The next week I went to New Albany; and I was told to leave the town, and I left the town under the escort of two policemen. To such abject wretchedness was I reduced, I could not endure to stay among friends, and I was in such a plight strangers could not endure me among them. But once I was coming down the street, and heard the singing in the Holcombe Mission; and I was considerably touched to think that I had come through the religious training of a Christian home and of church and Sunday-school; and that is all it amounted to. I went that evening to the courthouse steps, and heard Mr. Holcombe preach there; and from that day to this I have not drank a single drop; and it is only through God's grace that I realize that I am able to resist temptation. I felt that I was not worth anything; I felt that there was no power in myself. My skepticism all melted away. The view I took of it was that if God could help Holcombe, he could and would help such a one as I. I knew Mr. Holcombe very well. When I was deputy sheriff, I had a warrant for his arrest one time from Franklin county, and went there armed, knowing his dangerous reputation. I thought if Holcombe could be saved, there certainly was some hope for me, and under the inspiration of that hope I turned to God. It was my last and only hope. But it was not disappointed, for He has saved me. I remember the first time I went up to be prayed for; I felt that I would from that time have strength--I had no doubt that I would have it from that time on. It was in the back room of the old mission. I felt--I don't know why it was--I felt then and there that, by God's help, I would make a man of myself; and I went out with that feeling, although I had been under the influence of liquor for months before. I can not say that I had no appetite for it, but I had strength to resist it. That was the 25th of June, 1883. I would do anything for whisky when I wandered around. I did not gamble, but I was licentious. I lived for nothing else; I had no other aim in life but to gratify my passions, and I would adopt any extreme to do it, and did do it. I left nothing untouched--I would sell my coat to gratify my passions. If I wanted a drink of whisky and my hat would pay for it, I would let it go. Once, on coming back from New Orleans, my mother gave me a suit of clothes; and I did not keep that suit of clothes three days. All of the time I was tramping around, my mother was living in Louisville, worth seventy-five thousand dollars. She was willing to do anything for me, and suffered much because of my wicked ways. I remember on one occasion, when I left her to go to Denver, Colorado, she begged me to stay at home, and reminded me how she would suffer from anxiety about me, day and night, till I should return. But I had just been released from jail for drunkenness and I did not want to stay in Louisville. So I left my mother in sorrow and despair.