[Peace-discuss] Clemency divided in half?

[C. G. Estabrook]

I don't think there's any doubt that it's his.  But he was apparently careful 
enough about his reputation not to publish it openly.  --CGE


E.Wayne Johnson wrote:
> This item "The War Prayer" is attributed to Mark Twain, perhaps 
> pseudepigraphically, but it's an interesting perspective anyway.
> 
> 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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