A NEW INDUSTRY

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 131, 19 May 1911, Page 11

A NEW INDUSTRY

Y.M.C.A. FORWARD MOVEMENT. The place of the Y.AI.C.A. movement in the life of the community; will be that of a transformer. Energies are to be turned into energy —the energy in right thinking and resolute living. Thousands ofi young men will come into constant and habitual contact with this manhood-maker, others will not escape its influence. And such extensions as this in the man-building industry are characteristic of the-world-wide work which is identified with the name "Young Alen’s Christian Association.” But it might ba said “the Young Men's Christian Association stands tor no new industry j it has long been established ; its history is written everywhere.” A truth, but half a truth.. For their association of the twentieth century is peculiarly of the twentieth century. These past seven years have been years of wonderful expansion. For every man within this .world-wide brotherhood at the beginning of th» century, there are two to-day. For every £ invested in Buildings there has been another put beside it. For every man in the gymnasium seven years ago there are two now. The annual expense has doubled, but the men in Bible Classes have quadrupled their number, and the men studying evening by evening to better their efficiency, are six times as numerous and ten times as well cared for as were those who were similarly banded together at the beginning of the century.

At the time of war between Russia and Japan the Young Men’s Christian Association enjoyed the confidence of the Japanese officials, and was given the opportunity denied to other Christian bodies of accompanying the army into Manchuria. Thirty secretaries, equipped with tents, stationery, barber supplies, bath tubs, and Bibles pressed forward with the army to the firing lines. The Von Moltke of the Japanese army, Baron Kodama, stated that he had seen no solution for some of the moral and social problems of the’ Empire until he had observed the work of the Young Alen’s Christian Association.

Appreciation has not been a matter of words alone; personal subscriptions have been general and generous, one of a thousand pounds from the Emperor himself was received. An eager welcome has come from quarters which’ were formerly silent. Whether it [be an astute Japanese Government adopting what is evidently good, or an American President safeguarding his men in fibrelesa Panama, or a great railway system reluctantly acknowledging a nece»sity, or a body of young Turkswelcoming a force that makes for better government, or a group of Chinese literati abandoning their long finger nails for the sake of Association dumb-bells, there is an ever accumulating testimony to the effectiveness of modem Young Men’s Christian Association methods. Is it much, then, to sajj that the very multiplication of activities adds the vigor and aggressiveness of a new movement and entitles the Association to rank asthe promoter of a new industry ?