The Burlington weekly hawk-eye. [volume] (Burlington [Iowa]) 1860-1876, 1863-04-11
NATIONAL PRAYER AND HUMILI.l
., ATIONs

/ PROCLAMATION By TIE PRksln1NI OF TIE
UNITED srAfYs OF AAERleA. tSasla
Whereas, The Senate of the United States,
devoutly recognizing the supreme authority and
lust government Of Almighty God in all the aft
fairs Of men and Of nations, has, by resolution,
requested the President to designate and set
apart day for National prayer and humiliation;
and.
Whereas. 1t 10 the duty of nations, as well as
of men. to own their dependence upon the over
ruling power Of God, to confess their sins and
transeressions, in humble sorrow, yet with as
sured hope that genuine repentance will lead to
mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime
truths announced in the Holy Scriptures and
proven by all history, that those nations only
are blessed whose God 10 the Lord;
And inasmuch as we know that, BY His divine
law, nations, like individuals, are subjected to
punishments and chastisements 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 for our pre-
tional reformation as 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 % no other nation
has ever grown. But We have forgotten God
We have forgotten the gracious Hand which
preserved 10 in peace, and multiplied and en-
riched and strengthened %; and We have vainly
imagined, in the deceitfuness Of our hearts, that
oil these blessings we're produced BY some %.
perior wisdom and virtue Of our own. lntoxi.
Gated with unbrokeu success, We have become
too self-suffcient to feel the necessity OF re-
desming and preserving grace, too proud to pray
to the God that made Us!
= Il behooves us, then, to humble ourselves be.
fore the offended Power, to confess our national
sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.
Now, therefore, in compliance with the re-
quest, and fully concurring in the views Of the
Senate, do BY this, my proclamation, designate
and Get apart Thursday, the s0th day Of April.
1858, - day of national humiliation, fasting
people to abstain on that day from their ordina.
r. 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 to that solemn occasion.
All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let
% then rest humbly in the hope, authorised BY
the Divine teachings, that the united cry Of the
Nation will DO heard on high, and answered with
blessings, no less than the pardon of our nation
a sins, and restoration Of our now divided and
suffering country TO it, former happy condition
Of unity and peace.
In witness whereof, have hereunto Get my
hand, and caused the seal Of the United States
to be affixed.
Done at the City Of Washington this shirtieth
day of March, in the year of our Lord
RI one thousand eight hundred and sixty
IL o. three, and Of the independence Of the
United States the eighty-seyenth.
,,-.e,, ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
By the President:
WILLIAM H. SEWARD. Secretary Of State.