The Ashland union. [volume] (Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1863-04-08

WHEREAS, The Senate of the United States
devoutly recognizing the Supreme Authority
and just Government Of Almighty God, in all
the affairs of men and of nations; has, by &
resolution, requested the President to desig
nate and set apart a 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 overriding power of God, to confess their
sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet
with assured hope that genuine repentance
will lead to mercy and pardon, and..to rec
oenize gthe sublime truth announced IN tho
Holy Scriptures and proven by all history,
that those nations only are blessed whose God
is the Lord $3.50
And insomuch as We know that, by His .df-
vine law, nations, like individuals, are subject
ed to puuishm cnts and Establishments in this
world, may we not justify fear that the awful
calamity of civil war, which now desolates
the land, may be but'a punishment inflicted
upon US for our presumtious sins, to the need
full end Of our national reformation as a whole
People ? We have been thereof ia dts of the
choicest bonnties of Heaven. We have been
preserved, these many years, in peace and
prosperity! We have grown in numbers,
wealth ana power as no other nation has ever
growD. But we have forgotten God We
have forgotten the gracious hand which pre-
SCTvCu Us III rpcdce, ant multiplied anu en-
riched and, strengthened US and We have
vainly imagined, in the deceit!ulness of our
hearts, that all these bl ;ssings were produced
by some superior wisdom and virtue of our
own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, We
have become too self-sufficiens to feel the nc
cessity of redeeming and preserving grace,
too proud TO pray to tile God that made usi
lit behooves US, then, to humble ourselves
before the offended Power, to confess our ma
tional sins, and pray for clemency and forgive
ness. AsHktA
Now, therefore, in compliance with the re-
sucst, and fully copcurriEg in the views of the
e%nate, l do, by this my proclamation, desig-
ste and set apart Thursday, the Both day of
APP ril, 1868, as a day Of national humiliation,
and prayer. And | do hereby request
all the people to abstain on that day from
their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite,
at their, several p~laeesgof public worship ami
their respective homes, in Keeping tile day
holy to the Lord, and devoted to the humble
discharge of the religious duties proper to
that solemn occasion.
? All this being dome in sincerity and truth,
let US then rest hunbly in the hope, author
lzed by the Divine. teachings, that the united
cry of the nation vii be heard on nigh, and
with blessings, no less than the par
Ion of national sins, and the restoration rof
our now divided and su f%fering country to its
happy condition of unity and peace.
In witness Whereof 1 have hereunto set
by hanI, and caused tn eseal of the United
states to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington on this
thirteenth day of March,, in the year
of our Lord one thousand eight hun
L. S. drcd and sixty-three, and in the iude-
pendenec of the United States the !
eighty!sevetTth: ID,
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. asa
BY the PrcsidcptGHAHaIdI &0ufE
WM. H-.lSLwARG, Secretary of State.