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.
(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.
