by Fulton Oursler

Condensed from Christian Herald

August 1946

In this article, unselfish deeds of kindness are once more the key to happiness. I agree with Bill that finding something to beleive in that is bigger than yourself- truth, community, God- is an important key.

I'm not a religious person but I agree with “Bill” that I am happier when I am working towards a goal that helps others, a goal that is bigger than myself.

In the cemetery office a uniformed chauffeur approached the clerk at the desk. “The lady is too ill to walk,” he explained. “Would you mind coming out with me?”

Waiting in the car was a frail, elderly woman whose sunken eyes could not hide some deep, long-lasting hurt.

“I am Mrs. Adams,” she said. “Every week for the last two years I have been sending you a five-dollar bill for flowers to be laid on the grave of my son. I came here today because the doctors have let me know I have only a few weeks left. I wanted to drive here for one last look, and to thank you.”

The clerk blinked at her irresolutely. Then with a wry smile, he spoke: “You know, ma’am, I was sorry you kept sending the money for the flowers.”

“Sorry?”

“Yes—flowers last such a little while! And nobody every sees them.”

“Do you realize what you are saying?”

“Oh, indeed I do. I belong to a visiting society. State hospitals, Insane asylums. People in places like that dearly love flowers—and they can see them and smell them. Lady, there are living people in places like that.”

Some months later the clerk was astonished to receive another visit; double astonished because this time the woman was driving the car.

“I take the flowers to the people myself,” she announced, with a friendly smile. “You were right; it does make them happy. And it makes me happy. The doctors don’t know what is making me well—but I do! I have something to live for.”

A physician friend of mine seems to possess miraculous healing power. Without drugs of knives he makes many of his patients well and happy; difficult cases, too, people suffering not only from personality difficulties but from heart trouble, alcoholism or paralysis. His colleagues are often mystified but he insists it is childishly simple:

“My patients make themselves well by using a prescription given long ago in Galilee. I wonder what would happen if the Sermon on the Mount were taken literally by the medical profession?  Certainly Jesus gave us dependable keys for mental and physical well-being. Unselfishness is the greatest safeguard against self-pity, hate and fear; therefore it is a kind of specific against many forms of insanity.”

One day a girl names Emily came to Prof. Ernest M. Ligon, head of the psychology department of Union College. She wanted to know what she could do with her life. She was a hapless, chapfallen figure, too tall and bony, and instinctively awkward. When Emily shook hands the professor winced—her palms and fingers were nervously cold and moist. And she had poor taste; her clothes, he declares in unacademic language, “were a mess!”

He said to her, “Emily, I want you to go out and buy yourself a new dinner dress—but remember, just ask the saleswoman to select a dress that she thinks becomes you. Then I want you to get a new hair-do—but again, just ask the hairdresser to do what he thinks is best for you. Then I want you to come to the church social next Tuesday night.”

Emily shook her head. “I’ll get my hair fixed and I’ll buy the dress, but I won’t come to the party.”

“And I know why!” exclaimed the professor. “You think you won’t have a good time. When you arrive don’t look around with a sickly smile, hoping to heaven somebody will be polite to you. Just stand composedly and as soon as you see some man standing alone go over and ask his name and then inquire if he has a hobby. Then come and tell me. If he collects stamps I’ll introduce him to another collector; if he likes to fish, I’ll bring him a fisherman. Meanwhile, you go looking for another candidate. Keep yourself busy as if you were hired to the evening to look out for everybody’s comfort. And promise me you will stay till the party is over.”

Now, such are the unsearchable ways of life, Emily had a fine time. She was actually popular that evening. The professor could never make her lovely—but she was making herself lovable.

My doctor friend is a famous New York neurologist, and many dipsomaniacs come to him after having been pronounced incurable by other specialists.

“Know what I do with them?” he asked me. “I’ll tell you about a man we’ll call Bill Wilkins.”

Bill Wilkins, Wall Street broker, woke up one morning in a hospital for drunkards. Despondently he peered up at the house physician and groaned:

“Doc, how many times have I been in this joint?”

“Fifty! You’re now our half-century plant.”

“I suppose liquor is going to kill me?”

“Bill,” replied the doctor solemnly. “It won’t be long now.”

“Then,” said Bill, “how about a little snifter to straighten me out?”

I guess that would be all right,” agreed the doctor. “But I’ll make a bargain with you. There’s a young fellow in the next room in a pretty bad way. He’s here for the first time. Maybe if you showed yourself as a horrible example, you might scare him into staying sober for the rest of his life.”

Instead of resentment, Bill showed a flicker of interest.

“Okay,” he said. “But don’t forget that drink when I come back.”

The boy was certain that he was doomed, and Bill, who considered himself an agnostic, incredibly heard himself pleading with the lad to turn to some higher power.

“Liquor is a power outside yourself that has overcome you,” he urged. “Only another outside power can save you. If you don’t want to call it God, call it truth. The name isn’t important.”

Whatever the effect on the boy, Bill greatly impressed himself. Back in his own room, he forgot his bargain with the doctor. He still hasn’t had that drink. Thinking of someone else at long last, he had given the law of unselfishness a chance to work on him; and through him it worked so well that he became a found of a highly effective movement in healing faith—Alcoholics Anonymous.



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