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Mon 9 Jan, 2006 09:06 pm
"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.
-- Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1905
Full text of The War Prayer
Ole Sam was a man for all time and all seasons.
No doubt about that, EB--well said . . .
Jeez, nothing's exactly changed, has it?
How depressing.
It'd be rather nice if we'd evolved a bit, hey?
Yes, My Dear Ukrainian Witch, it would be nice to contemplate--however, in our polity, the righteous would outlaw evolution if they were able. But things certainly seem not to have changed very much in the century since Twain wrote that.
I fear that your words are absolutely correct, My Dear Doggy Person!
I do love that Mark Twain.
Let us not forget Luther's prayer for the Jews:
And let those whosoever can, throw brimstone and pitch upon them; if one could hurl hell-fire at them, so much the better....And this must be done for the honor of Our Lord and of Christianity, so that God may see that we are indeed Christians. Let their houses also be shattered and destroyed...Let their prayer books and Talmuds be taken from them, and their whole Bible too; let their rabbis be forbidden, on pain of death, to teach henceforth any more. Let the streets and highways be closed against them. Let them be forbidden to practice usury, and let all their money, and all their treasures of silver and gold be taken from them and put away in safety. And if all this not be enough, let them be driven like mad dogs out of the land.
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