BUT WE HAVE FORGOTTEN GOD!

We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us. And have vainly imagined in the deceitfulness of our hearts that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!

IT 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 with the views of the Senate, I do, by this my proclamation, designate and set apart Thursday, the 30th day of April, 1863, as a day of National Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer. And I do hereby request all the people to abstain on that day from all their ordinary, secular pursuits, and to unite in their several places of public worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day holy to the Lord and devoted to the discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion.

All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in hope, authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the nations will be heard on High and answered with blessings, no less the pardon of our national sins, the restoration of our divided and suffering country to its former happy condition of unity and peace.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand,
and caused the Seal of the U.S. to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington., the 30th day of
March, in the year of our Lord 1863.

Signed by Abraham Lincoln

President Lincoln considered the Civil War as a Divine judgment visited upon the nation. Clear insight and logical conclusion based on reasoning of a high order mark his proclamation. It bears a prophetic stamp in its declaration of truth and values. He saw a direct connection between his perilous times and the pride and sin of his nation, and recommended the only remedy, national humiliation and prayer. There was no other remedy then, there is no other remedy now.

SECURE?

How sad to behold
The rich and the poor,
The young and the old,
All blindly secure!
All posting to ruin,
Refusing to stop:
Ah! think what you’re doing,
While yet there is hope!

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