---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Annie Woodbury Hafen
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 21
number: 3
published: 1918-01
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: "Annie Woodbury Hafen, “The American Mother's Prayer,” *Improvement Era* 21, no. 3 (January 1918): 195."
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2103unse
  transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers.
  identifier: improvementera2103unse
start_page: 195
end_page: 195
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1918-01)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2103unse
  publication_year: 1918
  note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1918, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# The American Mother's Prayer

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The American Mother's Prayer

Great God, who keepeth watch within

The shadow, as the ages pass;

Who loveth all humanity,

The high, the low, the struggling mass;

Give us this day the strength to bear

Our rightful burdens, is our prayer.

Pressed to our lips we feel the cup

Of sorrow, heartache, suff'ring, pain.

'Tis brimming o'er with briny tears

And haunting fears we can't restrain, —

Our soldier sons may pay the price

Of death, perhaps succumb to vice.

The cup is bitter, Lord, we pray,

If thou canst fill thy righteous plan

To plant a peace that lasts for aye

And build the brotherhood of man

Without this suff'ring, Lord, we cry,

Oh let this bitter cup pass by.

But, if full suff'ring must attend

This birth of world democracy,

This founding of Christ's peace on earth, —

When "might is right" shall cease to be; —

Complete the work Thou hast begun,

Though we drain the cup, Thy will be done.

Bunkerville, Nevada Annie Woodbury Hafen.