Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1863-04-02

a Proclamation by the President of the Unit
ed States Of America.

ca Ot0teS Of A1eftcd
Whereas, the senate of the United States
deyoutly recognizing the supreme authority
ana Just government of Almighty God in all
the affairs OF men and of nations, has, by Il
resolution, requested the president to desg-
nate and set apart day for national prayer
and humiliation; and
Whereas, it is the duty of nations, as well
as of men, to own their dependence upon the
oVerrullng power of God, to confess their sins
and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with
assured as hope that genuine repentance will lead
" uIeICy ana pardon, and to recugnine the
sublime truths announced in the holy scrip
lures and proven by all history, that those ma
tons only are blessed whose God is the Lord !;
And, nasmuch, as we know that, by his d.
vine law, nations, like individuals, are subject
ed to punlshmcnts and chastsements in this
world, may we not justly fear that the awful
calamity OF civil war, which now desolates the
land, may be but punishment inflicted upon
us Tor 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 and
prosperity. We have grown in numbers,
wealth, and power, as no other nation has ever
grown. But we have forgotten God. We
served us in peace and multiplied and en-
riched and strengthened us; and we have
vainly imagined, in the deceitfuness of our
hearts, that all these blessings were produced
by some superior wisdom and virtue of our
own. Intoxicated with unbrokcn succes SIS, we
have become too self-suficent to feel the ne
cessity of redeeming and preserving grace,
too proud to pray to the God that made us
1t behooveS us, then, to humble ourselves be-
fore the offended power to confess our ma
tional sins, and to pray for clemency and for
giveness.
Now, therefore, in compliance with the re-
quest and fully concurring in the views of the
senate, do by this my proclamation, desig-
nate and set apart THURSDAY, the Both day of
April, 1868, as a day of national humiliation,
fasting, and prayer. And | do hereby request
all the people to abstain on that day from the
ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at
their several places of public worship and
their respective homes, in keeping the day
holy to the Lord, and devoted to the humble
discharge of the religious duties proper 10 the
solemn OCCASION
All this being done, in sincerity and truth,
let us then rest humby in the .ope, author
lied in the divine teachings, that the united
cry of the nation will be heard on high, and
answered with blessings, no less than the par
don of our national sins, and restoration of
our now divided and suffering count to its
former happy condition of unity and peace.
In witness whereof, have hereunto set my
hand, and caused the seal of the United States
to be affixed.
Done at the city of Washington, this thir-
tieth day of March, in the year Of our Lord
one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three,
and of the independence of the United States
the eighty-seventh ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
By the president:
WIN. Ii. SEWARD, Secretary of State.