Cleveland morning leader. [volume] (Cleveland [Ohio]) 1854-1865, 1863-04-30

By the President Of The United statss d
AmeTica


By The President of The United Stats, d
America
WHEREAS the Senate Of the United States
deyoutly recognizing the Supreme Author.
lty and just government of Almighty God
IN all the affairs Of men and Of nations
has, by resolution, requested the Presi.
dent to designate and get apart dav for
National prayer and humiliation,
And whereas it is the duty of nations
as well as Of men, to own their dependence
upon the overruling power of God; to con-
Tess their sins and transgressions; in hum
Bile sorrow, yet with assured hope that gen-
uine repentance will lead to mercy and
pardon, and TO recognize the sublime truth
announced in the Holy. Scriptures and
proven by all history, that those nations
are only blessed where God is the Lord
And, insomueh as we know, that. by His
divine law, nations, like individuals. are
| subjected to punishments and cbastise-
ments in this world, may we not Justly
fear that the awful calamity Of civil war.
which now desolates the land, may be but
a punishment inflicted upon us for our pre-
sumptuous sins, to the needful end of our
national reformation as a whole People 4?
we have been recipients Of the choicest
bountles from 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 multiplied and
enriched and strengthened us; and we
have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness
hok kn11 l.
produced by some superior wisdom and
virtue Of our own. Intoxicated with uu-
broken success, we have become TOO self
sutheient to feel the necessity of redeeming
and preserving grace, too proud TO pray
to the God that made us
1t behooves US, then, 10 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-
ton, designate and set apart Thursday, |
the Both day of April, 1868, as the day of /
national humiliation, fasting and prayer
And l do hereby request all the People to
abstain on that day from their ordinary
secular pursuits, and to unite at their sew
eral places Of public worship and their re-
spective homes, in keeping the day holy to
the Lord, and devoted TO the humble dis
charge of the religious duties proper to
that solemn occasion.
All this being done, IN sincerity anu
truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope,
by the Divine teachings, that
the united cry Of the Nation will be heard
on high, and answered with blessings no
less than tho pardon of our national sins,
and restoration of our now divided and
country to its former happy con-
dition Of unity and peace.
In witness whereof, l have hereunto set
my hand and caused the seal of the United
States TO be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this
thirteenth day of March, in the
year of our Lord one thousand
L s.. eight hundred and sixty-three,
and of the Independence of the
p-n.D Dss,Sited States the eighty-seventh.
W. u crw,pn ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
.retary Of State.