The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1877-11-08
Thanksgiving Day.

THE PRESIDENTS PROCLAIM NATION AP-
POINTING THE 29TH OF NOVEMBER
AS A DAY OF PRAYER.
The following was issued at Wash.
ington on Monday afternoon:
BY the President of the United States
of America.
A PRoCLA NATION.
The completed circle of fsunlmer and
winter, seed time and harvest, has
brought us to the accustomed season at
which a religious people celebrates
with praise and thanksgiving the en-
during mercy of Almighty God.
This devout and public confession Of
the constant dependence of man on
the Divine favor for all the good gifts
of life and health and peace and hap
piness so early in our history made
the habit of our people, finds in the
survey of the past year new grounds
for its joyful and grateful Emanifesta-
ton. In all the blessings which de-
pend on benignant seasons this has
indeed been memorable year. Over
the whole territory of our country,
with all the diversity of soil and
climate and products, the earth has
yielded bountiful return to the labor
of the husbandman. The health of
the people has been blighted by no
prevalent or widespread disease. No
great disaster of shipwrecks upon our
coast, or to our commerce on the seas,
have brought loss and hardship to
merchants or mariners, and clouded
the happiness of the community with
sympathetic sorrow. In all that con-
Germs our strength and peace and
greatness as q nation; in all that
touches the permanency and security
of our Government, and the beneficent
that affects the character and dispo-
sitions of our people, and tests our ca
pacities to enjoy and uphold the equal
and free condition of society now para
mount and universal throughout the
land, the experience of the. ..lastsyear is
conspicuously marked by the protect
| ing providence of God and is full of
promise and hope for the coming
generations. Under sense of these
infinite obligations to the Great Ruler
of times, seasons, and events, let us
| humbly ascribe it to our own faults
and frailties if, in any degree, that
perfect concord and happiness, peace,
and justice which such great mercies
| should diffuse through the hearts and
lives of our people do not altoge thcr
and always and everywhere prevail.
Let us, with one spirit and with one
voice, lift up praise and than ksgiving
to God for His manifold goodness to
our land, and His manifest care for
our nation.
| Now therefore, I Rutherford b.
Hayes, President ofthe United States,
do appoint Thursday, the 29th, of No
vember, as a day of national thanks
giving and prayer, and 1 earnestly
recommend that, withdrawing them
selves from secular cares and labors,
the people of the United States do
meet together on that day in their re-
spective places of worship, there to
give thanks and praise to Almighty
God for His mercies and do devoutly
beseech their continuance.
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 twenty-ninth day of October, in
the year of our Lord one thousand
eight hundred and seventy-seven, and
of the independence of the United
States the one hundred and second.
r. B. HAYES
BY the President.
| WILLIAM NJ. EvABTS,
Secretary Of State.