Evening star., 1863-03-31
OF IAL.

Bp ths President of the United States OF America.
A PROCLAMATION
Whereas the Senate OF the United States. de-
youtly recognizing the Supreme Authority and
just Government OF Almighty God, in all the
affairs of men and oil nations, has, by a resolu-
uon. requested the President to designate and
set apart day for National prayer and humili-
atien:
And whereas ii is the duty Of nations, as well
as of men, to own their dependence upon the
oyerruling power of God, to confess their sins
and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with
assured hope that genuine repentance will lead
TO mercy and pardon, and to recognize the
sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scrip
tures and proven by all history, that those
nations only are blessed whose God is the
Lord:
And, insomuch as we know that, by His di-
vine law, nations, like individuals are SUBJ
ected to punishments and hastisements in
lis world, may we not justly fear that the
awful calamity of civil war, which now des-
olates the land, may be but punishment in
fiicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to
the needful end of our national reformation as
a whole People? We have been the recipients
of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have
been preserved, these many years, in peace
II
wealth, and power as no other nation has ever
grown. But we have forgotten God. We have
forgotten the gracious hand which preserved
us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and
strengthened us: and we have yainly imagined,
in the deceiifulness of our hearts, that all these
blessings We're produced by some superior wis
dom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with
unbroken success. we have become too self
sufficient to feel the necessity Of redeeming and
preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God
that made us.
1t behooYes us, then, to humble ourselves
before the offended Power, to confess our ma
tonal sins, and TO pray for clemency and for
giyeness.
Now, therefore, in compliance with the re-
quest, and fully concurring in the views of the
Senate, do, by this my proclamation, dpsg-
nate and set apart Thursday, the 3Dth day of
April 1868. as day of national humiliation,
fasting and prayer. And do hereby request
all the People to abstain on that day from their
ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite at their
several places OF public worship and their re-
spectiye homes, in keeping the day holy to the
Lord, and devoted to the humble discharge of
the religious duties proper to that solemn oc-
casion.
All this being DONE in sincerity and truth,
LEI us then rest humbly in the hope authorized
by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of
the Nation will be heard on high, and ans wered
with blessings, no less than the pardon of our
rational sins, and restoration of our now di-
yided and suffering country to its former hap
Ply condition Of unity and peace.
In testimony whereof, l have hereunto set
my hand and caused the seal OF the United
States 10 be affixed.
Done at the city of Washing gton, this thir-
tieth day OF March, in the year of
=, our Lord one thousand eight hundred
l1'o' and sixty three, and of the indepen dence
of the United States the eigh:y-seventh.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
BY the President
WILLIAM H. SEWARD. Secretary OF State