Lamoille newsdealer. [volume] (Hyde Park, Vt.) 1860-1877, 1863-04-09
A NATIONAL FAST.
PROCLAMATION BY THE PRESIDENT.

Whereas, The Senate of the United
States, devoutly recognizing the supreme
authority and just government of Almigh-
ty God in all the affairs of men and of
nations, has, by resolution, requested
the president to designate and set apart a
day of national prayer and humiliation
and whereas, it is the duty of nations as
we'll as of men, to own their dependence
upon the overruling power of God, to con-
fess their sins and transgressions, in hum
BILE sorrow, yet with assured 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 ma
tions only are blessed whose God is the
Lord and inasmuch as we know, that by
divine law, nations, like individuals, are
subjected to punishment and chastisement
in this world, may we not justly fear that
the awful calamity of civil war, which
now desolates the land, may be but pun
ishment inflicted upon us for presumpt-
uous sins, to the needful end of our ma
tional reformation as whole people !?
We have been the recipients of choicest
bounties of Heaven. We have been pre-
served 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 have forgotten the gracious hand
which preserved us in peace, and multi
piled and enriched and strengthened us !;
and we have vainly imagined in the de-
ceitfulness of our hearts, that all these
blessings were produced by some superior
wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxi-
Gated with unbroken success, we have be-
come too self-sufficient to feel the necessi-
ty of redeeming and preserving grace, too
proud to pray to the God that made us |
1t behooves us then, to humble ourselves
before the offended Power, TO confess our
national sins, and to pray for clemency
and forgiveness.
Now, therefore, in compliance with the
request, and fully concurring in the views
of the senate, / do by this my proclama-
tion designate and set apart
THURSDAY, THE 3Oth DAY OF APRIL, 1868,
as day of national humiliation, fasting,
and prayer And I 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 respective homes, in
keeping the day holy to the Lord, and de-
voted to the humble discharge of the re-
ligious duties proper that solemn occasion.
All this being done in sincerity and truth,
let US then rest humbly in the hope, au-
thorized by the Divine teachings, that
the united cry of the nation will be heard
on high, and answered with blessings nc
less than the pardon of our national sins,
and restoration of our now divided and
suffering country to its former happy con.
dition of unity and peace.
In witness whereof, I have hereuntc
set my hand, and caused the seal of the
United States to be affixed.
Done at the city of Washington this 30th
day of March, in the year of oul
Lord one thousand eight hundred
| r.. 81 and sixty-three, and of the indie
pendence of the United States the
eighty-seventh.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
By the President: fu,
WIN. II. SEWARD,
Secretary of State