Ingersoll, Robert Green -- Lecture (1884-01-20), “Orthodoxy,” Tabor Opera House, Denver, Colorado

Dave — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 17:42:52 +0000

Only the other day a gentleman was telling me of a case of special Providence. He knew it. He had been the subject of it. A few years ago he was about to go on a ship, when he was detained. He did not go, and the ship was lost with all on board.
“Yes,” I said, ” Do you think the people who were drowned believed in special Providence?” Think of the infinite egotism of such a doctrine. Here is a man that fails to go upon a ship with 500 passengers, and they go down to the bottom of the sea — fathers, mothers, children, and loving husbands and wives waiting upon the shores of expectation. Here is one poor little wretch that did not happen to go! And he thinks that God, the Infinite Being, interfered in his poor little withered behalf and let the rest all go. That is special Providence!

Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, freethinker, orator
Lecture (1884-01-20), “Orthodoxy,” Tabor Opera House, Denver, Colorado
(Source)

Published as its own book in 1884.

Twain, Mark -- Story (1905), “The War Prayer”

Dave — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 12:59:17 +0000

“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 their 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.
(After a pause.) “Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!”

Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Story (1905), “The War Prayer”
(Source)

A mysterious man speaking to a church congregation gathered to pray for the victory of their local men going off to war.

The story was originally written after the Spanish-American War and during the Philippine-American War. It was rejected at the time by Harper's Bazaar on 1905-03-22 as "too radical" and "not quite suited to a woman's magazine." He was further discouraged by his family, friends, and publishers from publishing something so "sacrilegious."

It's frequently claimed that the story was eventually published in Harper's Magazine, Vol 80, No. 798 (1916-11), during World War I. In reality, that issue only contains Part 7 (the last installment) of his The Mysterious Stranger (a different story).

It was not published until collected in Europe and Elsewhere (1923) [ed. Paine].

WIST Quotations

Ingersoll, Robert Green -- Lecture (1884-01-20), “Orthodoxy,” Tabor Opera House, Denver, Colorado

Twain, Mark -- Story (1905), “The War Prayer”