The War Prayer
By
Mark Twain

Preface by
Kenneth Mattern

An
esspc eBook

Preface

On Tuesday morning, September 11, 2001 as I was sitting at my desk someone down the hall said that there was a news report that an airplane, a 737, had crashed into the side of the World Trade Center. I immediately pointed my browser to ABC news but the network traffic was already so busy that I got nothing. We talked about the fact that this was a true and real denial of service because of the number of people trying to get news from the Internet.
      Then we remembered that in the computer room there was a video processor with a portable TV. We went into the computer room and did our best to get the news. It was grainy and snowy there in that room. But as we watched, and to our horror, we saw another airplane crash into the second World Trade Center Tower. Suddenly my body got cold. It was like there was ice water running through my veins. I was horrified at what I had just seen. We immediately moved the television into an empty office where we raised the antenna and were able to watch on CBS as the events unfolded in New York.
      As I walked back to my office to retrieve my cell phone our security officer shouted that an airplane had hit the Pentagon! I rushed back to the TV.
      I work for a small Department of Defense contractor and many of my team mates had been to briefings at the Pentagon. Immediately I began to wonder who I might know there.
      I knew that we were at war.
      As we continued to watch, the announcement was made that an airplane had crashed in Somerset, Pennsylvania. My heart stopped because I graduated from Somerset High School in 1968. Now it was really hitting close to home.
      By body was numb and my mind was racing. Of course my first thought was that Osama Bin Laden was behind the attack on America. It couldn't be anyone else. My second thought, or fear, was that we would immediately launch a reprisal attack against Afghanistan. I thought back to all the times I had said to myself that someone should do something about the Taliban. Now it looked like someone would.
      Then the first tower collapsed.
      I think that we all stopped breathing. I was stunned and unable to comprehend what I had just seen. It was gone! Totally! Oh the humanity. How many thousands of people had I just seen wiped from the face of the earth? How many families had just been rent asunder? Why had all of this happened?
      Anger, mixed with grief, stilled the room. Then one man said, "I hope that we turn Afghanistan to glass tonight! We need to nuke them all!" There were nods of agreement and I must admit that my initial reaction was that he might have been right that nuclear weapons could be used that very day. Then he continued, "I have the feeling that there will be a lot of Arab run stores here in town that will be on fire tonight."
      I was stunned. Here was a man who had a security clearance, who had been investigated by the National Security Agency, a person who can be trusted. Then he said that wanted to take his shotgun to the park in the center of town and shoot into the air. Someone said that they would bring him cigarette money in Jail. There was a little laughter, but some of us were grim in our feelings and I was chilled even more. I wondered whether he was any better than those who had attacked the United States.
      Then the second tower collapsed.
      I couldn't believe it. The World Trade Center towers were suddenly a pile of ruin. Dust and smoke filled the air, horror was in the voice of Dan Rather and the band in my chest got even tighter. I simply could not believe, or comprehend, what I had just witnessed. And I knew that America had been changed forever.
      My fear, my anguish and my anger reached new heights. I wanted to cry, but could not. For some reason the memory of a brief scene from the movie Apocalypse Now leapt to mind, the scene where Marlon Brando, in the role of Col. Kurtz, spoke of the war in Vietnam and all that he said, or whispered was, "the horror, the horror."
      I don't know how I got through the rest of the work day. Thankfully the boss finally sent us all home at 1:00pm. As soon as I got home I turned on the television to ABC News and watched continually until I finally collapsed at midnight.
      The events unfolded, day by day, hour by hour and I watched more television in the last four days than I normally watch in ten weeks. And in that time my feelings went from anger and hurt to fear and dread. What would the president do? How quickly would we react? What kind of response would we make?
      And now it is Saturday and I have to publish some books. But my decision is to publish only one book and a very short one at that. I chose to publish Mark Twain's "The War Prayer".
      You see I am a Christian minister, though I am not serving a church at this time. I have problems with the waging of war, no matter how just. I have great problems with what they so much like to call "collateral damage". Freely translated that means not only buildings and property but innocent men, women and children. Children are always the ultimate victims of war. How do we wage war without hurting the children? It can't be done. It simply can't be done.
      When Mark Twain wrote "The War Prayer" and showed it to a friend, the friend said that it was a most important writing and that it should be published immediately as far and wide as possible. But Twain disagreed and said that it indeed was powerful but not to publish it until after he had died. And it was not published until after the death of the writer.
      Thank God that it was published, it is one of the most important pieces of literature ever written and one that we all should take to heart. Tomorrow, September 16, 2001, I wonder how many pastors in how many churches will pray the same prayer that the pastor in the church Twain wrote about prayed? I wonder?
      Will we go to war? Undoubtedly. Will children be the victims? Of course. Will the United States be the victor? Without a doubt. Will we win? Never! For no one ever wins a war, they only bring it to an end.
      Oh the horror, the horror.

War Prayer

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 sputtering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spreads 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 outpouring 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 faces alight with material dreams-visions of a 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 heros, 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 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 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 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 His Who hearth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this-keep it in mind. If you 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 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 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 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 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 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 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.

Afterword

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Table of Contents

The War Prayer

Preface

War Prayer

Afterword