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.
Albert Bigelow Paine first published extracts from "The War Prayer"
in his 1912 biography of Mark Twain with the comment that the author
said he had been urged not to publish it. According to Paine, Mark
Twain acceded to its suppression by stating, "I have
told the whole truth in that, and only dead mean can tell the truth in
this world. It can be published after I am dead." A full text was
collected in Europe and elsewhere.
Dona nobis pacem; grant us peace.
