FIFTY MILLION STRONG 



electing him a bishop. But a prayer he uttered during the 

 early days of the Conference so completely took hold of the 

 whole body of delegates, that in almost every heart came the 

 conviction that a man of such power in prayer ought to be a 

 bishop of the church, and he was elected. 



An eleventh essential of leadership is sympathy. Of course 

 the literal meaning of sympathy is, fellow-feeling. This 

 presupposes a big heart, a heart like the heart of Christ Him- 

 self, in whose life one sees sympathy in all its perfection. The 

 ideal leader must be able so to adjust his life that it enjoys 

 a beautiful harmony with the lives of those whom he would 

 mold into symmetry. A life so attuned is keenly sensitive 

 to the heart lives of those with which it is brought into inti- 

 mate relations and shows such wonderful responsiveness that 

 there is perfect rhythm in their fellowship. A sympathetic 

 leader is a social stabilizer. The most recent invention to 

 contribute to the safety of aerial navigation is the stabilizer, 

 which enables the aviator to keep in balance in spite of 

 vacuums, currents, counter currents, cross currents and any 

 other uncertain factors with which the air machine has to 

 contend in its flight. It is the sympathy of the leader that 

 enables him to move happily and successfully among those 

 whom he leads with little fear of the many uncertain factors 

 of human nature. 



There is another meaning of sympathy that possibly has 

 equal significance .in all successful leadership, and that is 

 ability to enter into the lives of others so under standingly 

 that each life may be started and kept going in the direction 

 in which it is best fitted to move. No two persons are alike. 

 Hence every person must be made the object of separate study. 

 But the leader feels great pleasure in the intensive investiga- 

 tions that precede his work of classifying those with whom 

 he is affiliated. He finds some who in the beginning give 

 promise of development into strong characters under the 

 stimulus of the right sort of life purpose, but in the end 

 reveal weaknesses that doom them to almost hopeless medi- 

 ocrity in life's activities. He finds others who in the beginning 



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