Letter: Heed the words of Twain’s ‘War Prayer’

Monday, Nov. 6, 2006 | 7:35 a.m.

Mark Twain, who lived in Nevada in the 1860s, wrote "War Prayer," a short story ridiculing Christians who, in wartime, pray for the Lord to be on their side. Here are some excerpts from "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 their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst ...

"(F)or 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 ... Amen."

If Twain were alive today he would have a word for Iraq war supporters. It might even be a word as strong as "hypocrite."

Cornelius Harrington, Henderson