The War Prayer
March 1905
by Mark Twain
Editor's
note: Outraged by American military intervention in the Phillipines, Mark
Twain wrote this and sent it to Harper's Bazaar. This women's
magazine rejected it for being too radical, and it wasn't published until after
Mark Twain's death, when World War I made it even more timely. It appeared
in Harper's Monthly, November 1916.
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.