- 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 sputtering; on every hand
and far down the receding and fading spreads 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
faces alight with material dreams-visions of a 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 heros, 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
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 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 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 His Who hearth all
supplications,
the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this-keep it in mind. If you 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 by 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 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.
-
- [Written by Twain during the American military's
brutal
and senseless crackdown on the Philippines (1899-1902), which resulted
in the deaths of 4,600 Americans and 272,000 Filipinos. Twain told his
friend and biographer Alfred Bigelow Payne that he had been warned not
to publish it. "I have told the whole truth in that, and only dead
mean can tell the truth in this world," Twain told Bigelow. "It
can be published after I am dead." And it wasn't. Bigelow printed
excerpts from The War Prayer in his 1912 biography of Twain. But the full
story didn't see print until 1916, when it appeared in Harper's as a
protest
against the rampages of World War]
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