George Williams was born in 1821, on an English farm in Dulverton, Someset.
Baptized Anglican, he described himself as "a careless, thoughtless, godless, swearing young fellow."
As a result, his family sent him away to the town of Bridgwater to apprentice at a draper's shop - a type of department store.
In 1837, Williams converted to Congregationalism and became an active member of the Zion Congregational Church.
At age 19, he moved to London to work as a cloth merchant at the Hitchcock & Rogers store, working his way up to be a manager.
Williams converted from the Anglican to the Congregational Church and began to seriously seek the Lord.
He attended Weigh House Congregational Church, and became active in evangelizing.
At this time, during the Industrial Revolution, 1760-1840, London was packed with young men who took the railroad from rural farms to work in the crowded city.
They labored 10 to 12 hours a day, six days a week.
Far from home, many lived at their workplace, stacked in rooms above company shops or in tenement building.
Streets had open sewers, drunks, thugs, beggars, pickpockets, gangs of abandoned children running wild, and sinful taverns with temptations of illicit love – all scenes depicted in Charles Dickens’ novel Oliver Twist, 1838.
George Williams wrote that young working men:
“… were treated ... as though formed only to labor and sleep ... without a moment for … devotional exercises which are necessary to the maintenance of a spiritual life."
He read Charles Finney's Lectures on Revival and was immediately motivated to give his life in service of the Lord.
Williams’ nephew, Sir John Ernest Hodder-Williams, wrote in a biography, 1918:
“And then ... enters the … startling figure of the Reverend Charles G. Finney, the American evangelist ...
When Finney was conducting his second campaign in London, George Williams attended …
To these printed lectures by Finney are certainly due much of the zeal and passion which produced the Young Men's Christian Association …”
He continued:
“In Finney's books you will find the secret, not only of George Williams' assurance of faith, but also of his absorbing passion for souls ...
to bring to Christ all with whom he came in contact; in season, out of season, always, everywhere, to preach Christ.”
On June 6, 1844, Williams, now 22-years-old, got a dozen young men meet above the drapery shop in London’s St. Paul's Churchyard to found the Young Men’s Christian Association, which he described as
"… a refuge of Bible study and prayer for young men seeking escape from the hazards of life on the streets."
Finney's Lectures on Revival also inspired William and Catherine Booth organized an army of volunteers in London to fight child sex-trafficking and preach the Gospel of Salvation to the poor. It was named The Salvation Army.
One George William’s earliest converts and contributors was his employer, George Hitchcock. William's married his daughter, Helen, in 1853.
Within 7 years of the Y.M.C.A.'s founding, there were 24 chapters across Britain, with 2,700 members of all denominations, races, and social classes.
It became a major part of the 19th century “Muscular Christianity” movement.
In 1851, the Y.M.C.A. set up a booth at London’s Crystal Palace Exposition Hall, which drew visitors from all over the world.
An American seaman and missionary, Captain Thomas Valentine Sullivan, brought the Y.M.C.A. to the United States in 1851, opening the country's first chapter in Boston's Old South Church, so Christian sailors on shore leave could have a safe "home away from home.”
Within a year, there were chapters were in Montreal; Baltimore; Paris; and Geneva, Switzerland.
In 1853, Anthony Bowen, a slave who had purchased his freedom, opened a Y.M.C.A. chapter to serve the black community of Washington, D.C.
It was the first black institution in America other than churches.
By 1855, just 11 years after the first meeting, there were 329 Y.M.C.A. chapters in 9 countries with 30,360 members.
That year, 100 delegates met in Paris to form the International Y.M.C.A., adopting the “Paris Basis” goal:
“… to unite those young men who, regarding Jesus Christ as their God and Savior 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 amongst young men.”
In 1852, Henri Dunant founded the Y.M.C.A. in Geneva, Switzerland.
He described it, as recorded in Martin Gumpert's Dunant, The Story of the Red Cross (NY: Oxford University Press, 1938, p. 22):
"A group of Christian young men has met together in Geneva to do reverence and worship to the Lord Jesus whom they wish to serve ...
They have heard that among you, too, there are brothers in Christ, young like themselves, who love their Redeemer and gather together that under His guidance, and through the reading of the Holy Scriptures, they may instruct themselves further.
Being deeply edified thereby, they wish to unite with you in Christian friendship."
In 1859, Dunant witnessed the aftermath of the Battle of Solferino, where he heard the cries for help of thousands of wounded soldiers.
This motivated him to found the International Red Cross in 1863, for which he became the first recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.
In 1876, when Turkey was at war with Russia, the Red Cross introduced the name Red Crescent to allow Christian-motivated charity and humanitarian work to be carried on in Islamic countries.
In 1897, Henri Dunant supported Jews in their effort to repopulate their traditional homeland by being one of the few non-Jews to attend the First Zionist Congress in Basel.
In 1856, the first student-led Y.M.C.A. opened at Cumberland University in Tennessee.
In 1861, at the start of the Civil War, President Lincoln asked for Y.M.C.A. volunteers to support troops.
5,000 responded, forming the U.S. Christian Commission, working as medics and chaplains.
In 1869, New York City's Y.M.C.A. added a gymnasium and a bowling alley, considered the nation's first indoor sports facility.
In 1867, Chicago's Y.M.C.A. opened the first Y.M.C.A. with a dormitory, where young men could rent a room for a few dollars a day.
In Massachusetts, the Salem Y.M.C.A. began the first Boys' Work Department, for boys 12 to 18 years old.
It began one of America’s very first summer camps, Camp Dudley, in Orange Lake, New York, in 1885.
British hero from the South Africa’s Boer War, Lord Baden-Powell, helped England’s Y.M.C.A. Boys Work program, which inspired him to start the Boy Scouts in 1908, which grew to mentor millions of boys worldwide.
Lord Baden Powell wrote an introduction to a 1917 pamphlet on Scouting & Christianity:
"Scouting is nothing less than applied Christianity."
In 1875, San Francisco opened a Y.M.C.A. to serve the Asian community.
In 1879, Thomas Wakeman, son of Indian Chief Little Crow, opened a Y.M.C.A. in South Dakota to serve native Americans.
In 1878, a Y.M.C.A. opened in Jerusalem.
The 1881 emblem for the Y.M.C.A. listed Europe, Asia, Oceania, Africa and America, with an open Bible displaying the Scripture, John 17:21:
"That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me."
Underneath the triangle were the letters XP, called the "Chi-Rho," which were the first two Greek letters of the name of Christ -- "Χριστοῦ."
In 1885, the words "Spirit-Mind-Body" in a triangle were added by Dr. Luther Gulick, Jr., director of the Y.M.C.A. International Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Dr. Gulick stated:
"The triangle stands ... for the symmetrical man, each part developed with reference to the whole, and not merely with reference to itself ...
What authority have we for believing that this triangle idea is correct? It is scriptural ...
Such statements as, “Thou shalt love the Lord Thy God with all they heart and soul and mind and strength,” indicate ... the scriptural view ... that the service of the Lord includes the whole man.
The words, which in the Hebrew and Greek are translated “strength,” refer in both cases entirely to physical strength."
Cincinnati’s Y.M.C.A. began the America's first “English as a Second Language Class” for immigrants.
Boston’s Y.M.C.A. started an Evening Institute for "any young man of moral character," which grew into Northeastern University.
San Francisco’s Y.M.C.A. founded a night school that grew into Golden Gate College.
The Brooklyn Central Y.M.C.A. had the first pool, and by the end of the year, 17 chapters had pools, and the Y.M.C.A. pioneered swim classes.
The Y.M.C.A. had a role in helping start the International Red Cross, The Gideons International, Father’s Day, Black History Month, U.S.O. for military personnel, Toastmasters, and Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends” classes.
Dwight L. Moody began as a Y.M.C.A. volunteer in Chicago before becoming an evangelist reaching millions.
When the 1871 Great Chicago Fire destroyed Chicago's YMCA, D.L. Moody raised funds to rebuild it.
Moody’s Mount Hermon Boys School hosted 250 Y.M.C.A. students in 1886, a hundred of which started a Student Volunteer Movement, sending 20,000 of missionaries to "evangelize the world in a generation.”
Chicago White Stocking baseball star Billy Sunday began attending YMCA meetings in 1886 before beginning his career as a revival preacher.
Booker T. Washington's Tuskegee Institute began a Bible Training school in 1893 to prepare students for Christian ministry.
Students helped out at community churches on Sundays; staffed a Humane Society; cared for area sick and needy; and ran a Y.M.C.A.
Booker T. Washington spoke at Memorial Hall in Columbus, Ohio, May 24, 1900 (The Booker T. Washington Papers, Vol. 5: 1899-1900, University of Illinois Press, 1976, p. 543-544):
"Dr. Washington began his address after a quartet sang. He spoke of the 91 Y.M.C.A. Organizations for colored youths; of the 5,000 colored men studying the Bible, and of the 640 Bible students at Tuskegee."
Tuskegee professor George W. Carver wrote to Y.M.C.A. official Jack Boyd in Denver, March 1, 1927:
"Keep your hand in that of the Master, walk daily by His side, so that you may lead others into the realms of true happiness, where a religion of hate, - which poisons both body and soul - will be unknown, having in its place the 'Golden Rule' way, which is the 'Jesus Way' of life will reign supreme."
Y.M.C.A. instructor James Naismith, at the behest of
Y.M.C.A. missionaries first took the game of basketball around the world.
In 1892, William Morgan came to study at the International Young Men's Christian Association Training School -- Springfield College.
After meeting James Naismith, Morgan invented the game of Volleyball in 1895, at the YMCA in Holyoke, Massachusetts.
Edwin Brit Wyckoff described how Naismith, along with Theodore Roosevelt, admired of British author Thomas Hughes' popular book, Tom Brown’s Schooldays, 1857:
“Muscular Christianity is Christianity applied to the treatment and use of our bodies.
It is an enforcement of the laws of health by the solemn sanctions of the New Testament.”
Theodore Roosevelt also championed muscular Christianity, addressing the Holy Name Society, August 16, 1903:
"I am not addressing weaklings, or I should not take the trouble to come here. I am addressing strong, vigorous men, who are engaged in the active hard work of life ... men who will count for good or for evil ... who have strength to set a right example to others ...
You cannot retain your self-respect if you are loose and foul of tongue, that a man who is to lead a clean and honorable life must inevitably suffer if his speech likewise is not clean and honorable ...
A man must be clean of mouth as well as clean of life — must show by his words as well as by his actions his fealty to the Almighty ...
We have good Scriptural authority for the statement that it is not what comes into a man’s mouth but what goes out of it that counts ..."
He added:
"Every man here knows the temptations that beset all of us in this world. At times any man will slip. I do not expect perfection, but I do expect genuine and sincere effort toward being decent and cleanly in thought, in word, and in deed ...
I expect you to be strong. I would not respect you if you were not.
I do not want to see Christianity professed only by weaklings; I want to see it a moving spirit among men of strength ..."
Roosevelt continued:
"I should hope to see each man ... become all the fitter to do the rough work of the world ...
and if, which may Heaven forfend, war should come, all the fitter to fight ... I desire to see in this country the decent men strong and the strong men decent ...
There is always a tendency among very young men ... to think that to be wicked is rather smart; to think it shows that they are men ...
Oh, how often you see some young fellow who boasts that he is going to 'see life,' meaning by that that he is going to see that part of life which it is a thousandfold better should remain unseen!
I ask that every man here constitute himself his brother’s keeper by setting an example to that younger brother which will prevent him from getting such a false estimate of life. Example is the most potent of all things.
If any one of you in the presence of younger boys, and ... misbehave yourself, if you use coarse and blasphemous language before them, you can be sure that these younger people will follow your example and not your precept.
It is no use to preach to them if you do not act decently yourself ... The most effective way in which you can preach is by your practice ...
The father, the elder brothers, the friends, can do much toward seeing that the boys as they become men become clean and honorable men ..."
Roosevelt concluded:
"I have told you that I wanted you not only to be decent, but to be strong. These boys will not admire virtue of a merely anemic type. They believe in courage, in manliness.
They admire those who have the quality of being brave, the quality of facing life as life should be faced, the quality that must stand at the root of good citizenship in peace or in war.
If you are to be effective as good Christians you must possess strength and courage, or your example will count for little with the young ...
I want to see every man able to hold his own with the strong, and also ashamed to oppress the weak ... I want to see him too strong of spirit to submit to wrong ...
I want to see each man able to hold his own in the rough work of actual life outside, and also, when he is at home, a good man, unselfish in dealing with wife, or mother, or children.
Remember that the preaching does not count if it is not backed up by practice. There is no good in your preaching to your boys to be brave, if you run away."
He went on to served as General Secretary of the International Y.M.C.A. Committee. For his efforts during World War I, John Mott was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1946.
John R. Mott stated:
"I have a hard fight before me in crushing self but it must and will be done. I shall be wholly consecrated and strive to be like Christ."
Dale Carnegie began his biblically-based motivational teaching in 1912 while serving as an instructor at the Y.M.C.A. on 125th Street in New York City.
His best-selling book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, 1936, has sold over 15 million copies.
On October 24, 1914, President Woodrow Wilson addressed the 70th anniversary of the Y.M.C.A.:
"Christ came into the world to save others, not to save himself; and no man is a true Christian who does not think constantly of how he can lift his brother."
Wilson continued:
"I do believe that at 70 the Y.M.C.A. is just reaching its majority.
A dream greater even than George Williams ever dreamed will be realized in the great accumulating momentum of Christian men throughout the world ...
These 70 years have just been a running start ... now there will be a great rush of Christian principle upon the strongholds of evil and of wrong in the world.
Those strongholds are not as strong as they look ... All you have to do is to fight, not with cannon but with light ...
That, in my judgment, is what the Young Men's Christian Association can do."
During World War II, the Y.M.C.A. printed and distributed prayer books to U.S. soldiers and sailors:
"The New Testament - An American Translation - Special Edition published for the Army and Navy Department by The National Board of the Young Men's Christian Associations - One of the Agencies of the United States Service Organization - Association Press, 247 Madison Avenue, New York" June 1942.
The Y.M.C.A. had inspired Mary Jane Kinnaird to found the Young Women's Christian Association in 1855.
Kinnaird had worked with Florence Nightingale to train nurses to during the Crimean War with Russia.
Donald Fraser wrote in Mary Jane Kinnaird (London: Nisbet & Co., 1890):
Mary Jane Kinnaird led a prayer movement for world evangelism, writing in a tract that believers should offer "... united prayer in reference ... to the condition of the Jews, Mohammedans, and the heathen world."
Kinnaird continued:
"Prayer ... awakens such strong opposition ... from the world, the flesh, and the devil ...
Hence the power of prayer -- when to one God and Father, through one Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and by one Holy Spirit, the prompter of prayer, the multitude of them that believe appeal for ... strength to fight the good fight of faith."
The Y.M.C.A. contributed to body-building, sportsmanship, games of basketball, volleyball, racquetball, softball, swimming, improvements to football, and modern Olympics.
The Y.M.C.A. is the world’s oldest and largest youth charity, growing to 64 million members in 10,000 chapters in 124 countries.
Encouraging the organizations to stay true to its founding principles, Woodrow Wilson address the Y.M.C.A. in 1914:
"Eternal vigilance is the price, not only of liberty, but of a great many other things ...
It is the price of one's own soul ... What shall he give in exchange for his own soul, or any other man's soul? ...
There is a text in Scripture ... It says godliness is profitable in this life as well as in the life that is to come ...
This world is intended as the place in which we shall show that we know how to grow in the stature of manliness and of righteousness.
I have come here to bid Godspeed to the great work of the Young Men's Christian Association.”
In 1894, George Williams was knighted by Queen Victoria.
He died in 1905 and was buried in London's St. Paul’s Cathedral.
A stained-glass window in Westminster Abbey honors him.
In Montreal, Canada, there is a Sir George Williams University.
Though later merged into Concordia University, it retained the campus name “Sir George Williams Campus.”
Sir George Williams stated:
“My life-long experience as a businessman, and as a Christian worker among young men, has taught me that the only power in this world that can effectually keep one from sin, in all the varied and often attractive forms ... is that which comes from an intimate knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ as a present Savior ...
And I can also heartily testify that the safe Guide–Book by which one may be led to Christ is the Bible, the Word of God, which is inspired by the Holy Ghost.”
American Minute is a registered trademark of William J. Federer. Permission granted to forward, reprint, or duplicate.
Thank you so much and to believe and have faith in the Father Son and Holy Spirit to the teachings of Jesus Christ the LORD and that the Father sent him to save us and l destroy Sin.
Probably the most tragic article you’ve written. It’s sad to see a legendary organisation like the YMCA commit suicide by embracing the indulgent LGB Mafia. A lifestyle that goes against Biblical principles.