It has done more than any other single agency to develop the life and to train for service the energies of the youthful members of the churches It has yet still wider possibilities before it, and when the hand that planted this mighty tree has turned to dust its boughs will be shedding down the fruits of the Spirit on the dwellers in every clime.
One of the most striking improvements that I have witnessed has been in the sanitary condition, both physical and moral, of our great cities.
The conditions in New York, when I came to the pastorate of the Market Street Church almost fifty years ago, would seem incredible to the New Yorkers of to-day.

The disgusting depravities of the Fourth Ward, afterwards made familiar by the reformatory efforts of Jerry McCauley, were then in full blast, defying all police authority and outraging common decency.

The most hideous sink of iniquity and loathsome degradation was in the once famous "Five Points," in the heart of the Sixth Ward and within a pistol shot of Broadway.

At the time of my coming to New York public attention had been drawn to that quarter with the opening of the "Old Brewery Mission," and by the first planting of a kindred enterprise which grew into the now well-known "Five Points House of Industry." The brave projector of this enterprise was the Rev.
L.M.Pease, a hero whose name ought not to be forgotten.

As my church was just off East Broadway, and within a short walk of the Five Points, I took a deep interest in Mr.Pease's Christian undertaking, and aided him by every means in my power.