother's love for poor, sinful, struggling souls, and he shows this not in words only or chiefly, but in service. Some account has already been given from one of the Louisville papers concerning his rescue of a man who had been drunk continuously for twenty-three years. To have preached temperance and morality and duty to this wild and degraded man would have been useless, to have told him of the love of God would, perhaps, have been no better. But when this far off love of God took concrete form in the person of Steve Holcombe and was brought nigh and made real in his brotherliness and gentleness and patience and service, it proved stronger than a twenty-three years' whisky habit and to-day this man, who lately dwelt apart from men like the man among the tombs and who was possessed by the demon of drink so that no man could bind him with bonds of morality or duty – this man is to-day clothed and in his right mind. And though he has not fully apprehended the way of salvation, he says, yet a transfiguration has taken place in him which is little short of miraculous. He says also that he has got some light on the question of personal religion. He is thoroughly honest and will not claim or profess what he has not. He says a man who has always gone slow in everything else can't go fast in getting religion.1

In the third place, Mr Holcombe's success is due to the character of his preaching. It is the simple Gospel, wherein two points are continually made and emphasized, the reality and tenderness of God's love for sinful men, even the worst, and the absolute necessity of regeneration and a holy life. Both these great truths he illustrates with fitness and force from his own life and that of the men who have been converted under his ministry. His sermons are so striking in their directness and simplicity, and so helpful withal, that some of them have been reproduced in outline in the present volume, and the reader who has never heard him may get some idea of his preaching from these, and, it is hoped, some profit as well.

Whatever men may say, the fact remains that when the Gospel is preached on apostolic conditions, it has still apostolic success.

In 1886, when Rev. Sam P. Jones was holding a meeting in Cincinnati, he said of Mr. Holcombe:

"Mr. Holcombe's work is finer than anything done since the death of Jerry McAuley. He is fully consecrated to the work of rescuing the perishing and saving the fallen. Hundreds of men, dug by him from the deepest depths of dissipation and degradation, are to-day clothed in their right minds. Some of the most efficient Christian men have passed through his Mission, at No. 436 Jefferson street, in Louisville. I feel that in helping Steve Holcombe, I shall be able to say, at least: 'Lord, if I did not do much when I was on earth, I did what I could to help Steve Holcombe, the converted gambler, in his mission work among men who never hear preaching, and to whom a helping hand is never extended.'

"There are mighty few men like Steve Holcombe to take hold of poor fellows and bring them back to a purer and better life."

In 1888, during a great temperance meeting in Louisville, Mr. Francis Murphy said of Mr. Holcombe:

"Of all the noble men I know, he is one of the noblest, and Louisville may well be proud of the grand, big-hearted Christian man, who, in his quiet, unassuming manner is doing such a world of good here."

Mr. D. L. Moody, during his great meeting in Louisville, in the months of January and February, 1888, said of Mr. Holcombe:

"I have got very much interested in a work in your city conducted by a man you call Steve Holcombe. I don't know when I met a man who so struck my heart. I went up and saw his headquarters and how he works. He is doing the noblest work I know of. I want you to help him with money and words of cheer. Remember, here in Louisville you make so many drunkards that you must have a place to take care of the wrecks. Steve Holcombe rescues them. Let us help him all we can."

And Mr. Holcombe's work is not done. He is in the vigor of life, with fifteen or twenty years of life and service, God willing, before him. He is only beginning to reap the results of these ten years of study and these ten years of Christian living and working. He knows the Gospel better than he ever did before, and he preaches it better. He knows himself and God better than he ever did before, and he lives nearer the Source of Power. He knows men good and bad, better than he ever did before, and he deals with them in all states and stages more wisely and successfully.

He is of that nervous and Intense temperament which can not rest without getting something done, and he is always doing something to advance his work. And though so intensely in earnest, he is singularly, it is not at all too strong to say, entirely free from fanaticism. He is in high esteem, with large influence at home and abroad, and this he does not prostitute to selfishness, but uses for usefulness.

And, best of all, he has tokens, not a few, in the form of discipline on the one hand, and success on the other, that God is guarding and guiding his Life and Work.

LETTERS

TO HIS FIRST PASTORLouisville, Ky., November 6, 1883.

My Dear Brother:

Our meetings continue in interest. Last night the Holy Ghost was with us in great power. At the close of the talk, we invited backsliders to come forward and kneel. Six responded. Then we invited all others who wanted to become Christians to come forward and nine others responded, most of them the most hardened sinners in the city. I am sure nothing but the power of God could have lifted them from their seats. Men who have fought each other actually embraced last night. Continue to pray for us.

Yours,S. P. Holcombe.TO THE SAME

Louisville, Ky., November 19, 1883.

Dear Brother:

Last night about two hundred persons were present, most of them non-churchgoers. About forty stood up for prayers. And oh, such good testimonies, no harangues but living testimonies as to what God can and will do for those who will let him.

Yours truly,

S. P. Holcombe.

TO THE SAMELouisville, Ky., November 21, 1883.

Dear Brother:

How grateful I am to you for all your kindness God alone knows. I may and do lack education and refinement, but I will not allow myself under any circumstances to lack gratitude. The results of our meetings prove to me that it is the work of the Holy Ghost. Of course, I could hardly believe you would come to Louisville even for a little while and not come to see me, one who has cost you so much of time and care. There was a time when I could not have stood it. But thanks to God I am now above letting small things or great things upset me. Give my love to your dear family.

Yours truly,S. P. Holcombe.TO THE SAMELouisville, Ky., February 3, 1884.

Dear Brother:

How I do wish you could have been where you could have looked in on us last night. The room was full. They had to be turned away from the door. And they were so anxious to hear the glad tidings. No carpet, nothing to deaden the sound and yet you could have heard a pin drop. All the churches are feeling the results of our work. Yesterday G. H. joined the Christian church. He seems to be a thoroughly converted man, if I know one. P. D., whom you know, came in here about a week ago under the influence of liquor. Said "I am an infidel and a drunkard. Pray for me." We did pray for him. He has been coming ever since. He is now perfectly sober and says he was never so moved before. These are two out of many cases.

Yours truly,S. P. Holcombe.TO THE SAMELouisville, Ky., February 7, 1884.

Dear Brother:

Your kind favor received. P. D. comes every night and sometimes speaks. He is not drinking. He says he can not believe. He does so pitifully and pleadingly ask for the prayers of Christian people. He is in earnest. Pray for him.

C. T. testified last night. He was a schoolmate of yours. He said: "For the last five years, when I would meet Brother Holcombe, I would say to myself: 'I wish he would say good day, and pass on.' But he would not. He generally had something to say about the way I was living. Of late, every time he has met me he has invited me to the Mission. I would promise to go, but went, instead, to some bar-room, until I wound up by losing my position, being sent to the work-house, and being left by a loving wife. Two weeks ago he met me again, and this time I kept my promise. I have been coming every night since, and have not touched liquor since, and by God's help I do not expect to do so any more. I enjoy the meetings so much. The two hours I spend here seem so short."