Dictated by Mark Twain [Samuel Clemens] in 1904 in advance of his
death in 1910.

During his writing career, he had criticized perhaps every type of
person or institution either living or dead. But this piece was just a
little too hot for his family to tolerate. Since they believed the
short narrative would be regarded as sacrilege, they urged him not to
publish it. However, Sam was to have the last word, and even the word
after that. Having directed it to be published after his death, he
said,

"I have told the truth in that... and only dead men can tell the truth
in this world."

- William H. Huff

THE WAR PRAYER

It was a time of great exulting and 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 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 depths 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 doubt upon its
righteousness straight way 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 s

moke, 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 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 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 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 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
shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their
humble homes with hurricanes 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 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.

wrote in message
...
Dictated by Mark Twain [Samuel Clemens] in 1904 in advance of his
death in 1910.

During his writing career, he had criticized perhaps every type of
person or institution either living or dead. But this piece was just a
little too hot for his family to tolerate. Since they believed the
short narrative would be regarded as sacrilege, they urged him not to
publish it. However, Sam was to have the last word, and even the word
after that. Having directed it to be published after his death, he
said,

"I have told the truth in that... and only dead men can tell the truth
in this world."

- William H. Huff

THE WAR PRAYER

It was a time of great exulting and 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 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 depths 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 doubt upon its
righteousness straight way 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 s

moke, 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 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 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 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 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
shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their
humble homes with hurricanes 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 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.\


That's an excellent indictment of the so-called patriots and Christians who
claim to believe in Him yet back unjust atrocities.