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