Hence, in part, the excess of the devout proclivity in women, spoken of in the last chapter.

But it is more to the present point to note the effect of this proclivity in shaping the action and coloring the purposes of the non-lucrative movements and organizations here under discussion.

Where this devout coloring is present it lowers the immediate efficiency of the organizations for any economic end to which their efforts may be directed.

Many organizations, charitable and ameliorative, divide their attention between the devotional and the secular well-being of the people whose interests they aim to further.

It can scarcely be doubted that if they were to give an equally serious attention and effort undividedly to the secular interests of these people, the immediate economic value of their work should be appreciably higher than it is.
It might of course similarly be said, if this were the place to say it, that the immediate efficiency of these works of amelioration for the devout might be greater if it were not hampered with the secular motives and aims which are usually present.
Some deduction is to be made from the economic value of this class of non-invidious enterprise, on account of the intrusion of the devotional interest.