Since 1952, The National Day Of Prayer has been an annual observance. It’s roots go back to the days when The Continental Congress proclaimed a special day whereby colonists were encouraged to pray to Almighty God for guidance in 1775. Times were difficult; decisions had to be made that would affect the direction and future of America.
Following the Treaty of Paris in 1783 the observance was revived. It wasn’t long however, that the American people forgot the observance. Nearly a hundred years later President Abraham Lincoln restored the Day of Payer during the Civil War. He wrote: 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.” But as time passed and the nation healed from the ravages of war, the observance was forgotten again.
Then, in 1952, Congress revived the observance, calling prayer “an unifying force for all people.” Part of the new proclamation reminded citizens that “This common expression of reverence heals and brings us together as a Nation and we pray it may one day bring renewed respect for God…”
Never has there been a time when our country needs to get back to the principles of thankfulness and divine guidance. At critical moments in our history, someone has remembered to pray – the signers of the Declaration of Independence, Washington at Valley Forge, Lincoln during the Civil War. Who will stand today? Will you join millions of believers this Thursday in prayer – prayer for our nation – prayer for our leaders – prayers for our future, and the crucial decisions that await us?
Fathers and mothers: Gather your children together and read Lincoln’s Proclamation as a reminder of our godly heritage. We dare not take another step without God’s direction and His attended blessings. Below is Lincoln’s proclamation.
By the President of the United States of America.
A Proclamation.
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 a resolution, requested the President to designate 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 overruling 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 recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.
And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements 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 presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, 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 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 in 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 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 devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion.
All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the Nation will be heard on high, and answered with blessings, no less than the pardon of our national sins, and the restoration of our now 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 United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this thirtieth day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty seventh.
By the President: Abraham Lincoln
William H. Seward, Secretary of State.
