Mark Twain first submitted this short
story to the women’s magazine Harper's Bazaar in March 1905. It reflected his opinions of U.S. intervention
in the Phillipines. Harper’s wouldn’t publish it, considering it too radical. It was published after Mark Twain's death, during
World War I, when the subject matter was once again appropriate to current
events. Harper's Monthly printed this in November 1916.
The War
Prayer (1905)
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.
Source: Jim Zwick ed., Mark Twain's
Weapons of Satire (Syracuse University Press, 1992)
11:16:41 AM 
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