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 with 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, th
e 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 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
his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent
appeal, “Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord and 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, and 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 your neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of
rain on your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a
curse on 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 by 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 the 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!
“Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts,
go forth into 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 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 their little children to wander unfriended in
the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the
sun flames in 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 pilgrimmage, 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.
