years I have had the habit of dropping into empty churches on weekday afternoons.
When I feel that I am too rushed and hurried to spare a few minutes to think about
spiritual things, I say to myself: "Wait a minute, Dale Carnegie, wait a minute. Why all
the feverish hurry and rush, little man? You need to pause and acquire a little
perspective." At such times, I frequently drop into the first church that I find open.
Although I am a Protestant, I frequently, on weekday afternoons, drop into St. Patrick's
Cathedral on Fifth Avenue, and remind myself that I'll be dead in another thirty years,
but that the great spiritual truths that all churches teach are eternal. I close my eyes
and pray. I find that doing this calms my nerves, rests my body, clarifies my
perspective, and helps me revalue my values. May I recommend this practice to you?
During the past six years that I have been writing this book I have collected hundreds of
examples and concrete cases of how men and women conquered fear and worry by
prayer. I have in my filing cabinet folders bulging with case histories. Let's take as a
typical example the story of a discouraged and disheartened book salesman, John R.
Anthony. Mr. Anthony is now an attorney in Houston, Texas, with offices in the Humble
Building. Here is his story as he told it to me.
"Twenty-two years ago I closed my private law office to become state representative of
an American law-book company. My specialty was selling a set of law-books to lawyers-a
set of books that were almost indispensable.
"I was ably and thoroughly trained for the job. I knew all the direct sales talks, and the
convincing answers to all possible objections. Before calling on a prospect, I familiarised
myself with his rating as an attorney, the nature of his practice, his politics and
hobbies. During my interview, I used that information with ample skill. Yet, something
was wrong. I just couldn't get orders!
"I grew discouraged. As the days and weeks passed, I doubled and redoubled ray efforts,
but was still unable to close enough sales to pay my expenses. A sense of fear and dread
grew within me. I became afraid to call on people. Before I could enter a prospect's
office, that feeling of dread flared up so strong that I would pace up and down the
hallway outside the door-or go out of the building and circle the block. Then, after
losing much valuable time and feigning enough courage by sheer will power to crash the
office door, I feebly turned the doorknob with trembling hand-half hoping my prospect
would not be in!
"My sales manager threatened to stop my advances if I didn't send in more orders. My
wife at home pleaded with me for money to pay the grocery bill for herself and our
three children. Worry seized me. Day by day I grew more desperate. I didn't know what
to do. As I have already said, I had closed my private law office at home and given up
my clients. Now I was broke. I didn't have the money to pay even my hotel bill. Neither
did I have the money to buy a ticket back home; nor did I have the courage to return
home a beaten man, even if I had had the ticket. Finally, at the miserable end of
another bad day, I trudged back to my hotel room-for the last time, I thought. So far as
I was concerned, I was thoroughly beaten.
Heartbroken, depressed, I didn't know which way to turn. I hardly cared whether I lived
or died. I was sorry I had ever been born. I had nothing but a glass of hot milk that night
for dinner. Even that was more than I could afford. I understood that night why
desperate men raise a hotel window and jump. I might have done it myself if I had had
the courage. I began wondering what was the purpose of life. I didn't know. I couldn't
figure it out.
"Since there was no one else to turn to, I turned to God. I began to pray. I implored the
Almighty to give me light and understanding and guidance through the dark, dense
wilderness of despair that had closed in about me. I asked God to help me get orders for
my books and to give me money to feed my wife and children. After that prayer, I
opened my eyes and saw a Gideon Bible that lay on the dresser in that lonely hotel
room. I opened it and read those beautiful, immortal promises of Jesus that must have
inspired countless generations of lonely, worried, and beaten men throughout the agesa
talk that Jesus gave to His disciples about how to keep from worrying:
Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; not yet for your
body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?
Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into
barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? ...
But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be
added unto you.
"As I prayed and as I read those words, a miracle happened: my nervous tension fell
away. My anxieties, fears, and worries were transformed into heart-warming courage
and hope and triumphant faith.
"I was happy, even though I didn't have enough money to pay my hotel bill. I went to
bed and slept soundly-free from care-as I had not done for many years.
"Next morning, I could hardly hold myself back until the offices of my prospects were
open. I approached the office door of my first prospect that beautiful, cold, rainy day
with a bold and positive stride. I turned the doorknob with a firm and steady grip. As I
entered, I made a beeline for my man, energetically, chin up, and with appropriate
dignity, all smiles, and saying: 'Good morning, Mr. Smith! I'm John R. Anthony of the All-
American Lawbook Company!'
" 'Oh, yes, yes,' he replied, smiling, too, as he rose from his chair with outstretched
hand. 'I'm glad to see you. Have a seat!'
"I made more sales that day than I had made in weeks. That evening I proudly returned
to my hotel like a conquering hero! I felt like a new man. And I was a new man, because
I had a new and victorious mental attitude. No dinner of hot milk that night. No, sir! I
had a steak with all the fixin's. From that day on, my sales zoomed.
"I was born anew that desperate night twenty-one years ago in a little hotel in Amarillo,
Texas. My outward situation the next day was the same as it had been through my
weeks of failure, but a tremendous thing had happened inside me. I had suddenly
become aware of my relationship with God. A mere man alone can easily be defeated,
but a man alive with the power of God within him is invincible. I know. I saw it work in
my own life.
" 'Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened
unto you.' "
When Mrs. L. G. Beaird, of 1421 8th Street, Highland, Illinois, was faced with stark
tragedy, she discovered that she could find peace and tranquility by kneeling down and
saying: "0 Lord, Thy will, not mine, be done."
"One evening our telephone rang," she writes in a letter that I have before me now. "It
rang fourteen times before I had the courage to pick up the receiver. I knew it must be
the hospital, and I was terrified. I feared that our little boy was dying. He had
meningitis. He had already been given penicillin, but it made his temperature fluctuate,
and the doctor feared that the disease had travelled to his brain and might cause the
development of a brain tumour-and death. The phone call was just what I feared. The
hospital was calling; the doctor wanted us to come immediately.
"Maybe you can picture the anguish my husband and I went through, sitting in the
waiting-room. Everyone else had his baby, but we sat there with empty arms, wondering
if we would ever hold our little fellow again. When we were finally called into the
doctor's private office, the expression on his face filled our heart with terror. His words
brought even more terror. He told us that there was only one chance in four that our
baby would live. He said that if we knew another doctor, to please call him in on the
case.
"On the way home my husband broke down and, doubling up his fist, hit the steering
wheel, saying: 'Berts, I can't give that little guy up.' Have you ever seen a man cry? It
isn't a pleasant experience. We stopped the car and, after talking things over, decided
to stop in church and pray that if it was God's will to take our baby, we would resign our
will to His. I sank in the pew and said with tears rolling down my cheeks: 'Not my will
but Thine be done.'
"The moment I uttered those words, I felt better. A sense of peace that I hadn't felt for
a long time came over me. All the way home, I kept repeating: 'O God, Thy will, not
mine, be done.'
"I slept soundly that night for the first time in a week. The doctor called a few days
later and said that Bobby had passed the crisis. I thank God for the strong and healthy
four-year-old boy we have today."
I know men who regard religion as something for women and children and preachers.
They pride themselves on being "he-men" who can fight their battles alone.
How surprised they might be to learn that some of the most famous "he-men" in the
world pray every day. For example, "he-man" Jack Dempsey told me that he never goes
to bed without saying his prayers. He told me that he never eats a meal without first
thanking God for it. He told me that he prayed every day when he was training for a
bout, and that when he was fighting, he always prayed just before the bell sounded for
each round. "Praying," he said, "helped me fight with courage and confidence."
"He-man" Connie Mack told me that he couldn't go to sleep without saying his prayers.
"He-man" Eddie Rickenbacker told me that he believed his life had been saved by
prayer. He prays every day.
"He-man" Edward R. Stettinius, former high official of General Motors and United States
Steel, and former Secretary of State, told me that he prayed for wisdom and guidance
every morning and night.
"He-man" J. Pierpont Morgan, the greatest financier of his age, often went alone to
Trinity Church, at the head of Wall Street, on Saturday afternoons and knelt in prayer.
When "he-man" Eisenhower flew to England to take supreme command of the British and
American forces, he took only one book on the plane with him-the Bible.
"He-man" General Mark Clark told me that he read his Bible every day during the war
and knelt down in prayer. So did Chiang Kai-shek, and General Montgomery-"Monty of El
Alamein". So did Lord Nelson at Trafalgar. So did General Washington, Robert E. Lee,
Stonewall Jackson, and scores of other great military leaders.
These "he-men" discovered the truth of William James's statement: "We and God have
business with each other; and in opening ourselves to His influence, our deepest destiny
is fulfilled."
A lot of "he-men" are discovering that. Seventy-two million Americans are church
members now-an all-time record. As I said before, even the scientists are turning to
religion. Take, for example, Dr. Alexis Carrel, who wrote Man, the Unknown and won
the greatest honour that can be bestowed upon any scientist, the Nobel prize. Dr. Carrel
said in a Reader's Digest article: "Prayer is the most powerful form of energy one can
generate. It is a force as real as terrestrial gravity. As a physician, I have seen men,
after all other therapy had failed, lifted out of disease and melancholy by the serene
effort of prayer. ... Prayer like radium is a source of luminous, self-generating energy.
... In prayer, human beings seek to augment their finite energy by addressing
themselves to the Infinite source of all energy. When we pray, we link ourselves with
the inexhaustible motive power that spins the universe. We pray that a part of this
power be apportioned to our needs.
Even in asking, our human deficiencies are filled and we arise strengthened and
repaired. ... Whenever we address God in fervent prayer, we change both soul and body
for the better. It could not happen that any man or woman could pray for a single
moment without some good result."
Admiral Byrd knows what it means to "link ourselves with the inexhaustible motive
power that spins the universe". His ability to do that pulled him through the most trying
ordeal of his life. He tells the story in his book Alone. (*) In 1934, he spent five months
in a hut buried beneath the icecap of Ross Barrier deep in the Antarctic. He was the
only living creature south of latitude seventy-eight. Blizzards roared above his shack;
the cold plunged down to eighty-two degrees below zero; he was completely surrounded
by unending night. And then he found, to his horror, he was being slowly poisoned by
carbon monoxide that escaped from his stove! What could he do? The nearest help was
123 miles away, and could not possibly reach him for several months. He tried to fix his
stove and ventilating system, but the fumes still escaped. They often knocked him out
cold. He lay on the floor completely unconscious. He couldn't eat; he couldn't sleep; he
became so feeble that he could hardly leave his bunk. He frequently feared he wouldn't
live until morning. He was convinced he would die in that cabin, and his body would be
hidden by perpetual snows.
[*] Putnam & Co. Ltd.
What saved his life? One day, in the depths of his despair, he reached for his diary and
tried to set down his philosophy of life. "The human race," he wrote, "is not alone in the
universe." He thought of the stars overhead, of the orderly swing of the constellations
and planets; of how the everlasting sun would, in its time, return to lighten even the
wastes of the South Polar regions. And then he wrote in his diary: "I am not alone."
This realisation that he was not alone-not even in a hole in the ice at the end of the
earth-was what saved Richard Byrd. "I know it pulled me through," he says. And he goes
on to add: "Few men in their lifetime come anywhere near exhausting the resources
dwelling within them. There are deep wells of strength that are never used." Richard
Byrd learned to tap those wells of strength and use those resources-by turning to God.
Glenn A. Arnold learned amidst the cornfields of Illinois the same lesson that Admiral
Byrd learned in the polar icecap. Mr. Arnold, an insurance broker in the Bacon Building,
Chillicothe, Illinois, opened his speech on conquering worry like this: "Eight years ago, I
turned the key in the lock of my front door for what I believed was the last time in my
life. I then climbed in my car and started down for the river. I was a failure," he said.
"One month before, my entire little world had come crashing down on my head. My
electrical-appliance business had gone on the rocks. In my home my mother lay at the
point of death. My wife was carrying our second child. Doctors' bills were mounting. We
had mortgaged everything we had to start the business-our car and our furniture. I had
even taken out a loan on my insurance policies. Now everything was gone. I couldn't
take it any longer. So I climbed into my car and started for the river-determined to end
the sorry mess.
"I drove a few miles out in the country, pulled off the road, and got out and sat on the
ground and wept like a child. Then I really started to think-instead of going around in
frightening circles of worry, I tried to think constructively. How bad was my situation?
Couldn't it be worse? Was it really hopeless? What could I do to make it better?
"I decided then and there to take the whole problem to the Lord and ask Him to handle
it. I prayed. I prayed hard. I prayed as though my very life depended on it-which, in
fact, it did. Then a strange thing happened. As soon as I turned all my problems over to
a power greater than myself, I immediately felt a peace of mind that I hadn't known in
months. I must have sat there for half an hour, weeping and praying. Then I went home
and slept like a child.
"The next morning, I arose with confidence. I no longer had anything to fear, for I was
depending on God for guidance. That morning I walked into a local department store
with my head high; and I spoke with confidence as I applied for a job as salesman in the
electrical-appliance department. I knew I would get a job. And I did. I made good at it
until the whole appliance business collapsed due to the war. Then I began selling life
insurance-still under the management of my Great Guide. That was only five years ago.
Now, all my bills are paid; I have a fine family of three bright children; own my own
home; have a new car, and own twenty-five thousand dollars in life insurance.
"As I look back, I am glad now that I lost everything and became so depressed that I
started for the river-because that tragedy taught me to rely on God; and I now have a
peace and confidence that I never dreamed were possible."
Why does religious faith bring us such peace and calm and fortitude? I'll let William
James answer that. He says: "The turbulent billows of the fretful surface leave the deep
parts of the ocean undisturbed; and to him who has a hold on vaster and more
permanent realities, the hourly vicissitudes of his personal destiny seem relatively
insignificant things. The really religious person is accordingly unshakable and full of
equanimity, and calmly ready for any duty that the day may bring forth."
If we are worried and anxious-why not try God ? Why not, as Immanuel Kant said:
"accept a belief in God because we need such a belief"? Why not link ourselves now
"with the inexhaustible motive power that spins the universe"?
Even if you are not a religious person by nature or training-even if you are an out-andout
sceptic-prayer can help you much more than you believe, for it is a practical thing.
What do I mean, practical? I mean that prayer fulfills these three very basic
psychological needs which all people share, whether they believe in God or not:
1. Prayer helps us to put into words exactly what is troubling us. We saw in Chapter 4
that it is almost impossible to deal with a problem while it remains vague and nebulous.
Praying, in a way, is very much like writing our problem down on paper. If we ask help
for a problem-even from God-we must put it into words.
2. Prayer gives us a sense of sharing our burdens, of not being alone. Few of us are so
strong that we can bear our heaviest burdens, our most agonising troubles, all by
ourselves. Sometimes our worries are of so intimate a nature that we cannot discuss
them even with our closest relatives or friends. Then prayer is the answer. Any
psychiatrist will tell us that when we are pent-up and tense, and in an agony of spirit, it
is therapeutically good to tell someone our troubles. When we can't tell anyone else-we
can always tell God.
3. Prayer puts into force an active principle of doing. It's a first step toward action. I
doubt if anyone can pray for some fulfillment, day after day, without benefiting from itin
other words, without taking some steps to bring it to pass. A world-famous scientist
said: "Prayer is the most powerful form of energy one can generate." So why not make
use of it? Call it God or Allah or Spirit-why quarrel with definitions as long as the
mysterious powers of nature take us in hand?
Why not close this book right now, go to your bedroom, shut the door, kneel down, and
unburden your heart? If you have lost your religion, beseech Almighty God to renew your
faith. Say: "O God, I can no longer fight my battles alone. I need Your help, Your love.
Forgive me for all my mistakes. Cleanse my heart of all evil. Show me the way to peace
and quiet and health, and fill me with love even for my enemies."
If you don't know how to pray, repeat this beautiful and inspiring prayer written by St.
Francis seven hundred years ago:
Lord, make me an instrument of Thy Peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be
understood, as to understand; to be loved, as to love; for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning, that we are pardoned and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal
Life.
Part Six -How To Keep From Worrying About Criticism
Chapter 20 -Remember That No One Ever Kicks A Dead Dog
An event occurred in 1929 that created a national sensation in educational circles.
Learned men from all over America rushed to Chicago to witness the affair. A few years
earlier, a young man by the name of Robert Hutchins had worked his way through Yale,
acting as a waiter, a lumberjack, a tutor, and a clothes-line salesman. Now, only eight
years later, he was being inaugurated as president of the fourth richest university in
America, the University of Chicago. His age? Thirty. Incredible! The older educators
shook their heads. Criticism came roaring down upon the "boy wonder" like a rockslide.
He was this and he was that-too young, inexperienced-his educational ideas were
cockeyed. Even the newspapers joined in the attack.
The day he was inaugurated, a friend said to the father of Robert Maynard Hutchins: "I
was shocked this morning to read that newspaper editorial denouncing your son."
"Yes," the elder Hutchins replied, "it was severe, but remember that no one ever kicks a
dead dog."
Yes, and the more important a dog is, the more satisfaction people get in kicking him.
The Prince of Wales who later became Edward VIII (now Duke of Windsor) had that
forcibly brought home to him. He was attending Dartmouth College in Devonshire at the
time-a college that corresponds to the Naval Academy at Annapolis. The Prince was
about fourteen. One day one of the naval officers found him crying, and asked him what
was wrong. He refused to tell at first, but finally admitted the truth: he was being
kicked by the naval cadets. The commodore of the college summoned the boys and
explained to them that the Prince had not complained, but he wanted to find out why
the Prince had been singled out for this rough treatment.
After much hemming and hawing and toe scraping, the cadets finally confessed that
when they themselves became commanders and captains in the King's Navy, they
wanted to be able to say that they had kicked the King!
So when you are kicked and criticised, remember that it is often done because it gives
the kicker a feeling of importance. It often means that you are accomplishing something
and are worthy of attention. Many people get a sense of savage satisfaction out of
denouncing those who are better educated than they are or more successful. For
example, while I was writing this chapter, I received a letter from a woman denouncing
General William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army. I had given a laudatory broadcast
about General Booth; so this woman wrote me, saying that General Booth had stolen
eight million dollars of the money he had collected to help poor people. The charge, of
course, was absurd. But this woman wasn't looking for truth. She was seeking the meanspirited
gratification that she got from tearing down someone far above her. I threw her
bitter letter into the wastebasket, and thanked Almighty God that I wasn't married to
her. Her letter didn't tell me anything at all about General Booth, but it did tell me a lot
about her. Schopenhauer had said it years ago: "Vulgar people take huge delight in the
faults and follies of great men."
One hardly thinks of the president of Yale as a vulgar man; yet a former president of
Yale, Timothy Dwight, apparently took huge delight in denouncing a man who was
running for President of the United States. The president of Yale warned that if this man
were elected President, "we may see our wives and daughters the victims of legal
prostitution, soberly dishonoured, speciously polluted; the outcasts of delicacy and
virtue, the loathing of God and man."
Sounds almost like a denunciation of Hitler, doesn't it? But it wasn't. It was a
denunciation of Thomas Jefferson. Which Thomas Jefferson? Surely not the immortal
Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, the patron saint of
democracy? Yea, verily, that was the man.
What American do you suppose was denounced as a "hypocrite", "an impostor", and as
"little better than a murderer"?
A newspaper cartoon depicted him on a guillotine, the big knife read to cut off his head.
Crowds jeered at him and hissed him as he rode through the street. Who was he? George
Washington.
But that occurred a long time ago. Maybe human nature has improved since then. Let's
see. Let's take the case of Admiral Peary-the explorer who startled and thrilled the
world by reaching the North Pole with dog sleds on April 6, 1909-a goal that brave men
for centuries had suffered and died to attain. Peary himself almost died from cold and
starvation; and eight of his toes were frozen so hard they had to be cut off. He was so
overwhelmed with disasters that he feared he would go insane. His superior naval
officers in Washington were burned up because Peary was getting so much publicity and
acclaim. So they accused him of collecting money for scientific expeditions and then
"lying around and loafing in the Arctic." And they probably believed it, because it is
almost impossible not to believe what you want to believe. Their determination to
humiliate and block Peary was so violent that only a direct order from President
McKinley enabled Peary to continued his career in the Arctic.
