[Newspoetry] "The War Prayer" by Mark Twain

Thu Mar 14 20:32:05 CST 2002

Although I did not write this, it is in the public domain, and I humbly submit 
it as a newspoem.

The War Prayer

by Mark Twain

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. 
The War Prayer

by Mark Twain