The War Prayer
March 1905
by Mark Twain
Editor's note: Outraged by American military intervention in the Phillipines, Mark Twain wrote this 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 (Syracue: Syracuse University Press, 1992), pp. 156-160.