 begin forwarded text date mon NUMBER sep NUMBER NUMBER NUMBER NUMBER NUMBER to nettime l URL from phil duncan pduncan aggregatestudio com subject nettime the war prayer sender nettime l request URL reply to phil duncan pduncan aggregatestudio com the following prayer is from a story by mark twain and was quoted by lewis laphan in the october issue of harper s magazine it occurs at the very end of an excellent article which i recommend to you in the story an old man enters a church where the congregation has been listening to an heroic sermon about the glory to be won in battle by young patriots armed with the love of god he usurps the pulpit and prays the following o lord our god help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreads 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 sports of the sun flames in 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 twain wrote the story the war prayer in NUMBER during the american occupation of the philippines but the story wasn t printed until NUMBER thirteen years after his death because the editors thought it unsuitable for publication at the time it was written distributed via nettime no commercial use without permission nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets more info majordomo URL and info nettime l in the msg body archive URL contact nettime URL end forwarded text r a hettinga mailto rah ibuc com the internet bearer underwriting corporation URL NUMBER farquhar street boston ma NUMBER usa however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity predicting the end of the world has not been found agreeable to experience edward gibbon decline and fall of the roman empire 