The War Prayer
March 1905
by Mark Twain
Editor's note: Outraged by American military intervention in the
Philippines, Mark Twain wrote The War Prayer and sent it to Harper's Bazaar.
This women's magazine rejected it for being too radical, and it wasn't
published until after Mark Twain's death, when World War I made it even more
timely. It appeared in Harper's Monthly, November 1916.
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.
Source: Jim Zwick ed., Mark Twain's Weapons of Satire (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1992), pp. 156-160.
Purchase an illustrated version of The War Prayer from Laissez Faire Books at http://lfb.com/cart/affiliate.php?code=10714&stocknumber=HU8844.