THE Young Men's Christian Associations are societies which have for their object the formation of Christian character and the development of Christian activity in young men. The first Association was organized in London on the sixth of June, 1844, and on the ninth of December, 1851, the first on this continent was formed at Montreal. The Boston Association established December 29, 1851, was the first in the United States, and the following years organizations sprang up in Washington, Buffalo, New York, the latter organized June 30, 1852. For several years little correspondence existed between the dif-ferent Associations; but in 1854 the plan of holding an Annual Convention for the mutual interchange of thought, the gathering of statistical and other information, was introduced. This Convention, held in Buffalo, recommended to the Associations the formation of a voluntary confederation for mutual encouragement, having two agencies for carrying on its work, viz.: An Annual Convention and a Central Committee, the functions of these being only advisory or recommendatory.

Sixteen of these National Conventions have now been held, many of which have been large and impressive. The Association organized and conducted, during the late war, the Christian Commission, whose toils and usefulness cannot be too highly commended. There are now in the United States seven hundred and seventy-six associations and sixty-two in the British Provinces, with a membership of over one hundred thousand. Twelve of these have already erected or purchased buildings of their own, and twenty-one more at least are collecting funds to do so. The Association in New York city was the third organized in America, and has a membership at present of over six thousand. The headquarters of the Association were for several years at No. 161 Fifth avenue; and to reach the masses of young men in the various wards of the city, four branches have been formed, one of which is at Harlem, one at No. 285 Hudson street, one at No. 473 Grand street, and one for colored men at No. 97 Wooster street. Each branch is supplied with a library free to all the members; with a reading-room supplied with the principal magazines and papers of the city, and with occasional lectures from distinguished men. The Association appoints several committees to which the principal labor is committed. It has a committee on Invitation, on Membership, on Employment, on Boarding-houses, on Visitation of the Sick, on Devotional Meetings, on Choral Society, on Literary Society, and one on Churches. Young and middle-aged men from all evangelical denominations unite, forgetting denominational distinctions, and do annually a vast amount of good. Hundreds of young men loitering in the streets are picked up and saved from dens of dissipation and crime. Strangers are recommended to suitable boarding-homes, introduced to members of churches in their neighborhood, and many furnished with good situations in business. For several years the Association contemplated the erection of a suitable building, which, in addition to its ample accommodations, would furnish an income, so greatly needed in the prosecution of its work. An act of incorporation passed the Legislature April 3, 1866, granting power to hold real or personal estate for the uses of the corporation, whose annual rental value should not exceed $50,000. A plot of land on the south-west corner of Twenty-third street and Fourth avenue was purchased, at a cost of $142,000. On the 13th of January, 1868, ground was broken, and on December 2d, 1869, the building was dedicated, Drs. Dewitt, Tyng, Adams, Kendricks, Thompson, Ridgeway, Messrs. Dodge, Randolph, General Howard, Governor Hoffman, and Vice-President Colfax taking part in the exercises.

The edifice, which is very attractive, is five stories high, with a front of eighty-six feet nine inches on Fourth avenue and one hundred and seventy-five feet on Twenty-third street. Immense blocks of granite form the base of the walls, and as they ascend Ohio free and New Jersey brown stone, with their varying colors, are agreeably interspersed with an occasional vermiculated block. The windows, in a variety of forms, exhibit the beauty and strength of the arch-line, and the polished archivolts are richly ornamented with carved voussoirs. The central door is marked by rich columns and surmounted by the arms of the Association.

The roof is crowned with a superb central and three angular towers. The ground floor is rented for stores. Entering on Twenty-third street, ascending a flight of stairs, you pass, to the right into the grand hall, capable of seating one thousand five hundred persons, so perfectly ventilated that a crowded audience departs, at the close of a lecture, leaving the air as pure as it found it. The hall is furnished with a Chickering piano-forte and a pipe organ, which cost $10,000, both of which were purchased with the proceeds of a concert held in the hall on the evening of the 1st of December, 1869. To the left of the staircase is a pleasant reception-room, from which is an entrance into the secretary's room, the large reading-room, to three committee-rooms, to a wash-room, a bath-room, to a gymnasium, and after descending two flights of stairs to a bowling-alley. Upon the next floor is the library, capable of containing twenty thousand volumes, a small lecture-room, with seating for four hundred persons, four smaller rooms for evening classes in penmanship, drawing, book-keeping, the sciences, and the languages. The upper stories are rented to artists and others.

The edifice cost, exclusive of the site, $345,000, on which there remains a debt of $150,000, which the managers hope to remove with the rent of the stores. Such an embodiment of modern Christianity is rarely seen in one building. The noble edifice presents the study of architecture, the first floor exhibits the activities of business, while farther up are found painting, music, eloquence, conversation, reading, study, recreation, and worship—all that can attract, expand, and ennoble the soul.