Company. Here he found himself one of more than eighty young men, almost
none of them Christians. He found, however, among them a few professed
Christians, and these he gathered in his bedroom, to pray for the rest.
The number increased--a larger room was necessary, which was readily
obtained from Mr. Hitchcock. The work spread from one establishment to
another, and on the sixth of June, 1844, in Mr. Williams's bedroom the
first Young Men's Christian Association was formed.

In 1844, one association in the world: in November, 1851, one
association in America, at Montreal; in December, one month after, with
no knowledge on the part of either of the other's plan, one association
in the United States, at Boston. Was it a mere hap that these two groups
formed simultaneously the associations which were always to unite the
young Christian men of the two countries, and to grow together, till
to-day the little one has become a thousand?

Forty years ago, one little association in London: to-day Great Britain
dotted all over with them; one hundred and ninety in England and Wales;
one hundred and seventy-eight in Scotland, and twenty in Ireland. France
has eight districts, or groups, containing sixty-four associations.
Germany, divided into five _bunds_, has four hundred; Holland, its
eleven provinces, with three hundred and thirty-five; Romansch
Switzerland, eighty-seven; German Switzerland, one hundred and
thirty-five; Belgium, eighteen; Spain, fourteen; Italy, ten Turkey in
Europe, one, at Philippopolis; Sweden and Norway, seventy-one; Austria,
two, at Vienna and Budapesth; Russia, eight, among them Moscow and St.
Petersburg; Turkey in Asia, nine; Syria, five, at Beirût, Damascus,
Jaffa, Jerusalem, and Nazareth; India, five; Japan, two; Sandwich
Islands, one, at Honolulu; Australia, twenty-seven; South Africa, seven;
Madagascar, two; West Indies, three; British Guiana, one, at Georgetown;