The Bay State Monthly — Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1884 by Various
page 52 of 165 (31%)
page 52 of 165 (31%)
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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; |
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