OFFICE OF THE RECORDING ANGEL - Mark Twain

Excerpt from "Report from Paradise", by Mark Twain (New York: Harper &
Brothers, 1952), pp. 87-94. Copyright, 1946, 1952, by The Mark Twain Company.

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OFFICE OF THE RECORDING ANGEL
Department of Petitions, Jan. 20
Andrew Langdon
Coal Dealer

Buffalo, New York

I have the honor, as per command, to inform you that your recent act
of benevolence and self-sacrifice has been recorded upon a page of the Book
called Golden Deeds of Men: a distinction, I am permitted to remark, which
is not merely extraordinary, it is unique.

As regards your prayers, for the week ending the 19th, I have the
honor to report as follows:

1. For weather to advance hard coal 15 cents a ton. Granted.

2. For influx of laborers to reduce wages 10 per cent. Granted.

3. For a* break in rival soft-coal prices. Granted.

4. For a visitation upon the man, or upon the family of the man, who
has set up a competing retail coal-yard in Rochester. Granted, as follows:
diphtheria, 2, 1 fatal; scarlet fever, 1, to result in deafness and imbecility.
NOTE. This prayer should have been directed against this subordinate's
principals, The N. Y. Central R. R. Co.

5. For deportation to Sheol of annoying swarms of persons who
apply daily for work, or for favors of one sort or another. Taken under
advisement for later decision and compromise, this petition appearing to
conflict with another one of same date, which will be cited further along.

6. For application of some form of violent death to neighbor who
threw brick at family cat, whilst the same was serenading. Reserved for con-
sideration and compromise because of conflict with a prayer of even date to
be cited further along.

7. To "damn the missionary cause." Reserved also as above.

8. To increase December profits of $22,230 to $45,000 for January,
and perpetuate a proportionate monthly increase thereafter "which will
satisfy you." The prayer granted; the added remark accepted with reserva-
tions.

9. For cyclone, to destroy the works and fill up the mine of the North
Pennsylvania Co. NOTE: Cyclones are not kept in stock in the winter sea-
son. A reliable article of fire-damp can be furnished upon application.

Especial note is made of the above list, they being of particular mo-
ment. The 298 remaining supplications classifiable under the head of
Special Providences, Schedule A, for the week ending 19th, are granted in a
body, except that 3 of the 32 cases requiring immediate death have been
modified to incurable disease.

This completes the week's invoice of petitions known to this office un-
der the technical designation of Secret Supplications of the Heart, and
which for a reason which may suggest itself, always receive our first and
especial attention.

The remainder of the week's invoice falls under the head of what we
term Public Prayers, in which classification we place prayers uttered in
Prayer Meeting, Sunday School, Class Meeting, Family Worship, etc.
These kinds of prayers have value according to classification of Christian
uttering them. By rule of this office, Christians are divided into two grand
classes, to wit: 1, Professing Christians; 2, Professional Christians. These,
in turn, are minutely subdivided and classified by size, species, and family;
and finally, standing is determined by carats, the minimum being 1, the
maximum 1,000.

As per balance-sheet for quarter ending Dec. 31, 1847, you stood
classified as follows:

Grand Classification, Professing Christian.

Size, one-fourth of maximum.

Species, Human-Spiritual.

Family, A of the Elect, Division 16.

Standing, 322 carats fine.

As per balance-sheet for quarter just ended that is to say, forty years
later you stand classified as follows:

Grand Classification, Professional Christian.

Size, six one-hundredths of maximum.

Species, Human- Animal.

Family, W of the Elect, Division 1547.

Standing, 3 carats fine.

I have the honor to call your attention to the fact that you seem to
have deteriorated.

To resume report upon your Public Prayers with the side remark that
in order to encourage Christians of your grade and of approximate grades,
it is the custom of this office to grant many things to them which would not
be granted to Christians of a higher grade partly because they would not
be asked for:

Prayer for weather mercifully tempered to the needs of the poor and
the naked. Denied. This was a Prayer-Meeting Prayer. It conflicts with Item
1 of this report, which was a Secret Supplication of the Heart. By a rigid rule
of this office, certain sorts of Public Prayers of Professional Christians are
forbidden to take precedence of Secret Supplications of the Heart.

Prayer for better times and plentier food "for the hard-handed son of
toil whose patient and exhausting labors make comfortable the homes, and
pleasant the ways, of the more fortunate, and entitle him to our vigilant and
effective protection from the wrongs and injustices which grasping avarice
would do him, and to the tenderest offices of our grateful hearts." Prayer-
Meeting Prayer. Refused. Conflicts with Secret Supplication of the Heart
No. 2.

Prayer "that such as in any way obstruct our preferences may be gen-
erously blessed, both themselves and their families, we here calling our
hearts to witness that in their worldly prosperity we are spiritually blessed,
and our joys made perfect." Prayer-Meeting Prayer. Refused. Conflicts with
Secret Supplications of the Heart Nos. 3 and 4.

"Oh, let none fall heir to the pains of perdition through words or acts
of burs." Family Worship. Received fifteen minutes in advance of Secret
Supplication of the Heart No. 5, with which it distinctly conflicts. It is sug-
gested that one or the other of these prayers be withdrawn, or both of them
modified.

"Be mercifully inclined toward all who would do us offense in our per-
sons or our property." Includes man who threw brick at cat. Family Prayer.
Received some minutes in advance of No. 6, Secret Supplications of the
Heart. Modification suggested, to reconcile discrepancy.

"Grant that the noble missionary cause, the most precious labor en-
trusted to the hands of men, may spread and prosper without let or limit in
all heathen lands that do as yet reproach us with their spiritual darkness."
Uninvited prayer shoved in at meeting of American Board. Received
nearly half a day in advance of No. 7, Secret Supplications of the Heart.
This office takes no stock in missionaries, and is not connected in any way
with the American Board. We should like to grant one of these prayers but
cannot grant both. It is suggested that the American Board one be with-
drawn.

This office desires for the twentieth time to call urgent attention to your
remark appended to No. 8. It is a chestnut.

Of the 464 specifications contained in your Public Prayers for the
week, and not previously noted in this report, we grant 2, and deny the
rest. To wit: Granted, (1), "that the clouds may continue to perform their
office; (2), and the sun his." It was the divine purpose anyhow; it will
gratify you to know that you have not disturbed it. Of the 462 details re-
fused, 61 were uttered in Sunday School. In this connection I must once
more remind you that we grant no Sunday School Prayers of Professional
Christians of the classification technically known in this office as the John
Wanamaker grade. We merely enter them as "words," and they count to
his credit according to number uttered within certain limits of time; 3,000
per quarter-minute required, or no score; 4,200 in a possible 5,000 is
quite common Sunday School score among experts, and counts the same as
two hymns and a bouquet furnished by young ladies in the assassin's cell,
execution-morning. Your remaining 401 details count for wind only. We
bunch them and use them for head-winds in retarding the ships of improper
people, but it takes so many of them to make an impression that we cannot
allow anything for their use.

I desire to add a word of my own to this report. When certain sorts of
people do a sizable good deed, we credit them up a thousand-fold more for
it than we would in the case of a better man on account of the strain. You
stand far away above your classification-record here, because of certain self-
sacrifices of yours which greatly exceed what couid have been expected of
you. Years ago, when you were worth only $100,000, and sent $2 to
your impoverished cousin the widow when she appealed to you for help,
there were many in heaven who were not able to believe it, and many more
who believed that the money was counterfeit. Your character went up many
degrees when it was shown that these suspicions were unfounded. A year or
two later, when you sent the poor girl $4 in answer to another appeal,
everybody believed it, and you were the talk here for days together. Two
years later you sent $6, upon supplication, when the widow's youngest
child died, and that act made perfect your good fame. Everybody in heaven
said, "Have you heard about Andrew?" for you are now affectionately
called Andrew here. Your increasing donation, every two or three years,
has kept your name on all lips, and warm in all hearts. All heaven watches
you Sundays, as you drive to church in your handsome carriage; and when
your hand retires from the contribution plate, the glad shout is heard even
to the ruddy walls of remote Sheol, "Another nickel from Andrew!"

But the climax came a few days ago, when the widow wrote and said
she could get a school in a far village to teach if she had $50 to get herself
and her two surviving children over the long journey; and you counted up
last month's clear profit from your three coal mines $22,230 and
added to it the certain profit for the current month $45,000 and a possi-
ble fifty and then got down your pen and your check-book and mailed her
fifteen whole dollars! Ah, Heaven bless and keep you forever and ever,
generous heart! There was not a dry eye in the realms of bliss; and amidst
the hand-shakings, and embracings, and praisings, the decree was thundered
forth from the shining mount, that this deed should out-honor all the his-
toric self-sacrifices of men and angels, and be recorded by itself upon a
page of its own, for that the strain of it upon you had been heavier and bit-
terer than the strain it costs ten thousand martyrs to yield up their lives at
the fiery stake; and all said, "What is the giving up of life, to a noble soul,
or to ten thousand noble souls, compared with the giving up of fifteen dol-
lars out of the greedy grip of the meanest white man that ever lived on the
face of the earth?"

And it was a true word. And Abraham, weeping, shook out the con-
tents of his bosom and pasted the eloquent label there, "RESERVED"; and
Peter, weeping, said, "He shall be received with a torchlight procession
when he comes"; and then all heaven boomed, and was glad you were go-
ing there. And so was hell.

[Signed]

THE RECORDING ANGEL [Seal]
By command.