A quarter of a century ago the Five Points in New York presented the most appalling state of society on the American continent. The locality was a low valley between Broadway and Bowery, originally covered by the Collect pond, and the name was acquired by the converging of three streets instead of two, one of the blocks terminating in a sharp point. The ground, being marshy and uninviting, was settled by the poor and dissolute, mostly from foreign countries, who by degrees became so notoriously disorderly, that it was not considered safe for a respectable person to pass through it without a police escort; and these officers were often maltreated and murdered. About fifty thousand persons inhabited this locality, without a Protestant church, or a school, bidding utter defiance to all law and decency. There were underground passage-ways connecting blocks of houses on different streets, making crime easy and detection difficult. Every house was a filthy brothel, the resort of persons of every sex, age, color, and nationality. Every store was a dram-shop, where from morning to morning thieves and abandoned characters whetted their depraved tastes, concocted and perpetrated crimes and villainies, rendering day and night hideous with their incessant revelries.

The respectable inhabitants living within five minutes' walk of this appalling carnival were astonishingly indifferent to the fearful degradation which there existed, many believing that the majority among them preferred to riot in wretched vices, to starve upon the scanty wages of crime, to be housed in kennels, poor-houses, or jails, racked with loathsome disease, and scourged by the law, rather than dwell in quiet respectability by their own careful industry.

To the ladies of the Methodist Episcopal church must ever be accorded the high honor of inaugurating measures for carrying light into this God-forsaken valley of moral blackness. As early as 1848 the Ladies' Home Missionary Society of this denomination, having previously established several missions in different parts of the city, which have since grown into large, flourishing churches, turned its attention toward this long-despised center of abandoned humanity. Impressed with the magnitude and difficulties of their undertaking, the society selected a number of Christian gentlemen of high standing, who were constituted an advisory committee, upon whom it has always safely relied for counsel and means. In the spring of 1850, Rev. L. M. Pease, of the New York Conference, was appointed to this unpromising field A room, twenty by forty feet, at the corner of Little Water and Cross streets, was hired, fitted for holding service, and on the first Sabbath filled with the most motley, filthy, and reckless group that ever crowded a religious service. A lady described it as "a more vivid description of hell than she had ever imagined." The Sunday school began with seventy unruly scholars. For a time confusion reigned. The boys' would turn somersaults, knock each other down, and follow any other vicious inclination. Order and system were gradually introduced, and in time this school became as orderly as any in the city.

Intemperance was the universal crime and curse of the locality, and it soon became evident that nothing could be accomplished unless this fiery tide could be arrested. A series of temperance meetings were commenced (which have been continued more or less ever since), and over a thousand signed the pledge the first year. The next chief difficulty in the way of success was the universal poverty of the population. Reformation with many involved immediate starvation, unless some new channel of industry could be opened. The hunger of a starving family must be somewhat appeased with bread before their minds can be interested in the Gospel. Mr.[Image]The Five-Points Mission.Pease, with characteristic energy, soon arranged to supply a hundred with needle-work, becoming personally responsible to the manufactories, suffering constant pecuniary loss on account of the poorness of the work. This industrial department required his constant attention to prevent thefts and losses; drew him part away from the pastoral and outside spiritual toil contemplated by the managers, which, with some unfortunate business complications, resulted at length in the severance of his connection with the Ladies' Missionary society. Mr. Pease gave evidence of the deepest devotion to his work, and surprised all his friends by early making his residence and removing his family into the center of this abandoned neighborhood, that the whole weight of his influence and toil might be thrown into the movement.