The world has frequently been told, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it is perpetually assuring itself, that what it needs is real leadership. So far as the statement goes, it is a truism. The world, that is to say, can stand everything that is real. At the same time before a leader can be born it is necessary that there should be something to lead. Therefore it is a logical conclusion that real leadership demands, as a primary condition, an appreciation of such leadership. The Romans of the fifth century who quarreled among themselves, and lent themselves to every extremity of vice, while the Goths and the Vandals were, so to speak, at their very gates, were, by reason of their own conduct, incapable of appreciating real leadership. They deserved what they got, and what they were predestined to get, at the hands of sensual boys and upstart soldiers. The story of Rome is the story of the whole world. Given a degraded type of public opinion, and leaders of a like type will be called upon to rule over it. The same fountain can never bring forth sweet water and bitter. The people who had Commodus for a Cæsar deserved, precisely, a Honorius.

The simple truth is that the sweet fountain sends forth sweet water alone. In other words, that which is necessary to produce a true leader is national character of a high type. It is character which makes the nation, like the individual, what it is; and leadership is as bound to reflect the character of its following, as the water from a fountain to be sweet or bitter. This is much more exactly true than history, superficially read, might seem to justify. Nations have by no means necessarily found their leaders in their kings: often their leaders have seemed better or worse than themselves. But it took a willingness to worship the "Little Father" to produce a czar, whether he were a Peter, or an Anne, just as the Anglo-Saxon devotion to freedom found its expression in a Washington or a Lincoln.

Now character is bred upon ideals. "The sculptor," Mrs. Eddy writes, on page 248 of Science and Health, "turns from the marble to his model in order to perfect his conception. We are all sculptors, working at various forms, moulding and chiseling thought. What is the model before mortal mind?" There is the alpha and omega of the whole business. It is thinking that makes the individual, just as it is the individuals who make the nation. A nation's leaders, therefore, will be evolved out of its thinking. And whether success or whether failure attends the national effort, will depend not so much on the leader as on his followers, in short, on the character of the nation.

The models, then, of the people of the United States who called a Washington or a Lincoln to their service, were very different from those of the people of Russia, over whom a Peter or an Anne was born to rule. The result is manifest to everybody in the conditions of society to-day. Both nations have grown at a tremendous pace, the one by conquest of neighboring peoples, the other by conquest of itself. But let the roles ever be reversed, and what people are wont to call the destinies of the nation will be reversed with them. As a matter of fact the destiny of a nation is the end to which it is predestined, as the result of following its own ideals. If its ideals should find expression in the worship of personality, then a czar becomes inevitable; but if its ideals take the shape of the repudiation of unjust oppression, as did those of the Pilgrim fathers, as did those of the army of Washington, or the supporters of Lincoln, then it is clear that national character is being molded in the highest type of citizenship the age permits of, and a great and virile nationality must result from the process.

The history of the world points to the fact that this reliance upon great models has not usually been adhered to. It was because of this that Greece fell, and because of this that the Roman Empire crumbled. It was because of this that Venice sank to the level portrayed in the curse of Marino Falieri, and because of this that the sun learned to set over the dominions of the kings of Spain. Now the way to aviod the fate of Greece and Rome, of Venice and Spain, is for a nation to be obedient to Principle. As Mrs. Eddy writes of the individual, on the page of Science and Health just quoted from, "We must form perfect models in thought and look at them continually, or we shall never carve them out in grand and noble lives." The secret of success is so simple that it is never a secret, but the difficulty of living up to it was made perfectly clear by Paul when he wrote, "For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do." Even to the man who desires to deny the senses, Principle is a terrific model to have set before him. Yet in his obedience to Principle lies his only hope of demonstrating the powerlessness of evil, and so becoming equal to, and appreciative of, real leadership.

Ultimately, of course, the only leader is Principle. Everybody, sooner or later, will be forced to realize this for himself. No man can accept the opinion of another without being guilty of idolatry. The real leader points the way to obedience, not to himself but to Principle; whilst the loyal follower follows his leader only so far as he realizes that that leader has been himself obedient to Principle. Mrs. Eddy made this perfectly clear, on page 34 of the Message to The Mother Church for 1901: "Finally, brethren, wait patiently on God; return blessing for cursing; be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good; be steadfast, abide and abound in faith, understanding, and good works; study the Bible and the textbook of our denomination; obey strictly the laws that be, and follow your Leader only so far as she follows Christ." Great leadership, then, is one and the same thing as that true appreciation of it which produces loyal following. Both are identical, an understanding of Principle; and the very moment that a leader imagines that there is anything in himself to follow, or a follower mistakes a person for Principle, that moment the blind leads the blind, and both fall into the ditch.

Thus in the question of leadership, as of everything else, the problem resolves itself into the one problem of obedience to Principle. The fact of the unity of good must inevitably make this the case. Every legitimate effort has this question for its touchstone: Is the effort in accordance with Principle? But in order to answer the question accurately, a metaphysical understanding of Principle must first be gained. Otherwise the solution will become impossible, because the man who seeks it will be unable to judge righteous judgment, that is, to separate error from Principle.

Frederick Dixon.