Abraham Lincoln to the Nations

Abraham Lincoln to the Nations

In his proclamation of March 30, appointing April 30, 1863,

a day holy to the Lord, a day of national humiliation, fasting,

and prayer, in the people's places of worship, and in their re-

spective homes, that the condition of unity and peace might

be restored, President Lincoln of the United States of America

made the following declaration which applies equally as well

to all the warring nations today as it did to our Nation in the

day of the Civil War:

A Proclamation

Whereas, the Senate of the United States, devoutly recog-

nizing the supreme authority and just government of Almighty

God in all the affairs of men and of nations, has by a resolu-

tion 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 chastise-

ments in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful ca-

lamity of war which now desolates the land may be but a pun-

ishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the

needful end of our national reformation as a whole people?

We have been recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven;

we have been preserved these many years in peace and pros-

perity; 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 be-

come 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.

Improvement era

Vol. XXI FEBRUARY, 1918 No. 4

The Will of God