The next year Rev. J. Luckey was appointed to this field. The accommodations of the Mission were totally inadequate, and measures were set on foot to secure permanent buildings. Mr. Harding generously offered the society the use of the Metropolitan Hall for a public meeting, the Hutchinsons and Alleghanians volunteered to sing gratuitously, and Revs. Beecher and Wakeley to speak on the occasion. The hall was crowded, and $4,000 secured for the Mission. The next year the hall was again tendered, and John B. Gough lectured to a delighted audience, which subscribed $5,000 toward the Mission. In 1852, after mature deliberation, the society purchased the Old Brewery, a name it bore from the business once carried on in it, for the sum of $16,000. The large building was at this time in great decay, but inhabited by hundreds of the most desperate characters in the city, and was the acknowledged headquarters of crime in this fearful locality. There were dark, winding passage-ways extending through the whole edifice, various hiding places for criminals, and dark, damp rooms, where scores of wretched families herded promiscuously together. The avenue extending around the outside of the building was familiarly known as "Murderer's Alley" and "The Den of Thieves." To demolish this literal pandemonium and erect in its place a temple of mercy to humanity, and of worship to God, was one of the noblest triumphs of Christianity. Inspection proved the building incapable of repair ; it was pulled down, and on the 27th of January, 1853, the corner-stone of the new building was laid by Bishop Janes, of New York, several distinguished clergymen, representing different denominations, taking part in the exercises. On the sixteenth day of the following June it was solemnly dedicated to the service of education and religion ; and the managers and missionaries, with feelings too deep for expression, found themselves in possession of a brick building, seventy-five by forty-five feet, and five stories high, containing, besides a neat parsonage, chapel, and school-rooms, two stories, extending over the entire building, to let at reasonable rates to suitable families. The schools, which had been conducted in a temporary wooden building in the park, were transferred to their commodious rooms, the parsonage was furnished by members of the different Methodist churches, and everything assumed an aspect of thrift and progress.

The day school has been successfully conducted by competent instructors through these twenty-one years, averaging from four hundred to five hundred scholars daily, affording the means of culture to many thousands who must otherwise have groped in profoundest ignorance. The usual per capita appropriation from the State educational fund is made to the Institution.

The Sunday school is also large. A visitor is constantly employed by the society to canvass the neighborhood and look after absentees. The children receive a lunch each day, which amounts to about one hundred and thirty thousand rations per annum given to the hungry. The scholars are all clothed by the society, and many garments and bed-quilts, besides articles of food and fuel, are furnished to their indigent parents. A large congregation assembles morning and evening on the Sabbath to listen to preaching by the missionary; a weekly prayer-meeting and a class-meeting are also well sustained. A "Free Library and Reading-room " has recently been opened. The number of converts, remaining at the Mission is never large, as reformation is usually followed by improved business opportunities, when they unite with the regular churches in the city or elsewhere. Through the liberality of a friend who bequeathed the society $22,000, the Board has recently made a fine addition to the building, greatly improving the facilities of usefulness. The property of the society is now valued at about $100,000. The society has for the last ten years issued a small monthly paper, entitled "A Voice from the Old Brewery," which, besides acknowledging all receipts of money and goods, contains many spicy articles of general interest. It has a steady circulation of 4,000. The society was duly incorporated in March, 1856. Over two thousand destitute children have been place in Christian homes, most of whom have risen to respectability and usefulness, and quite a number to wealth and distinction. Situations have also been furnished to many thousand adults. The work of the society is conducted at a cash expense of over $20,000 per annum, not mentioning the thousands of dollars' worth of clothing, produce, etc., received and distributed from churches and friends all over the land.

During the twenty-one years of its operations, six different ministers have been successively employed by the society as resident missionaries or superintendents, a traveling financial agent having been also employed during most of the time. The present superintendent, Rev. J. N. Shaffer, a man of great prudence and perseverance, has now entered upon his tenth year of successful and unceasing toil in this critical field. Great credit is due the Ladies' Home Missionary Society for the marvelous change wrought in this locality during the last two decades, for though other vigorous organizations are now in the field, it must ever be remembered that this society wrought out the plan, furnished the stimulus, and trained the chief founders of those kindred Institutions in its own chosen field.