Mr. Francis O. Watts, of St. Paul's Episcopal Church, was the first president of this, the _first_ Young Men's Christian Association of the United States. It is a strange coincidence, easily understood by the Christian, that on the twenty-fifth of November, one month previous, without any knowledge on the part of Boston, the first Young Men's Christian Association of America had been organized at Montreal, in Canada. The constitution adopted was based upon that of the parent Association, and provided that, while any young man could be a member and enjoy all other privileges of the Association, only members of evangelical churches could hold office or vote. The reason for this was clear and right. Those who originated the parent Association, and those who formed this, believed in the doctrines of the Universal Church of Christ--in the loss of the soul and its redemption only by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ; nor could they be satisfied with any work for young men which did not at least aim at conversion. The chairman of the international committee thus speaks, in February last: "When any Association sinks the religious element and the religious object which it professes to hold high beneath secular agencies and powers, it ceases to deserve the name of Young Men's Christian Association. It belongs then to a class of societies of which we have many, and in which, as Christian young men looking to the conversion of our fellows as the supreme object, we have no special or peculiar interest." The tenth annual report thus speaks upon this point: "The tie which binds us together is a common faith. We hold this faith most dearly, and believe it to be essential, and therefore worthy to be protected by every means. We cannot be expected, surely, to do so suicidal a thing as to admit to the right of equal voice in the government of our society those who are directly opposed to the very essence of our being." [Illustration: NEW BUILDING.] The _benefits_ of the Association are for all--its _management_ alone is restricted. There are now nearly twenty-five hundred Associations in the world, all upon what is called the evangelical basis, and in the United States and British Provinces only Associations upon this basis have membership or representation in the International Organization, formulated in Paris, in 1855, thus:-- "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." It is a fact that whenever the attempt has been made, and it often has, in any Association, to give an equal right in the management to those who are not of our faith, that Association has either soon adopted our basis or ceased to exist.