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

by Gross Alexander

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]

[1] This man has, since the above was written, been brought into a clear experience of conversion, and is now a clean and happy Christian man.

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.