o bear
upon their shoulders so important a trust. These men are known through
the city and indeed in distant parts of the country, as showing in their
lives a profound and conscientious conviction of the responsibility
which wealth and ability are under to the community. They are the best
representatives of a class who are destined to give a new character to
our city--men of broad and liberal views on matters of practical
religion, full of humanity, sensible and judicious, educated to
appreciate culture and art, as well as business, with the true
gentleman's sense of self-respect and respect for others, a profound and
earnest spirit of piety, and that old Puritan perseverance which causes
them not "to turn their hand from the plow," however disagreeable the
task before them may be. Such men, when once morally imbued with the
needs of a cause, could make it succeed against any odds.

Two or three men of their position, wealth, and ability, who should take
the moral interests of any class of our population on their hands, and
be in earnest in the thing, could not fail to accomplish great results.
When they began to appear in our Board, I felt that, under any sort of
judicious management, it was morally certain we should perfect a wide
and permanent organization, and secure most encouraging results.

A great service, which has been accomplished by these gentlemen, has
been in tabulating our accounts, and putting them under a most thorough
system of examination and checking, and in allotting our various
branches to each trustee for inspection. Many of the trustees, also,
have their religious meetings at the Lodging-houses, which they
individually lead and take charge of during the winter. They are thus
brought in direct contact with the necessities of the poor children.

To no one, however, is the public so much indebted as to our treasurer,
Mr. J. E. Williams.

For nearly twenty years this charity has been the dearest object of his
public efforts, the field of his humanity and religion. During all this
time he has managed gratuitously the financial affairs of the Society;
begged money when we were straitened, and borrowed it when temporarily
embarrassed; never for a moment doubting that, if the work were
faithfully done, the public would support it. At the end of this period
(1872), having spent over a million of dollars, and requiring now some
one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars per annum for our various
bra