I made known my plans to my former pastor, and he became interested and promised to help me. He was living in the country, and hardly ever attended the preachers' meeting here on Mondays; but it happened on the next Monday after I told him of my purpose that he was at the preachers' meeting, and, on my name being mentioned by some one present, he took occasion to speak at length of my conversion, trials, poverty; my intense yearning to engage entirely in the work of God, and my immediate purpose to commence Gospel meetings in entire dependence on God alone for help. He went so far as to ask the preachers present to speak of the matter to their members and make an effort to get assistance from them for the expenses of my proposed work. But one of the preachers present, though saying very little at the time, was moved to lay before his official board a proposition not to _assist_ in paying the expenses of such a plan of work, but to take me from the Fire Department and pay me a regular salary and defray all the other necessary expenses of such a Mission work as my heart was set on doing. And his official members were _also moved_ to agree to his proposition, and when he came to me and told me of what had taken place, I was constrained to say: "This is God's doing, and it is marvelous in my eyes." So the very thing I desired above all other things; the very thing I should have chosen if I could have had my wish, was brought to pass. And I saw that by waiting God's time, He rewarded me in granting me the desire of my heart, and meanwhile I had learned lessons of patience and preparation that I could not have learned so well anywhere else. (Mr. Holcombe went on to speak of the beginning of his work in the Tyler Block, with the assistance and co-operation of Rev. Mr. Morris; of the results accomplished during that first period; of the removal of the Mission to Jefferson street, between Fourth and Fifth streets, and the results accomplished there, and, lastly, of the removal to the present building, etc. See his life.) II. THE PRESENT.