The Bay State Monthly — Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1884 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 149 pages of information about The Bay State Monthly — Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1884.

The Bay State Monthly — Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1884 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 149 pages of information about The Bay State Monthly — Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1884.

On the sixteenth day of April, 1883, the international committee, which had been superintending the work since 1865, was incorporated in the State of New York.  Cephas Brainerd, a lawyer of New York City, a direct descendant of the Brainerds of Connecticut, and present owner of the homestead, has always been chairman of the committee, and, from a very large practice, has managed to take an immense amount of time for this work, which has more and more taken hold on his heart,—­and here let me say that I know no work, not even that of foreign missions, which takes such a grip upon those who enter upon it.  Time, means, energy, strength, have been lavishly poured out by them.  Mr. Brainerd and his committee work almost as though it were their only work, and yet each member of the committee is one seemingly fully occupied with his business or professional duties.  See the members of the Massachusetts committee, so fired with love for this work that, in the gospel canvasses of the State, after working all day, many of them give from forty to fifty evenings, sometimes traveling all night to get back to their work in the morning.  It is no common cause that thus draws men out of themselves for others.  Then, too, I greatly doubt where there are such hard-worked men as the general secretaries,—­days and evenings filled with work that never ends; the work the more engrossing and exacting because it combines physical and mental with spiritual responsibility.  We who know this are not surprised to find the strength of these men failing.  Those who employ them should carefully watch that relief is promptly given from time to time as needed.  There are now more than three hundred and fifty of these paid secretaries.  Now, look back over the whole history of the associations, and can you doubt that he who meets the wants of his creatures has raised up the organization for the express purpose of saving young men as a class?  And to do this he employs the church itself—­not the church in its separate organizations, but the church universal.  A work for all young men should be by the young men of the whole church.  First, because it is young manhood that furnishes the common ground of sympathy.  Second, because the appliances are too expensive for the individual churches.  Large well-situated buildings, with all possible right attractions, are simply necessary to success in this work.  These things are so expensive that the united church only can procure them.  That in Philadelphia cost $700,000; in New York, $500,000; in Boston, more than $300,000; in Baltimore, $250,000; in Chicago, $150,000; San Francisco, $76,000; Montreal, $67,000; Toronto, $48,000; Halifax, $36,000; West New Brighton, New York, $19,000; at the small town of Rockport, Massachusetts, about $4,000; and at Nahant, $2,000.  In all these are eighty buildings, worth more than $3,000,000, while as many more have land or building-funds.  Third, how blessedly this sets forth the vital unity of Christ’s church, “that they may all be one,” and also distinguishes them from all other religious bodies.  “Come out from among them and be ye separate.”

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The Bay State Monthly — Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1884 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.