In the providence of God the Fifth and Walnut-street church established the Holcombe Mission near where I lived, and among other waifs picked up on the street and taken to the Sunday-school were my children. While I had always been pretty bad myself, I had always tried to teach my children better. I shuddered at the thought of my boys going on in the way that I was going. When they went to Sunday-school and learned the songs there and came home and sang them, it broke me all to pieces. I had nothing left to do but to go and get drunk in self-defense. The Sunday-school teacher (Mrs. J. R. Clarke), who taught my children, had been trying to find me for a long time. She must have thought from seeing my children at Sunday-school that there was some good in me; and after awhile she sent me a Bible with a great many passages marked in it. She was looking for me and had sent for me to come and see her, and I had been trying to keep out of her way for a long time. Finally she found me at home one day, and would take no excuse, but insisted that I must come to Holcombe's Mission; and, of course, I promised to go, because I could not help myself. I could not get out of it; and if I had a redeeming trait in the world, it was that I would not break a positive promise. I promised her to come, and that day I did go. They were holding noon-day meetings at the time. I do not remember just now that I was very deeply impressed. I was of a skeptical turn of mind and very critical. I well remember I criticised all the testimonies given there; but the thing was so strange to me, so different from anything that I was used to, that I was very considerably impressed in a strange kind of way, which is unaccountable to me even now. I had taken a seat near the door, so that I might get out very quick; but Brother Holcombe headed me off, and caught me before I got to the door. I did not know him personally at that time, but had known of him for a long time. Of course, I could not get out of the Mission without promising to come again. After having come two or three times, I was asked to say something, but did not feel like saying anything. Finally I stood up one day, perhaps the third or fourth day I was there. It was not a time when they were asking people if they wanted an interest in their prayers. I got up and said I wanted an interest in their prayers that I might be saved from myself. I had known for a long time that I was helpless, so far as delivering myself from drink was concerned. I knew nothing about Christianity, in fact, I did not care much about it, because I had not studied on the subject, and would not study on the subject. For many years I had not dared to stop and think seriously about such a subject, but when I heard that the Gospel of Christ was able to deliver such a man as I, I heard it gladly, because I had found there was no earthly power that could deliver such a man as I was. In the meantime, I had