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 association field, and an extended work must be organized. Already in August, 1855, the importance of the work made conference necessary, and thirty-five delegates met at Paris, of whom seven were from the United States, and the same number from Great Britain.
In 1858, a second conference was held at Geneva, with one hundred and fifty-eight delegates. In 1862, at London, were present ninety-seven delegates; in 1865, at Elberfeld, one hundred and forty; in 1867, at Paris, ninety-one; in 1872, at Amsterdam, one hundred and eighteen; in 1875, at Hamburg, one hundred and twenty-five; in 1878, at Geneva, two hundred and seven,—forty-one from the United States; in 1881, in London, three hundred and thirty-eight,—seventy-five from the United States.
At the conference of 1878, in Geneva, a man in the prime of life, and partner in a leading banking-house of that city, was chosen president. He spoke with almost equal ease the three languages of the conference—English, French,
