PHYSICAL QUALIFICATIONS.--I regard physical qualifications as of supreme importance. Many of my readers will think that the spiritual should precede the physical, but with this opinion I do not agree. Health is absolutely essential to successful work; deep spirituality, while greatly to be desired, is not so essential. Many men have failed on the field and have been forced to withdraw because of a lack of physical qualifications, while few have failed for lack of spiritual qualifications. I think it is true that young men who when in college and seminary appear to be almost consumed with missionary zeal and enthusiasm, who are pointed out as examples in spirituality, and who are burning with a desire to get into the foreign field, do not make as good missionaries as some others. Men who pledge themselves in youth, and who, actuated by a wild enthusiasm, which has more zeal than knowledge, urge themselves upon the mission boards, do not do as good work as those chosen {194} by the boards themselves, who may never have considered seriously foreign work before the call was extended to them. Enthusiasm and zeal are good things in their place, but they are apt to lead men to extremes. People who enter mission work simply because they are filled with a burning enthusiasm and zeal are not likely to stay as long or work as well as those who enter upon the work with more hesitation, after careful deliberation and a counting of the cost. Wallace Taylor, M.D., of Osaka, Japan, himself an experienced missionary of the American Board, says: "I should advise that men be chosen for their physical and mental adaptation and ability rather than for their burning zeal for the foreign work. To maintain health and be a successful missionary a man must possess more judgment than enthusiasm and more discretion than zeal. Enthusiasm and zeal are good qualities in a missionary, but to these you must add that which is better--judgment, wisdom, and self-control. The burning fire shut up in the bones, that cannot be controlled, only consumes vital energies and speedily produces failing health. We need men who can stand and face the white harvest and the many calls to work, and yet with cool deliberation preserve their strength for future work. We want men sent for their cool deliberation and self-control rather than for their {195} burning zeal and enthusiasm. We need men who are intellect rather than a bundle of nerves. A nervous, excitable, uneasy person will fret and wear himself out in from six months to three years in Japan."