As no truth is more clearly taught in the Volume of Inspiration, nor any
more fully demonstrated by the experience of all ages, than that a deep
sense and a due acknowledgment of the governing providence of a Supreme
Being and of the accountableness of men to Him as the searcher of hearts
and righteous distributer of rewards and punishments are conducive
equally to the happiness and rectitude of individuals and to the
well-being of communities; as it is also most reasonable in itself that
men who are made capable of social acts and relations, who owe their
improvements to the social state, and who derive their enjoyments from
it, should, as a society, make their acknowledgments of dependence
and obligation to Him who hath endowed them with these capacities and
elevated them in the scale of existence by these distinctions; as it is
likewise a plain dictate of duty and a strong sentiment of nature that
in circumstances of great urgency and seasons of imminent danger earnest
and particular supplications should be made to Him who is able to defend
or to destroy; as, moreover, the most precious interests of the people
of the United States are still held in jeopardy by the hostile designs
and insidious acts of a foreign nation, as well as by the dissemination
among them of those principles, subversive of the foundations of
all religious, moral, and social obligations, that have produced
incalculable mischief and misery in other countries; and as, in fine,
the observance of special seasons for public religious solemnities is
happily calculated to avert the evils which we ought to deprecate and to
excite to the performance of the duties which we ought to discharge by
calling and fixing the attention of the people at large to the momentous
truths already recited, by affording opportunity to teach and inculcate
them by animating devotion and giving to it the character of a national
act:
For these reasons I have thought proper to recommend, and I do hereby
recommend accordingly, that Thursday, the 25th day of April next, be
observed throughout the United States of America as a day of solemn
humiliation, fasting, and prayer; that the citizens on that day abstain
as far as may be from their secular occupations, devote the time to the
sacred duties of religion in public and in private; that they call to
mind our numerous offenses against the Most High God, confess them
before Him with the sincerest penitence, implore His pardoning mercy,
through the Great Mediator and Redeemer, for our past transgressions,
and that through the grace of His Holy Spirit we may be disposed and
enabled to yield a more suitable obedience to His righteous requisitions
in time to come; that He would interpose to arrest the progress of that
impiety and licentiousness in principle and practice so offensive to
Himself and so ruinous to mankind; that He would make us deeply sensible
that "righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any
people;" that He would turn us from our transgressions and turn His
displeasure from us; that He would withhold us from unreasonable
discontent, from disunion, faction, sedition, and insurrection; that He
would preserve our country from the desolating sword; that He would save
our cities and towns from a repetition of those awful pestilential
visitations under which they have lately suffered so severely, and that
the health of our inhabitants generally may be precious in His sight;
that He would favor us with fruitful seasons and so bless the labors of
the husbandman as that there may be food in abundance for man and beast;
that He would prosper our commerce, manufactures, and fisheries, and
give success to the people in all their lawful industry and enterprise;
that He would smile on our colleges, academies, schools, and seminaries
of learning, and make them nurseries of sound science, morals, and
religion; that He would bless all magistrates, from the highest to the
lowest, give them the true spirit of their station, make them a terror
to evil doers and a praise to them that do well; that He would preside
over the councils of the nation at this critical period, enlighten
them to a just discernment of the public interest, and save them
from mistake, division, and discord; that He would make succeed our
preparations for defense and bless our armaments by land and by sea;
that He would put an end to the effusion of human blood and the
accumulation of human misery among the contending nations of the earth
by disposing them to justice, to equity, to benevolence, and to peace;
and that he would extend the blessings of knowledge, of true liberty,
and of pure and undefiled religion throughout the world.
And I do also recommend that with these acts of humiliation, penitence,
and prayer fervent thanksgiving to the Author of All Good be united for
the countless favors which He is still continuing to the people of the
United States, and which render their condition as a nation eminently
happy when compared with the lot of others.
Given, etc,