Happy Birthday, Sam Clemens!

[grumbler]

Happy 174th, you old codger, wherever you are!

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.