eadfast sympathies and efforts of the Young
Men's Christian Associations of this country.

"Resolved, That the various means by which Christian associations can
gain a hold upon young men, and preserve them from unhealthy
companionship and the deteriorating influences of our large cities,
ought to engage our most earnest and prayerful consideration."

2. It is a Christian work. It stands upon the basis of the faith of the
church of all ages, which is thus set forth in the formula of this
organization.

The convention in 1856 promptly accepted and ratified the Paris basis,
adopted by the first world's conference of the associations, in the
following language:--

"The Young Men's Christian Associations seek to unite those young men
who, regarding Jesus Christ as their God and Saviour, according to the
Holy Scriptures, desire to be his disciples in their doctrine and in
their life, and to associate their efforts for the extension of his
kingdom among young men."

This was reaffirmed in the convention of 1866 at Albany. In 1868, at the
Detroit convention, was adopted what is known as the evangelical test,
and at the Portland convention of 1869 the definition of the term
evangelical; they are as follows:--

"As these associations bear the name of Christian, and profess to be
engaged directly in the Saviour's service, so it is clearly their duty
to maintain the control and management of all their affairs in the hands
of those who love and publicly avow their faith in Jesus the Redeemer as
divine, and who testify their faith by becoming and remaining members of
churches held to be evangelical: and we hold those churches to be
evangelical which, maintaining the Holy Scriptures to be the only
infallible rule of faith and practice, do believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ (the only begotten of the Father, King of kings and Lord of
lords, in whom dwelleth the fulness of the Godhead, bodily, and who was
made sin for us, though knowing no sin, bearing our sins in his own body
on the tree) as the only name under heaven given among men, whereby we
must be saved from everlasting punishment."

But while the management is thus rightly kept in the hands of those who
stand together upon the platform of the church of Christ, the benefits
and all other privileges are for all young men of good morals, whether
Greek, Romanist, heretic, Jew, Moslem, heathen, or infidel. Its field,
the world. Wherever there are young men, there is the associa