Gross Alexander - Steve P. Holcombe, the Converted Gambler - His Life and Work

After spending a short time at Atlanta, he went to Hot Springs, Arkansas, and then again to Louisville, where he opened a faro bank and once more settled down for life, as he thought. At any rate for the first time in his life he thought of saving a little money , and he did so, investing it in some houses in the West End. Poor man! he had wandered nearly enough. He had almost found that rest can not be found, at least in the way he was seeking it, and the time was approaching when he would be prepared to hear of another sort and source of rest. Until he should be prepared, it would be vain to send him the message. To give the truth to some people to-day would be to cast pearls before swine, to give it to them to-morrow may be re-clothing banished princes with due tokens of welcome and of royalty. To have told Steve Holcombe of Christ yet awhile would probably have excited his wonder and disgust; to tell him a little later will be to welcome a long-lost, long-enslaved and perishing child to his Father's house and to all the liberty of the sons of God.

So he thought of saving a little money and of investing in some cottages in the west end of Louisville. And God was thinking, too, and He was thinking thoughts of kindness and of love for the poor wicked outcast. He was more than thinking, He was getting things ready. But the time was not yet. A few more wanderings and the sinning one, foot-sore, heart-sore and weary will be willing to come to the Father's house and rest. Truth and God are always ready, but man is not always ready. "I have many things to say to you, but you can not bear them now."

His income at Louisville at this time was between five and seven thousand dollars a year. He had a large interest in the bank and some nights he would take in hundreds of dollars. But he could not be contented. The roving passion seized him again, and in company with a young man of fine family in Louisville, who had just inherited five thousand dollars, he set out on a circuit of the races. But in Lexington, the very first place they visited, they lost all they had, including the young man's jewelry, watch and diamond pin. They got more money and other partners and started again on the circuit and they made money. At Kalamazoo, Michigan, Mr. Holcombe withdrew from the party, just for the sake of change, just because he was tired of them; and in playing against the faro banks at Kalamazoo he lost all he had again. Then he traveled around to different places playing against faro banks and "catching on" when he could. He visited Fort Wayne, Cleveland, Utica, Saratoga and New York. At New York he was broke and he had become so disgusted with traveling around and so weary of the world that he determined he would go back to Louisville and settle down for life. He did return to Louisville and got an interest in two gambling houses, making for him an income again of five thousand dollars a year.

During all these years his faithful wife, though not professing to be a Christian herself, endeavored in all possible ways to lead her children to become Christians. She taught them to pray the best she could, and sent them to Sunday-school. After her first child was born she gave up those worldly amusements which before she had, to please her husband, participated in with him – a good example for Christian mothers. She was in continual dread lest the children should grow up to follow the father's example. She always tried to conceal from them the fact of his being a gambler. The two daughters, Mamie and Irene, did not, when good-sized girls and going to school, know their father's business. They were asked at school what his occupation was, and could not tell. More than once they asked their mother, but she evaded the question by saying, "He isn't engaged in any work just now," or in some such way. Mrs. Holcombe begged her husband again and again not to continue gambling. She says, "I told him I was willing to live on bread and water, if he would quit it." And she would not lay up any of the money he would give her, nor use any more of it than was necessary for herself and the children, for she felt that it was not rightly gotten. And because she would neither lay it up nor use it lavishly, she had nothing to do but let the children take it to play with and to give away. Under the training of such a mother with such patience, love and faith, it is no great marvel, and yet perhaps it is a great marvel, that Willie, the eldest child, notwithstanding the father's example, grew up to discern good, to desire good and to be good. While he was still a child, when his father came home drunk, the wounded and wondering child would beg him not to drink any more. Mrs. Holcombe says of him further, "When Willie would see his father on the street drinking, I have seen him, when twelve years old, jump off the car, go to his father and beg him with tears to go home with him. And I never saw Mr. Holcombe refuse to go."

In this way the boy grew up with a disgust and horror of drunkenness and drinking, and when in the year 1877 the great temperance movement was rolling over the country and meetings were held everywhere, and in Louisville also, though the boy had never drunk any intoxicating liquor in his life, he signed the pledge. He took his card home with his name signed to it, and when his father saw it, he was very angry about it. And yet, strange to say, on that very evening the father himself attended the meeting; and on the next evening he went again, in company with his wife. During the progress of the meeting he turned to his wife and said, "Mary, shall I go up and sign the pledge?" Concealing her emotions as best she could, lest the show of it might disgust and repel him, she replied, "Yes, Steve, Willie and I would be very glad if you would," and he did so.

Some time after that, Willie asked his father and mother if they would accompany him to the Broadway Baptist church in the city to see him baptized. While witnessing the baptism of his son, Mr. Holcombe made up his mind that he would quit gambling, and as he went out of the church, he said to his wife, " I will never play another card ."

Some friend of his who overhead the remark said to him, "Steve, you had better study about that." He answered, "No, I have made up my mind. I wish you would tell the boys for me that they may count me out. They may stop my interest in the banks. I am done."

His wife, who was hanging on his arm, could no longer now conceal her emotions, nor did she try. She laughed and cried for joy. God was saying to her, "Mary, thy toils and tears, thy sufferings and patience have come up for a memorial before me, and I will send a man who will tell thee what thou oughtest to do, and speak to thee words whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved."

Mr. Holcombe was as good as his word. He did give up gambling from that time. But he had had so little experience in business that he was at a great loss what to do. Finally, however, he decided to go into the produce and commission business as he had had some experience in that line years before in Nashville, and as that required no great outlay of money for a beginning. All the money he had was tied up in the houses which he had bought in Portland, the western suburb of Louisville. He was living in one of these himself, but he now determined to rent it out and to remove to the city that he might be nearer his business.

One day in October, 1877, a stranger entered his place of business, on Main street, and, calling for Mr. Holcombe, said: "I see you have a house for rent in Portland."

"Yes," said he, "I have."

"Well," said the stranger, "I like your house; but as my income is not large, I should be glad to get it at as low a rent as you can allow."

Mr. Holcombe replied: "I am rather pressed for money now myself, but maybe we can make a trade. What is your business?"