Juliet signal. [volume] (Juliet [i.e. Joliet], Ill.) 1844-1???, 1863-04-21
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.
Fasting ana Prayer.

Fasting ana kF0yePs
M EHE PRERIDENT OF TIE UNITED STATES
OF AMERICA.
WHRREAs, The Senate Of the United
States. devoutly recognising the supreme
aothority and just government Of Almighty
God, IN all the affairs Of men and Of Ma
Sions. has, by resolution, requested the
President.tC designate and set apart day
Tor national prayer and humiliation
Amp WHEREAS, It is the duty Of nations,
% we'll as of men, 70 own their depends
snes upon the over-ruling power Of God to
confess their sins and trnnsgreesions, in
humbl sorrow. yet with assured hope that
genuine repentance will lead TO mercy and
pagdon, and n recognize the sublime truth,
announced in the Holy Scri ptures and pro-
ven BY all history, that those natioIs only
ara blessed whose God is the Lord.
And, insomuch as we know that, by his
divine law, nations, like individuals, are
subjected TO puniShments and chsstise>
msnts 10 this world, may we not justly
fear that the awful calamity of civil war,
which now desolates the land, may be but
o punt hment Inflicted upon Us for our
presumptous sin, to the needful end Of our
national reformation 81 whole people Z
We have been the REGIMENTS Of the choicest
bOuuties of Heaven. We have been pre-
served these many years, in peace and
prosperity. We have grown in mum ers,
wealth and power as no other nation has
ever grown. But we have forgotten God.
We have forgotten the gracious hand which
preserved US ia peace. and multiplied aHd
enriched and strengthened US; and we
have vainly imagined, in the dece'tfulness
of our hearts, that all these blessings were
produced by some superior wisdom ard
virtue of our own. intoxicated with IN
broken success, we have become too self
sufficient to feel the necessity Of redeem
ing and preserving grace, too proud u
pray TO the God that made Us
It behooves us, then, to humble our.
selves before the offended p>wer, to con-
fesS our N ticnal sins. and to pray for elem
ency and forgiveness.
Now, therefore, in cOpspiiauce with the
request, and fully cOncurring in :he views
OF the Senate, l do, by this my prOclama.
ticn, designate and set apart Thursday
the 30;h day Of April, 1868. as a day u
national humiliation, fasting AMI prayer
Ard do hereby request all the people tc
abstain on that day from their ordinary
secular pursuits, and to unite. at their sew
evrsl places Of public Worship and thcil
respective homes, in keeping the day holy
20 the Lord, and devoted 10 the humb''
discharge of the religious duties proper ::
she solemn occasion.
All this being done, in sincerity anC
truth, let us then rest humbly in the hops
authorized by the Divine teaching, tina
the united cry Of the nation will be heard
On high: and answered with blessings, mt
lees than the pardon Of our national sins
and restoration of our now divided anC
suffering country to its former happy con
dition Of unity and peace.
In witness whereof, have hersunto Sc
my hand and caused the seal Of the United
States to be affixed.
49, Done at the city of Washin-
LIS. ton, this thirtieth day Of March
~ in the year of our Lord on,
Thousand eight hundred and sixty.three
aud Of the Independence Of the United
States the eighty-seventh.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
By the President,
VIZ. II. SEWARD, Secretary Of State.