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 outpouring 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 — them 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 the Father 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 their 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.
About the Text: According to Albert
Bigelow Paine, whom Twain named as his literary executor not long before he
died, Twain dictated "The War Prayer" in 1904-05 and intended it to
be published then. However, it was rejected by his publisher. Paine found it
among Twain's unpublished manuscripts after the writer's death in 1910. Paine
published the essay for the first time in 1923 in his collection, Europe and
Elsewhere. The text I present here follows Paine’s 1923 text.
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