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."
"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?"
"I am a Methodist minister, and am just sent to the church in Portland, and you know it can not pay very much of a salary."
"That settles it then, sir," said Mr. Holcombe, with that abruptness and positiveness which are so characteristic of him, "I am a notorious gambler, and, of course, you would not want to live in a house of mine."
He expected that would be the end of the matter, and he looked to see the minister shrink from him and leave at once his presence and his house. On the contrary, the minister, though knowing nothing of Mr. Holcombe's recent reformation, yet seeing his sensitiveness, admiring his candor and hoping to be able to do him some good, laid his hand kindly on his shoulder and said:
"Oh no, my brother; I do not object to living in your house; and who knows but that this interview will result in good to us both, in more ways than one?"
Mr. Holcombe's impression was that ministers of the Gospel were, in their own estimation, and in fact, too good for gamblers to touch the hem of their garments, and that ministers had, for this reason, as little use and as great contempt for gamblers as the average gambler has, on the very same account, for ministers. But he found, to his amazement, that he was mistaken, and when the minister invited him to come to his church he said, not to the minister, yet he said:
"Yes, I will go, I never had a good man to call me 'brother' before. And he knows what I am, for I told him. I am so tired; I am so spent. Maybe he can tell me what to do and how to go. If Sunday ever comes, I will go to that man's church."
And when Sunday came the minister and the gambler faced each other again. With a great sense of his responsibility and insufficiency the preacher declared the message of his Lord, not as he wished, but as he could. To the usual invitation to join the church nobody responded. After the benediction, however, Mr. Holcombe walked down the aisle to the pulpit and said to the minister: "How does a man join the church?" He had not attended church for twenty-three years, and had been engaged in such a life that he had forgotten what little he knew. The minister informed him.