Bill Borden:

During his first term as a freshman Borden searched out and gathered up Christian classmates for daily prayer. Charlie Campbell—the first to join him—later recalled: “These meetings were held in Bill’s room just before we went to breakfast…. The time was spent in prayer after a brief reading of Scripture. Our object was to pray for the religious work of the class and college and also for those of our friends we were seeking to bring to Christ.”

By the end of the year, this daily class prayer meeting had spread to each class! It had not passed down from the seniors; it had come up from the freshmen. And blessing was given in answer to those prayers, for the little band rejoiced to see several companions soundly saved.

Borden was concerned that no one fall through the cracks. At the beginning of sophomore year, he wrote home to his Mother of his strategy: “Charlie, Jeff and I got together today and divided up the class [about 300 men]. The plan is for each to have 1/4 of class as his parish and to know every individual man. It will take time; but we believe it will pay.”

Naturally, some were tougher prospects than others—the dancers and dicers; womanizers and whiskey drinkers. One of Borden’s companions involved in the divvying up later described: “The names were gone over one by one and the question asked, ‘Who will take this person or that?’ When it came to one who was a hard proposition there would be an ominous pause. Nobody wanted the responsibility. Then Bill’s voice would be heard: ‘Put him down to me!’”

“Bill hunts up the worst skunk in College and goes after him,” said a sailing friend—probably no mean judge of skunks.

It was in chasing down “skunks” that Bill became aware of another mission field. New Haven, as a seaport midway between New York and Boston seemed to gather every sordid sort of riff-raff and vagrant, tramp and hobo. Saloons, gambling halls, and brothels sprang up in abundance to accommodate the burgeoning vice. Not one rescue mission existed to bring relief and the Gospel to the down and out.

Borden felt something needed to be done so he gathered his friends to pray, rented a room in a dive on the strip, and began to hold evangelistic meetings. Thus was born the Yale Hope Mission.

As the work grew, Bill, unostentatiously wealthy, bought the entire building for a halfway house. Many a shattered life was reclaimed for Christ in that place. One of Bill’s first “reclamations” later reminisced:

“Not till the books of heaven are opened will you know what Bill Borden done by opening Yale Hope Mission…. He’d hasten through his address and get to work with the men. As soon as the invitation was given to come forward he would be off the platform and right down among the men…. He had a habit of putting his hand on man’s shoulder and they’d almost alway break down when he spoke to them. I never knew a feller just like Bill. I’d like to get hold of one of his pictures. Seems to me if I saw one I’d ‘most try to steal it. He could talk to anyone; didn’t matter who they was. And he’d get down with his arms round the poor burly bum and hug him up. Never knowed his like in this world. I know he must have done for hundreds, just what he done for me.”