Life
He was born of New England ancestry in Aylmer, Quebec, Canada. He was the son of Charles C. Symmes, but took the name of an uncle, the Rev. E.W. Clark, by whom he was adopted after his father's death in 1853. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1873 and from Andover Theological Seminary in 1876, was ordained in the Congregational ministry, and was pastor of the Williston Congregational church at Portland, Maine, from 1876 to 1883, and of the Phillips Congregational church, South Boston, Massachusetts, from 1883 to 1887.
On 2 February 1881, he founded in Portland, the Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor, which, beginning as a small society in a single New England church, developed into a great interdenominational organization, which in 1908 had 70,761 societies and more than 3,500,000 members scattered throughout the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Australia, South Africa, India, Japan and China. After 1887, he devoted his time entirely to the extension of this work, and was president of the United Societies of Christian Endeavor and of the World's Christian Endeavor Union, and editor of the Christian Endeavor World (originally The Golden Rule).
His home at 379 Central Street in Auburndale, Massachusetts is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
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