With everything happening in the world, I thought this post would be fitting, so I decided to share an extra one. The content is in the public domain. Right now, I’m reading a biography of Mark Twain, and it’s fantastic. I’ll share more about it soon. No matter your political or religious views, I think this is worth reflecting on. It is satire.
The War Prayer
“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.”
Context Note
Twain wrote this in 1905 during the Philippine-American War, but his publishers actually rejected it at the time, fearing it was too sacrilegious or “unpatriotic.” It wasn’t published until 1916, six years after his death. The story concludes with the congregation listening to this speech and then simply dismissing the stranger as a “lunatic,” because his words were too uncomfortable to accept.
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