As the safety and prosperity of nations ultimately and essentially
depend on the protection and the blessing of Almighty God, and the
national acknowledgment of this truth is not only an indispensable duty
which the people owe to Him, but a duty whose natural influence is
favorable to the promotion of that morality and piety without which
social happiness can not exist nor the blessings of a free government
be enjoyed; and as this duty, at all times incumbent, is so especially
in seasons of difficulty or of danger, when existing or threatening
calamities, the just judgments of God against prevalent iniquity, are
a loud call to repentance and reformation; and as the United States of
America are at present placed in a hazardous and afflictive situation
by the unfriendly disposition, conduct, and demands of a foreign power,
evinced by repeated refusals to receive our messengers of reconciliation
and peace, by depredations on our commerce, and the infliction of
injuries on very many of our fellow-citizens while engaged in their
lawful business on the seas--under these considerations it has appeared
to me that the duty of imploring the mercy and benediction of Heaven
on our country demands at this time a special attention from its
inhabitants.
I have therefore thought fit to recommend, and I do hereby recommend,
that Wednesday, the 9th day of May next, be observed throughout the
United States as a day of solemn humiliation, fasting, and prayer; that
the citizens of these States, abstaining on that day from their
customary worldly occupations, offer their devout addresses to the
Father of Mercies agreeably to those forms or methods which they have
severally adopted as the most suitable and becoming; that all religious
congregations do, with the deepest humility, acknowledge before God the
manifold sins and transgressions with which we are justly chargeable as
individuals and as a nation, beseeching Him at the same time, of His
infinite grace, through the Redeemer of the World, freely to remit all
our offenses, and to incline us by His Holy Spirit to that sincere
repentance and reformation which may afford us reason to hope for his
inestimable favor and heavenly benediction; that it be made the subject
of particular and earnest supplication that our country may be protected
from all the dangers which threaten it; that our civil and religious
privileges may be preserved inviolate and perpetuated to the latest
generations; that our public councils and magistrates may be especially
enlightened and directed at this critical period; that the American
people may be united in those bonds of amity and mutual confidence and
inspired with that vigor and fortitude by which they have in times past
been so highly distinguished and by which they have obtained such
invaluable advantages; that the health of the inhabitants of our land
may be preserved, and their agriculture, commerce, fisheries, arts, and
manufactures be blessed and prospered; that the principles of genuine
piety and sound morality may influence the minds and govern the lives of
every description of our citizens, and that the blessings of peace,
freedom, and pure religion may be speedily extended to all the nations
of the earth.
And finally, I recommend that on the said day the duties of humiliation
and prayer be accompanied by fervent thanksgiving to the Bestower
of Every Good Gift, not only for His having hitherto protected and
preserved the people of these United States in the independent enjoyment
of their religious and civil freedom, but also for having prospered them
in a wonderful progress of population, and for conferring on them many
and great favors conducive to the happiness and prosperity of a nation.
[SEAL.]
Given under my hand and the seal of the United States of America, at
Philadelphia, this 23d day of March, A.D. 1798, and of the Independence
of the said States the twenty-second.