Prayer for Our Country, a lament on the necessity of war by Rev. Harry Emerson Fosdick (1917)

Contributor(s):

Aharon N. Varady (editing/transcription) and Harry Emerson Fosdick

Shared on:

19 January 2023 under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license

Categories:

War, United States of America

Tags:

ecumenical prayers, 57th century A.M., English vernacular prayer, World War Ⅰ, lamentation, United States entry into World War Ⅰ, Sinking of the RMS Lusitania, 20th century C.E.

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Contribute a translation	Source (English)
	O God, bless our Country! We lament before Thee the cruel necessity of war.
	But what could we do? Our dead by hundreds lie beneath the sea;^[1] A reference to the sinking of the RMS Lusitania by Germany on 7 May 1915 causing the loss of 1,198 civilian lives, including 128 US Americans. the liberties that our sires baptized with their blood and handed down to us in trust, so that they are not ours alone but all humanity’s, are torn in shreds; and a foe is loose against us whom we have not chosen, whom we have not aggrieved, and who in his will to conquer counts solemn oaths to be but scraps of paper and the chivalry of the seas an empty name.
	We have grown weary, to the sickness of our souls, sitting comfortably here, while others pour their blood like water forth for those things which alone can make this earth a decent place for man to live upon.
	What could we do? With all the evils of our nation’s life, that we acknowledge and confess with shame, we yet plead before Thee that we have not wanted war, that we hate no man, that we covet no nation’s possessions, that we have nothing for ourselves to gain from war, unless it be a clear conscience and a better earth for all the nations to live and grow in.
	We plead before Thee that if patience and good will could have won the day, we gladly should have chosen them, and patience long since would have had her perfect work.
	And now we lay our hand upon our sword. Since we must draw it, O God, help us to play the man and to do our part in teaching ruthlessness once for all what it means to wake the sleeping lion of humanity’s conscience. Amen.

“Prayer for Our Country” by Rev. Harry Emerson Fosdick was selected by Rabbi Morris S. Lazaron for inclusion in his World War Ⅰ era prayerbook, Side Arms: Readings, Prayers and Meditations for Soldiers and Sailors (1918), on pages 27-28. The prayer is printed unchanged from its original publication in The Challenge of the Present Crisis (H.E. Fosdick 1917), pp. 46-47.

Source(s)

Notes[+]

Notes
1	A reference to the sinking of the RMS Lusitania by Germany on 7 May 1915 causing the loss of 1,198 civilian lives, including 128 US Americans.

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“Prayer for Our Country, a lament on the necessity of war by Rev. Harry Emerson Fosdick (1917)” is shared through the Open Siddur Project with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International copyleft license.

Aharon N. Varady (editing/transcription)

Aharon Varady (M.A.J.Ed./JTSA Davidson) is a volunteer transcriber for the Open Siddur Project. If you find any mistakes in his transcriptions, please let him know. Shgiyot mi yavin; Ministarot naqeni שְׁגִיאוֹת מִי־יָבִין; מִנִּסְתָּרוֹת נַקֵּנִי "Who can know all one's flaws? From hidden errors, correct me" (Psalms 19:13). If you'd like to directly support his work, please consider donating via his Patreon account. (Varady also translates prayers and contributes his own original work besides serving as the primary shammes of the Open Siddur Project and its website, opensiddur.org.)

Harry Emerson Fosdick

Harry Emerson Fosdick (May 24, 1878 – October 5, 1969) was an American pastor. Fosdick became a central figure in the Fundamentalist–Modernist controversy within American Protestantism in the 1920s and 1930s and was one of the most prominent liberal ministers of the early 20th century. Although a Baptist, he was called to serve as pastor, in New York City, at First Presbyterian Church in Manhattan's West Village, and then at the historic, inter-denominational Riverside Church in Morningside Heights, Manhattan.

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תפלה בעד שלום המדינה | Prayer for the Welfare of the Government and Country of the United States of America, by Avraham Hyman Charlap (1912)

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Associated Image:

The Cunard liner Lusitania speeding past the Fastnet lighthouse, probably outward bound for New York on her maiden voyage, painting by Norman Wilkinson (1907)

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ויהי נעם אדני אלהינו עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננה עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננהו "May the pleasantness of אדֹני our elo’ah be upon us; may our handiwork be established for us — our handiwork, may it be established." –Psalms 90:17