FIFTY MILLION STRONG 



only qualification is ability to follow someone else, assert 

 himself when it is absolutely necessary to maintain a perfect 

 equilibrium and retire to the background and bring others 

 into prominence when that can be done for the good of all, 

 ever holding ambition in check and suppressing a desire for 

 recognition such a leader gets results. 



The leader who has perfect control of self can be the power 

 behind the throne in the control of others. The boy or man 

 who has no will of his own is not of very much value. But 

 to get together a great many boys or men, all of whom have 

 wills of their own, to be equal to every situation of will- 

 clashing, to be able to merge all wills into a stream of power 

 that moves steadily in one direction, is not an easy task. 

 Much is heard nowadays about interlocking directorates. 

 These directorates work together very well because profits 

 are the prize of cooperation, and profits are the greatest 

 known stimulus to cooperation. Every movement in Rural 

 America represents an interlocking of wills. Here, too, the 

 prize is profits. But not in every movement of Rural America 

 are the profits of a material character. In fact, the profits, as 

 a rule, have to do with intangible values. And the securing 

 of such profits involves sacrifice, criticism, scant praise, little 

 reward. So interlocking wills in the movements of Rural 

 America require leadership of a high order, 



A tenth essential of leadership is prayer. Prayer is the 

 greatest force in the world today. The two men who are 

 considered the leading characters in American history are 

 Washington and Lincoln. These two men were preeminently 

 men of prayer, and Christian America believes that this 

 nation passed safely through the two great crises of her his- 

 tory chiefly because of the prayers of George Washington and 

 Abraham. Lincoln. John R. Mott tells the following incident 

 in his address on the " Transcendent Importance of Prayer." 



" In 1883 a wave of rationalism and skepticism swept over 

 the Doshisha, the leading Christian college in Japan, and it 

 became very cold spiritually. Dr. Davis, one of the mission- 

 aries there, recognized the power of intercession and wrote to 



122 



