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postheadericon The War Prayer

The War Prayer

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 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. See Jim Zwick's page "Mark Twain on the Philippines" for more of Twain's writings on the subject.

Transcribed by Steven Orso ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it )

Last Updated (Monday, 27 June 2011 16:55)

 

postheadericon A letter to the Sheeple

A Letter to the Sheeple


Dearest Citizen of the World,

I believe the time has come to reveal to you some of the perplexities you have faced in recent decades. It is well for you to understand some of these things so that you might know how to behave in the New Order now taking shape on the earth. We want you to be able to become fully involved and integrated into our new society. After all, this is for your best interest if you will do.

First of all, it is well that you understand some of our purposes so that you may more fully co-operate. I cannot tell you the hard times you will face if you resist us. We have ways of dealing with resisters. I am only telling you this now, since it is much too late to turn things around. The days of putting a stop to us have long since past. We have full control of the earth and its finance, along with the major media propaganda, and there is simply no way any nation or power can defeat us. We have eyes in every level of government in every nation of the world. We know what is being planned, for our ears and eyes are ever present. State secrets are fully known to us.

People recently accused us of lying about Iraq. Oh, you silly people, of course we lie. In this way we can keep the people unbalanced and always facing controversy which is very helpful to us. Have you not seen the talk show spectacle? Some of you believe we are the liberals and the good people are the conservatives. In reality, both serve our purposes. Each camp merely serves with the stamp of our approval but they are not allowed to present the real issues.

By creating controversy on all levels, no one knows what to do. So, in all of this confusion, we go ahead and accomplish what we want with no hindrance. Consider the President of the United States. Even though he regularly breaks every known check on his power, no one can stop him. He goes ahead and does whatever we want him to do anyway.

The Congress has no power to stop him. He does what we want since he knows if he does not, because of his rather dark character, we can have him removed in a moment's time. Is not that a rather brilliant strategy on our part? You cannot take us to court because you can't see us and the courts are our servants as well. We run everything, yet, you do not know who to attack. I must say this hidden hand is wonderfully devised and without any known historical precedent on this scale. We rule the world and the world cannot even find out who is ruling them.

This is truly a wonderful thing. In our media we present before you exactly what it is we want you to do. Then, as if in a flash, our little servants obey. We can send American or European troops to wherever we like, whenever we like, and for whatever purpose we like, and you dutifully go about our business. How much more evidence do you need? We can make you desire to leave your homes and family and go to war merely at our command. We only need to present some nonsense to you from the president's desk or on the evening news and we can get you all fired up to do whatever we like. You can do nothing but what we put before you.

YOUR VAIN RESISTANCE

When any of you seek to resist us, we have ways of making you look ridiculous as we have done with your militia movement. We have delighted to use this movement to show the world how impotent any resistance is. They look so silly marching around with their guns as if they were some match for our military. Look at what we did near Waco. Did the Davidian's little store of weapons help them? We have generously taxed you and used that money to make such sophisticated weapons you can in no way compete. Your own money has served to forge the chains we bind you with, since we are in control of all money. Some of you think you may escape by buying some land in the country and growing a garden. Let me remind you that you still pay us ground rent.

Oh, you may call it property taxes, but it still goes to us. You see, you need money no matter what you do. If you fail to pay your ground rent to us, we will take your land and sell it to someone who will pay us. Do you think we cannot do this? And with your ground rent we pay for the indoctrination of your children in the public schools we have set up. We want them to grow up well trained into the system of our thinking. Your children will learn what we want them to learn, when we want them to learn it, and you pay for it through your ground rent.

Those funds are also used for other projects we have in mind and our contractors are paid handsomely for their work. You may doubt that we own your children, or have such control, but you will find that we do. We can declare that you abuse your children when you spank them and have them confiscated. If they do not show up for school indoctrination, we can accuse you of neglect, thereby, giving them to us. Your children are not yours. They are ours. You must inoculate them, you must bring them to our hospitals if we decree or we will take them from you. You know this and we know this.

Through our electronic commerce we are able to see where you are, what you are buying and how much you have to buy things with. Where do you suppose we come up with our monthly financial statistics? Through the Internet and other sources we can even know how you think and what you say. It is not especially important to us what you believe as long as you do what we say. Your beliefs are nonsense anyway. But if you think you have a following, and we perceive that you might be somewhat dangerous to our agenda, we have ways to deal with you.

We have a Pandora's box of mischief with which to snare you. We can have you in court so long you will never get out. We can easily drain away all your assets over one pretext or another. We have an inexhaustible fund with which to draw from to pay our lawyers. These lawyers are paid by you in the form of taxes. You do not have this vast supply of wealth. We know how to divide and conquer. Have we not brought down rulers of countries through our devices? Do you think your tiny self will be any match for us?

YOUR VAIN ORGANIZATIONS

And, let us consider your religions and the "moral majority." The "moral majority" is neither moral nor is it in the majority. We have delighted to use this wet noodle of a movement to make ridiculous the Christian faith. The silly men who run that organization always end up with egg on their faces. We have always put them in defense of themselves as we have so successfully done with the NRA. We can make it seem by our media propaganda that the National Rifle Association is actually the New Radical Attackers. Have we not turned the American conservative movement on its ear? If it serves our purposes we can use the conservatives to turn the liberals on their ear.

It makes no difference to us but it serves to make you believe there are two sides struggling for their particular position. This helps to make things seem fair and free since everyone has a voice. Actually, there is only one side now with all kinds of masks on, but you are unable to penetrate our purposes. You see, we can do whatever we like and you can do nothing about it. Does it not seem reasonable that you simply obey and serve us? Otherwise, you get eaten up in the resistance you suppose will liberate you. You cannot be liberated. Imagine how you can.

We supply your fuel for your cars. We can turn it off whenever we like claiming that there is some sort of fuel shortage. What if your car breaks down? You cannot get parts for it without us. We supply all the money you use. At any whim of our desire we can stop the money supply or cause a complete crash all together. We can then order the president to declare all money worthless and that we will have to have new money. All of your stashes of cash will go up in smoke in a moment's time. Don't you need food? If necessary, we can cause a trucker's strike which would stop deliveries of food to your local store.

We can starve you whenever we like. You only have food because we have provided it to you from our table. During the great depression we controlled the food. We heaped mountains of food behind fences and let it rot. The hungry were then made to work in our labour camps even though there was enough and more to feed them. Do you really think you can beat us? You say you will hoard gold coins so you will still have money in the time of the crash.

We can simply pass a law which outlaws the possession of gold as we have done in the past. If we find gold in your possession, we would simply confiscate it and put you in prison for breaking the law. While in prison you would be required to work in one of our prison industries. We have so formed a picture of the labor camps in our prisons these days that no one seems to object to them. We tell people that murderers should pay for their own keep. No one seems to consider that we have the power to put tomato growers there also. We can pass laws that prohibit gardens and then make up some scientific reason why you may only buy food from our sources.

If someone sees you growing tomatoes, they will report you to us and then we will have you in our fields working for us. Oh, silly nationalists, there is no escape for you, for since long before you were born, we were planning your capture. Your teachers and ministers have been forming your thoughts for us for generations now. You have no idea how to pull out of our influence short of suicide. Go ahead and commit suicide, it will only help us to deal with the excessive population. You cannot hurt us, find us, or even imagine what we are up to. I am throwing you these few crumbs only so that you may, if you have a little good sense, obey and follow our orders.


Last Updated (Friday, 04 March 2011 03:12)

 

postheadericon The Decisive Element:

The Decisive Element: I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the Decisive Element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture, or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated, and if a person humanized or dehumanized. If I treat people as they are, I make them worse. If I treat people as they ought to be, I help them become what they are capable of becoming. - Goethe


 

Last Updated (Thursday, 20 January 2011 15:48)

 
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