"Then," said he, "may I join your church?"
"You are welcome, and more than welcome," replied the minister, and the people wondered.[46]
"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."[47]
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[48] 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
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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, per-plexed on life's threshold[49] 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:
"Well reported of for good works; If she have brought up children,
If she have lodged strangers,
If she have washed the saints' feet,
If she have relieved the afflicted,
If she have diligently followed every good work."
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.[50] 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 an-swer 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[51] 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