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- <title>"The War Prayer"</title>
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-
- <h1>The War Prayer</h1>
- <h2>by Mark Twain</h2>
-
- <p>
- 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.
-
- <p>
- 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
-
- <p>
- <blockquote>
- *God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest!
- Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!*
- </blockquote>
-
- <p>
- 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 --
-
- <p>
- 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!"
-
- <p>
- 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:
-
- <p>
- "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.
-
- <p>
- "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.
-
- <p>
- "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!
-
- <p>
- "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.
-
- <p>
- (*After a pause.*) "Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire
- it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!"
-
- <p>
- It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic,
- because there was no sense in what he said.
-
- <p>
- <hr>
- Twain apparently dictated it around 1904-05; it was rejected by his
- publisher, and
- was found after his death among his unpublished manuscripts. It was
- first published in 1923 in Albert Bigelow Paine's anthology,
- <cite>Europe and Elsewhere.</cite>
-
- <p>
- The story is in response to a particular war, namely the Philippine-American
- War of 1899-1902, which Twain opposed. See Jim Zwick's page
- <a href="http://web.syr.edu/~fjzwick/twain_ph.html">"Mark Twain
- on the Philippines"</a>
- for more of Twain's writings on the subject.
-
- <p>
- <em>Transcribed by Steven Orso (snorso@facstaff.wisc.edu)</em>
-
- <pre>
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- <h5>
- Last update:
- October 8, 1995
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