It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in everyTheWar Prayer
by Mark Twain
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 fire sides 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.
The Mysterious Stranger
(Excerpt from Chapter 9)
by Mark Twain
"Monarchies, aristocracies, and religions are all based upon that large
defect in your race -- the
individual's distrust of his neighbor, and his desire, for safety's or
comfort's sake, to stand well in his
neighbor's eye. These institutions will always remain, and always flourish,
and always oppress you,
affront you, and degrade you, because you will always be and remain slaves
of minorities. There was
never a country where the majority of the people were in their secret hearts
loyal to any of these
institutions."
I did not like to hear our race called sheep, and said I did not think they were.
"Still, it is true, lamb," said Satan. "Look at you in war -- what mutton you are, and how ridiculous!"
"In war? How?"
"There has never been a just one, never an honorable one -- on the part
of the instigator of the war. I
can see a million years ahead, and this rule will never change in so many
as half a dozen instances. The
loud little handful -- as usual -- will shout for the war. The pulpit will
-- warily and cautiously -- object
-- at first; the great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy
eyes and try to make out why there
should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, "It is unjust
and dishonorable, and there is no
necessity for it." Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on
the other side will argue and
reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing
and be applauded; but it
will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the
anti-war audiences will thin out
and lose popularity. Before long you will see this curious thing: the speakers
stoned from the platform,
and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men who in their secret
hearts are still at one with those
stoned speakers -- as earlier -- but do not dare to say so. And now the
whole nation -- pulpit and all
-- will take up the war-cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest
man who ventures to open his
mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open. Next the statesmen
will invent cheap lies, putting
the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad
of those conscience-soothing
falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations
of them; and thus he will
by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for
the better sleep he enjoys after
this process of grotesque self-deception."