Mark Twain's 'The War Prayer'
30 Nov 2001
This is a Follow-up from another thread.
The War Prayer
It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was
up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire
of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy
pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and
spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading
spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags
flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the
wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers
and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices
choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed
mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred
the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at
briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running
down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached
devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles
beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid
eloquence which moved every listener. It was indeed a glad and
gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to
disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness
straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their
personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight and
offended no more in that way.
Sunday morning came -- next day the battalions would leave for
the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there,
their young faces alight with martial dreams -- visions of the
stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the
flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the
enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! Then home
from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in
golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones,
proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no
sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to
win for the flag, or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths.
The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was
read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ
burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house
rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that
tremendous invocation --
God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest! Thunder thy clarion and
lightning thy sword!
Then came the "long" prayer. None could remember the like of it
for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The
burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and
benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young
soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic
work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour
of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and
confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the
foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable
honor and glory --
An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step
up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long
body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare,
his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders,
his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With
all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way;
without pausing, he ascended to the preacher's side and stood
there waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his
presence, continued with his moving prayer, and at last finished
it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal, "Bless our arms,
grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our
land and flag!"
The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside -- which
the startled minister did -- and took his place. During some
moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in
which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:
"I come from the Throne -- bearing a message from Almighty God!"
The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived
it he gave no attention. "He has heard the prayer of His servant
your shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your desire
after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import --
that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the
prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is
aware of -- except he pause and think.
"God's servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and
taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two -- one uttered,
the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all
supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this -- keep
it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself,
beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at
the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your
crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a
curse upon some neighbor's crop which may not need rain and can
be injured by it.
"You have heard your servant's prayer -- the uttered part of it.
I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it
-- that part which the pastor -- and also you in your hearts --
fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God
grant that it was so! You heard these words: 'Grant us the
victory, O Lord our God!' That is sufficient. the whole of the
uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations
were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have
prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory -- must
follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit
of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth
me to put it into words. Listen!
"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go
forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit --
we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to
smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to
bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling
fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to
drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded,
writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a
hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their
unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them
out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes
of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of
the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in
spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the
grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast
their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter
pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their
tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet!
We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of
Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that
are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts.
Amen.
(After a pause.) "Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it,
speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!"
It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because
there was no sense in what he said.
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