He wrote a great deal more from time to time on this subject; but that is the gist of his conclusions, and whether justified by time, or otherwise, it expresses today the deduction of a very large number of people.  It is set down here, because it is a part of Mark Twain’s history, and also because a little while after his death there happened to creep into print an incomplete and misleading note (since often reprinted), which he once made in a moment of anger, when he was in a less judicial frame of mind.  It seems proper that a man’s honest sentiments should be recorded concerning the nation’s servants.

Clemens wrote an article at this period which he called the “War Prayer.”  It pictured the young recruits about to march away for war—­the excitement and the celebration—­the drum-beat and the heart-beat of patriotism—­the final assembly in the church where the minister utters that tremendous invocation: 

God the all-terrible!  Thou who ordainest,
Thunder, Thy clarion, and lightning, Thy sword!

and the “long prayer” for victory to the nation’s armies.  As the prayer closes a white-robed stranger enters, moves up the aisle, and takes the preacher’s place; then, after some moments of impressive silence, he begins: 

“I come from the Throne-bearing a message from Almighty God!..... 
He has heard the prayer of His servant, your shepherd, & 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 & think.

“God’s servant & yours has prayed his prayer.  Has he paused & 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 & the unspoken . . . .

“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 & 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 completed into those pregnant words.

    “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 wounded, writhing