 It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, and every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism. The drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, bunch of firecrackers hissing and spluttering. On every hand, and far down the receding and fading spread of roots, and balconies of fluttering wilderness of flags flash in the sun. Daily, the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue, gay and fine in their new uniforms. The proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them, with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by. Nightly, the packed mass meetings listened panting to patriot oratory, which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause. The tears running down their cheeks the while. In the churches, the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the god of battles, beseeching his aid in our good cause, in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half-dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war, and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straight away, got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight, and defended no more in that way. Sunday morning came. Next day the battalions would leave for the front. The church was filled. The volunteers were there, their young faces alike with marshal dreams. The lights of the stern advanced, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender. Then came the long prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving in beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was that an ever-merciful and benign father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work, bless them, shield them in their day of battle and in the hour of peril, bear them in his mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset, help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory. An aged stranger entered, and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to gasliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way. Without pausing, he ascended to the preacher's side and stood there waiting. With shut lids, the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued with his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words uttered in fervent appeal, bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, father and protector of our land and flag. The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside, which the startled minister did, and took his place. During some moments, he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light. Then in a deep voice he said, I come from the throne, bearing a message from Almighty God. The words smote the house with a shock. If the stranger perceived it, he gave no attention. He has heard the prayer of his servant, your shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your desire after I, his messenger, shall have explained to you its import. That is to say, it's full import. For it is likened to many of the prayers of man, in that it asked for more than he who utters it is aware of, except he pause and think. God's servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and 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 and the unspoken. Wander this, keep it in mind, if you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware. Lest with that intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor's crop, which may not need rain and can be injured by it. 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 and your hearts fervently prayed silently and ignorantly and unthinkingly, God granted it was so. You heard these words, grant us the victory, oh Lord our God, that is sufficient. The whole of the utter 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 command with me to put it into words, listen. Oh Lord our Father our young Patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle, be thou near them, with them and spirit. We also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the folk. Oh 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 ring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief. Help us to turn them out ruthless 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 the 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 of a set and seek his aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen. He hath prayed it, if ye still desire it speak, the messenger of the most high waits. It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic because there was no sense in what he said. Thanks for watching.