An analytical sketch of the Young Men's Christian Association in North America from 1851 to 1876...

Contents

PAGE

Sketch of the Author 5

Outlook for the Twentieth Century 9

Preface to Essays 43

The Work of the Associations 45

Improvement of the Social Condition of Young

Men 51

The Work of the Association in Small Towns . . 62

Qualifications for Active Membership 70

Self-Elevation 74

Articles Published in The Christian at Work 81

Articles Published in The Association Monthly 109

Progress of the Movement since 1875 139

Comparative Statistical Table 148

Report of the International Committee, 1899 149

SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR

BY CEPHAS BRAINERD

Verranus Morse, M. D., the author of the following essays and papers, was born at Springfield, N. H., November 20, 1818, and was graduated from Dartmouth College in 1845, receiving the degree of A. B. He studied medicine at the New York University, receiving the degree of M. D. in 1849, an d in that year he located in New York City. Subsequently, he united with the Market Street Church, then under the pastorate of the Rev. Theodore L. Cuyler, D. D., and about the same time, became a life member of the Young Men's Christian Association of New York City. He became a member of its board of directors in i860, and in 1862, still continuing as a member of the board, he was elected treasurer, holding that office for four years.

He was a delegate from that association to the Boston, Philadelphia, Albany and Montreal international conventions, and was a member of the International Committee from 1869 to 1875. In all these positions he was active, attentive, and exceedingly useful. It hardly need be said that this period of official activity embraced practically the most trying time in the history of the associations on this continent. Indeed when Dr. Morse became the treasurer of the New York association its fortunes were at the lowest ebb. It was in debt, it was not popular, its membership had diminished, and it was proposed by some of the friends of the association to abandon the effort. Dr. Morse was convinced of the value of the institution, insisted strongly upon its continuance, and offered the earliest pledge received, giving what he deemed his proper proportion for the payment of the outstanding debts. The debts were paid, and the association of New York City started at that time upon its unexampled career of prosperity and usefulness.

The conditions under which the associations were then prosecuting their work and the opinions in the religious communities respecting them were such that it became necessary for the friends of the movement to study its conditions and possibilities attentively, reasonably and philosophically, in order to argue the cause of Christ among young men not only with prudence, but also with ability and thoughtfulness.

It is not too much to say that Dr. Morse rendered a large and most liberal service in this regard, and that his written contributions to the development of the association idea exceed in frequency and value those of any other person who had in those early days a part in the work No one can fully understand the conditions which then prevailed and the necessities which were upon the friends of the association in those days without a careful study of Dr. Morse's valuable papers, and for this study these which he has preserved and which are now printed are admirably adapted. The friends of these institutions w T ho wish a real knowledge of their history will surely appreciate the papers as a substantial contribution to the history of the associations. And so Dr. Morse, loved dearly as a friend and instructor by his associates, will still be an important contributor to the advancement of a now victorious cause, a cause to which he gave his best thought and prodigally of his time in the earlier days of struggle and trial.

OUTLOOK AT THE BEGINNING

OF THE TWENTIETH

CENTURY

THE YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSO- CIATION, THE SKIRMISH LINE OF THE CHURCH

Standing on the threshold of the twentieth century and viewing the many young people's Christian societies doing earnest Christian work with the hearty approval of their churches, we are made aware that the church has taken a long step forward since the organization of the Young Men's Christian Association fifty years ago.

The cause of the long delay of this advance movement until the middle of the nineteenth century may be found enfolded in the educational history of previous centuries. The method of teaching which had long prevailed failed to educate. In the schools of all grades, from the primary to the academy and the college, and in the Sunday schools through all of their departments, text books were used containing questions and answers ; the pupils committed these to memory and while the teachers read to them the questions they recited the answers ; and though these answers might enshroud facts or embalm rules, these facts and rules were ultimate and not germinal. They were powerless to teach anything or awaken faculties that would enable pupils to devise anything in advance of what was already known or which slow, creeping experience could reach.

But in the latter decades of the first half of the nineteenth century the schools sloughed off the methods of teaching which they inherited, slightly improved from past ages, and adopted a method designed to develop the intellectual faculties. Independent thinking was cultivated and the reasoning powers were trained and strengthened. The old method made a storehouse of the memory, the new makes a manufacturing establishment of the intellectual powers. By the one a man may starve with his barn full of corn, while by the other he will have bread enough and to spare.

Christian young men, educated both in the secular and the Sunday schools by the new method, were prepared to do successful Christian work while still young ; and by such men and for such work the Young Men's Christian Association was organized in America in 1851. But members of the church who had been taught by the old method and who remembered that they had ventured to attempt to do Christian work only after long experience in Christian living, and who had been accustomed to hear the voices of the old men only in the prayer meetings of the church, feared that these young men were urged on by youthful presumption and believed that their zeal should be held in check by the church until overtaken by a larger measure of Christian knowledge and experience.

When D. L. Moody first began to speak in the prayer meetings of the church of which he was a member he was assured by an official member of the church that he would serve God better by keeping still. But such discouraging fears, beliefs and assurances have ceased to be fashioned into words and dropped in the pathway between young Christians and Christian work. They are no longer expected to preach like Paul or speak as to angels but as young Christians to their young companions.

After a few years of general Christian work in the church and in the city mission fields the association became convinced by a closer study of its constitution and the example of the London association that, in addition to the work of its active members in the churches of which they were members, it was organized to do a special church work for young men. It saw that while young men in the homes of their parents surrounded with Christian influences could be reached by the church with its usual methods, clerks and young men in business establishments ii in large cities, living in boarding houses far from home and its guardian care, could seldom be reached by the church in its ordinary services, but if at all only by its members as individuals. And active members of the association who are fellow clerks or fellow boarders with these young men and who meet them individually day by day are able by kind Christian words and by' their Christian walk and conversation, and by the hospitality of the association rooms, to persuade them to accept the gospel offer of salvation, and thus come within the spiritual influence and membership of the church. This is the special work which the association has been successfully doing for the last fifty years and today the church is convinced of the value of the association as its skirmish line in situations and conditions which it is unable to reach with its heavy battalions.

And Christian young people, young men, young women and the juniors, influenced and encouraged by the example and success of the Young Men's Christian Association, have organized Christian societies of various names in their respective churches, and in obedience to the injunction, "Go work today," they are doing earnest and efficient work among their young companions and others within their reach.

And Christian children, instead of waiting for the wisdom of age, take the joyful message, "Suffer little children to come unto me," to their playmates, and capture their hearts with the loving words of the Master and bear them away to the arms of Jesus.

And the results of this work of young Christians are shown by the increasing number of young people and children that are received into the membership of the churches year after year. Behold what God hath wrought in this our day !

ANALYTICAL SKETCH

Young Men's Christian Associations were organized in Montreal and Boston in 185 1 and in many other cities in the United States and British Provinces in the next few years. Their primary purpose was the spiritual improvement of young men, while intellectual, social and physical improvement was secondary to this and in some measure auxiliary to it.

The church and the association were separate organizations, each having its own constitution, by-laws and officers, and their relations were not readily adjusted on a working basis.

For many generations pastors in country towns had stood in their pulpits and had said "Come," and multitudes of young men had come to the sanctuary with fathers and mothers and had accepted the offers of eternal life. But the growing cities with their business facilities and ready employment drew young men away from their homes in the country and from foreign countries ; and this change in their condition and surroundings called for additional methods of Christian work to reach them. It was in obedience to this call that the Young Men's Christian Association came into existence, though it came not to displace the wise master builders of the church but to be their helper. It was the development of a latent force which the church had long suffered to be dormant in its membership.

But advance movements of the church are seldom made by the whole of its membership at the same time ; a few go forward in the beginning as if moved by inspiration, while others follow gradually as they are convinced or persuaded, either by line upon line and precept upon precept or by the logic of events.

So the Young Men's Christian Association was not organized with the simultaneous approval of the whole church. Some of its members believed that by means of the association the church would be able to reach certain classes of young men in great cities which it could not reach by its usual methods; others failed to see anything in the social relations of young men, or in the character and habits of society in cities, that called for methods of church work different from those that had long been used with success in the country. But even if some change was needed, it was not seen why it should be made by associations of young men under the leadership of officers of their own selection and by methods of their own devising with no direct supervision of the church. Some believed that association interests would draw young men away from their church duties and thus cripple the church and also deprive them of its watchful care, while others, looking upon Young Men's Christian Associations as outside bodies neither officially organized nor controlled by the church, feared that such associations clothed with unguided responsibility might be led to trespass upon the prerogatives of the church, or at least that the church might be compromised by their indiscretion. For though the association was recognized as a Christian association and its active membership was composed of church members and the church had no lack of confidence in the Christian character of the members of the association, still it feared that their Christian experience was too immature to justify their attempt to do Christian work unguided by the hand of the church. Yet there were fields in which the associations by earnest, but independent Christian work, not as competitors of the church but as companies of its own workmen using instruments fitted for the work the Master sent them to do, outreached the church's guiding hand and excited the jealousy of Christians whose experience bore the stamp of years.

It was two decades before the whole church escaped from the bondage of these fears which virtually debarred the associations from fully embodying in their work the primary purpose for which they were organized, since they had no thought of disloyalty to the church and were unwilling to do anything that could excite its fears.* But an advance movement of the church is liable to be embarrassed not only by members who oppose it or stand aloof from it but by those who have plans of their own and expect it to identify itself with their plans.

The young men who organized the association in America, having little or no practical experience in association work, formulated a constitution based upon that of the London association and undertook to develop their work from their constitution ; but different interpretations of it, or different beliefs or purposes regardless of it, brought two parties into the association. One party believed that it was the purpose of the association to work for the spiritual improvement of young men who, especially in large cities, were not reached readily by the church with its customary methods. The other party was in the membership of the association because it believed that the purpose of the association was to teach the young men of the church to do more Christian work than the church was teaching them to do, but they believed that the work

*A leading pastor of this city (New York) said: "When the Young Men's Christian Associations began their work the churches were inclined to look upon them in much the same way that passengers, during the days of the stage coach, were wont to regard some mysterious stranger, who on a rainy cheerless night, hailed the lumbering coach from the wayside and insisted on pushing himself into the already crowded vehicle. Nor even now have all traces of this suspicion and annoyance disappeared from the minds of many brethren in our church." — You?ig Men's Christian Association Monthly, page 58, 1870.

should be general Christian work and that it should be done by the ordinary church methods. Thus the church work of the members of the association was mistaken for their association work and the spiritual growth which rewards young men by whom church work is done was mistaken for the conversion and spiritual improvement of young men. Though this was a progressive party it was more than fifteen years before it overtook the constitution of the association, caught sight of its true purpose, and laid hold of its specific work, while by failing to see how the association with its simple methods could reach its high ideals, and by striving to substitute purposes within the scope of its own vision for the grand purposes of the association, it hindered its work and delayed its progress. Thus the church, by a fraction of its membership outside of the association and another fraction within it, stunted the young life of the association, the former by the conservatism of fear and the latter by the presumption of ignorance.

But the association was not destined so to end, for while Mr. George Williams was the inspired contractor who laid the foundation of the parent association, God Himself was the architect and failure was no part of His plan.

Though the whole active membership of the association was within the church and though many eminent pastors and church members were within the association, still both the church and the association had much to learn before they could see eye to eye and work hand to hand and accomplish that which they were set apart to do.

The association needed to learn that its primary work was the personal work of its active members with young men individually for their salvation ; and the church needed to learn that the Young Men's Christian Association was a band of loyal church members and that the association's primary purpose was the conversion of young men and the promotion of their growth in grace and in Bible knowledge. The church needed to learn to encourage its members who had a love and an aptitude for some special Christian work, to unite and make a specialty of such work, since congenial associates, love of their work and the skill derived from experience would greatly increase their efficiency; and as the education of both church and association needed to be practical, God gave them experience for a school master in order that work and education might go forward together.

But as yet a large proportion of the church membership believed that if the associations were needed at all, they were needed to do general church work rather than any special work of their own selection. Many members of the association believed that such work was proper association work and some would willingly do such work who could not be induced to do personal work individually, for a young Christian needs more seK denial and more of the spirit of the Master to conduct a prayer meeting with an irreligious young man in his own room than a whole devotional committee does to conduct a general prayer meeting in a religious community.

So the associations undertook to vindicate their right to live and their willingness and ability to do Christian work by organizing mission Sunday schools, by conducting preaching services on street corners and prayer meetings in neglected neighborhoods, and by visiting prisons, penitentiaries, hospitals, almshouses and homes for the aged, for Bible reading and religious conversation with their inmates.

Although this was not the work they were called to do; yet it was their primary school. They were teaching their whole membership to do Christian work by beginning with something which all w T ere willing to do; and useful work was done and valuable experience was gained though in other fields than their own.

The church, too, was taught to let them work, since what they were doing was general church work, and they never claimed such work as their own province, but took it up and laid it down with equal facility, and the church contented itself with commending them when they did well and snubbing them when they seemed to it to be meddlesome. The associations meanwhile were working thus like day laborers whenever and wherever they could find employment, doing one thing in one place and something else in another and not knowing what they might do next.

William Chauncy Langdon, of Washington, devised a plan for uniting them in a confederation for the purpose of securing more intimate relations between them and a closer correspondence in their practice with the theory of their constitution. In the way of such union three widely differing obstacles were found : —

First — the difficulty of adjusting a satisfactory basis of representation, a basis which would subject neither the smaller associations to the control of the larger, nor the few large ones to the more numerous small ones.

Second — the opposition of associations whose members, looking at their work from the church point of view, believed that it was any Christian effort which seemed to be needed in their own towns or cities, and thought that a confederation with its conventions and committees would have a tendency to withdraw the associations from such local work and from the influence of their home churches to special work for young men under the guidance of a central organization.

Third — the slavery question. But Mr. Langdon persevered in spite of these obstacles and after nearly two years of persistent effort a convention of thirty-seven delegates from nineteen associations met in Buffalo, June 7, 1854. But so slightly were the minds of these delegates impressed with the importance of union, that the whole scheme was rejected the first day of the convention. The next day, however, this decision was reversed and a confederation, a central committee, and an annual convention were provided for when this action should be endorsed by twenty-two associations. The approval of the required number was secured and the second annual convention met in Cincinnati, September 19, 1855.

Such was the origin of the annual conventions which have since proved themselves a guiding and propelling power of no small force in association work at home and abroad.

The Buffalo convention eluded the first and second obstacles to union by providing that neither the convention nor any of its agencies should have any authority to commit any association to any proposed plan of action until approved by said association. Armed with a veto power like that the smallest or the weakest association was safe from molestation by any other association however strong, or any combination of associations however numerous. The convention also commended the general Christian work which the associations were already doing.

But the third obstacle perplexed the first convention and every subsequent one until it was struck down with the blood-stained battle-ax of civil war.

The aspects of the slavery question as they were viewed by different men at that time were manifold and diverse. The slaveholder looked upon slavery as an institution sanctioned by the Bible and guaranteed by the state. His whole manner of life was adjusted to it and his character and habits were molded by it. The slave was his working capital and the source of his income and he was not prepared to submit tamely to any interference with what he believed to be his vested rights, interference that would destroy or derange property values or turn the current of his life into untried channels. And there were merchants, manufacturers and others who believed that the views of the slaveholder were wrong, yet coveted the patronage made possible and profitable by slavery and were unwilling that anything should be done to wound the slaveholder's feelings or jeopardize his income. Many, however, believed that slavery was a curse, both to the enslaved and to the nation, and that immediate and persistent efforts should be made to abolish it, while others, having no strong convictions on the subject, were ready to postpone the settlement of the problem. Views and beliefs so discordant in themselves were still further ensnarled by political complications. Pro-slavery, anti-slavery, free soil, republican, democratic, and other parties wrangled together over the slavery question for political supremacy.

These are specimens of some of the aspects of this question as they were seen in the days when God was hurrying slavery to its doom, and all of these fears, beliefs and inharmonious interests were represented in the associations. On the slavery question in the years previous to the war men were emphatic in their own beliefs and sensitive to the beliefs of others — a mood not easily controlled or even guided by reason. There were associations that refused to enter into any confederation unless their beliefs on the slavery question could be placed on its records, thus showing that in associating with others of different beliefs they in no way compromised their own. Such recording of sentiment was manifestly impossible, for no resolution or statement could be framed that would satisfy one association without exciting the indignation of some other. Even individual associations could not place resolutions touching slavery on their own records without hearing themselves called political clubs and seeing withdrawals from their membership and a shrinkage of income.

A confederation was made possible only on the unformulated understanding that all reference to slavery should be avoided, both in the articles of confederation and in the meetings of the conventions. But this was no easy task, for there were men who believed that it was their privilege, if not their duty, to bear witness against slavery whenever they stood before an audience and there were others equally ready to be heard in its defence. And it required men quick to perceive and swift to act to keep these men otherwise occupied during the sessions of the conventions. All honor is due to the men who conducted these ante helium conventions so wisely that when the war was over the associations from the North and the South, the East and the West, from the states and provinces met together as lovingly and sung their parting hymn,

"Blest be the tie that binds Our hearts in Christian love,"

as sincerely as though the slaveholder and the abolitionist had fought side by side instead of face to face.

In the superheated discussions of the slavery problem before it was solved by the war, the church was often blamed for inaction. It was believed by some that with its numerical strength, its unity of purpose and its moral power, it ought to be able to secure the adjustment of such questions, and that it might do so were it not demoralized and disabled by denominational differences. Many lost confidence in the church. Even old men who had long served it as office bearers and young men in the theological seminaries preparing to preach the gospel, "kicked off their denominational shackles," as they somewhat spitefully declared, and anxiously watched and waited for an undenominational church, free from rivalries and jealousies. As the associations were undenominational within evangelical limits and were engaged in Christian work of all kinds and among all classes, and as the associations from all parts of the country met together in council and worked in harmony, association men whose knowledge of the special purpose and work of the association was too scant to ballast their zeal were impressed with the idea that the association might be the coming undenominational church. They believed, however, that it was to supersede the church, not for the purpose of solving questions of state, but to evangelize the world.

In the convention which met in Troy, July 13, 1859, "some speakers went so far as to say that the churches had wholly failed; that their divisions had put it out of their power to evangelize the world and that the associations had therefore been raised up to do this work in their stead. Others were content with insisting that as a Christian body we were bound to do any Christian work that we could."*

But the spirit that inspired these revelations was not inherent in the associations, and its stay with them was not prolonged ; it was disloyal alike to the church and to the association.

Speculations like these, however, and the con-

* The early story of the confederation of the Young Men's Christian Associations by Rev. Wm. Chauncy Langdon, D. D., page 43.

federation of the associations rekindled the fears of cautious men. who, contemplating the possibilities aside from probabilities, seemed to see visions of danger. So far the associations had done nothing worthy of serious condemnation. How could they under the guiding influence of such men as Mr. George H. Stewart, of Philadelphia, or Prof. Howard Crosby, of Xew York? But there were fears that under the leadership of ambitious and unscrupulous men they might be led to assume church functions or to become a new political party, or at least to become the balance of power between existing parties.

These dangers, however, were only imaginary, for the associations had neither machinery nor motor power capable of running or wrecking churches or political parties. They could not., alone, even run themselves. Their income from the annual dues of members was so meager that they were compelled to depend upon the contributions of the churches and the subscriptions of business men to meet the current expenses. So if they attempted to organize or aid any movement that might compromise business interests or to meddle with questions which the church believed should be adjudicated by church courts rather than by unauthorized young men, the church or the community could readily silence them by simply doing nothing.

From the first individual churches aided the associations hoping that by the Christian work done the associations would in some way benefit and increase the usefulness of young men, but the aid given was tentative, for work by association methods was an untried experiment in this country and the associations themselves were untested agencies.

When, however, it became possible from the lapse of time to count results instead of expectations, the question, "Has the association any well-defined mission that makes its existence desirable or its support advisable?" was asked by many, inquiringly by some, but with a negative implication by others.

However, this question, though so imposing, was baseless. The work out of which the results grew was general Christian work which the association had been induced to do, but which it was never organized to do, while the expectations were based on a special work which it was the mission of the association to do, but which . it had been induced to leave undone. Between the results and the expectations, between the work the association had done and its mission, there was no relationship, neither were there any elements of comparison. Apparently it had been forgotten that the association had been turned aside from its own specific mission from the first, and this forgetfulness, together with the chorelike character of much of the work it had been doing, left room for the impression that it had been honestly weighed and found wanting.