CHAPTER I.
THE IMPORTANCE OF A DOMINANT PURPOSE.
It is a marked characteristic of our age that every appeal for an expression of energy should be an intellectual appeal.

Emotional appeals are of course made, and made with tremendous force, but, with the emotional appeal, an emphasis is laid to-day upon the intellectual apprehension of the meaning of the effort demanded which is something quite new to us.

Soldiers in the ranks have the objective of their attack explained to them, and this explanation has a great influence over the character and quality of the effort which they put forth.
Labourers demand and expect every day a larger and fuller understanding of the meaning of the work which they are asked to perform.

They need to enjoy the intellectual apprehension of the larger aspects of the work, and the relation of their own detailed operations to those larger aspects; and it is commonly recognised that the understanding of the meaning and purpose of the detail upon which each operative may be engaged is a most powerful incentive to good work.

In the past leaders relied more upon implicit, unreasoning obedience, supported often by affection for the leader's own character, and profound trust in his wisdom, and a general hope of advantage for each individual who carried out orders unhesitatingly and exactly; but they did not think it necessary, or even desirable, that the common workers should understand their plans and act in intelligent co-operation with them: to-day, intelligent co-operation is prized as it has never been prized before, and its value is realised as it has never been realised before.
If this is true in the world of arms, of labour, of commerce, it is equally true in the world of foreign missions.