therapeutically good to tell someone our troubles. When we can't tell anyone else-we
can always tell God.
- 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 it-in
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