The War Prayerby 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.

---

Twain apparently dictated it around 1904-05; it was rejected by his publisher,
and was found after his death among his unpublished manuscripts. It was first
published in 1923 in Albert Bigelow Paine's anthology, Europe and
Elsewhere.

The story is in response to a particular war, namely the Philippine-American
War of 1899-1902, which Twain opposed.