k when I joined the association there in the
second year of its existence, 1854. We met in a room in Stuyvesant
Institute and the heroic Howard Crosby was our president. We had no
library, or reading room, or gymnasium, or any of the appliances that
belong to the institutions of these days. After several migrations, our
association found its permanent home in the spacious building on
Twenty-third Street, to which Morris K. Jesup and William E. Dodge were
among the foremost contributors. The master spirit in the operations of
the New York Association for thirty years was Mr. Robert McBurney, who,
when he landed from Ireland, was only seventeen years of age. He was
among my evening congregation in the old Market Street Church. During my
seven years' pastorate in that church I delivered a great many
discourses and platform addresses on behalf of the association, and
through all of the subsequent years it has been a favorite object on
which to bestow my humble efforts. Here in Brooklyn a host of young-men
have found a moral shelter, and many of them a spiritual birthplace, in
the fine structure, reared largely from the munificent bequests of that
princely Christian philanthropist, the late Mr. Frederick Marquand. It
is not permitted to every good man or woman before they die to see the
glorious fruits of the trees they planted, but to the eyes of the
veteran George Williams the following facts must seem like a rehearsal
of heaven. The Young Men's Christian Association now belts the globe
with half a million of members, and ten times that number in some direct
connection with the organization. It is housed in hundreds of solid
structures which have cost between thirty and forty million
dollars--each one a cheerful home--_a_ place for physical development,
manly instruction and training for Christ's service.

It has brought thousands of young men from impenitence to Christ Jesus,
and made thousands of young Christians more like Jesus in their daily
life. The most effective lay preacher of the century, D.L. Moody,
confessed that in his training for spiritual work he owed more to the
Young Men's Christian Association than to any other human agency. It has
moulded the students of colleges and universities; it has been the
salvation of many a soldier and sailor; it has led many into the gospel
ministry; it has taught the whole world the beauty and power of a living
unity in Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit has set the Divine seal of