National Pray Day - Let It Be

This being the Bi-Centennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth, we thought that this year's National Day of Prayer Observance would be greatly enhanced, and God's people encouraged by reading Abraham Lincoln's 1863 National Day of Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer Proclamation.

There had been many national days of prayer in U.S. history before The National Day of Prayer was made an annual event in 1952. The Continental Congress issued a day of prayer in 1775 to designate "a time for prayer in forming a new nation." During the Quasi-War with France, President John Adams declared May 9, 1798 as a day of solemn humiliation, fasting, and prayer, "during which citizens of all faiths were encouraged to pray, that our country may be protected from all the dangers which threaten it."

However none of America's many presidential prayer proclamations could be more appropriate for America today than the one issued by our sixteenth president in 1863. For a shocking wake-up call, and to see how far we've drifted from the historic and humble attitude of our Fathers, we include Abraham Lincoln's 1863, National Day of Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer Proclamation in its entirety below. It's hard to imagine this proclamation getting to first base in today's White House or Congress! We thank our friends at Intercessors For America for bringing this historic document to our attention.

President Abraham Lincolns 1863 National Day
Of Humiliation, Fasting & Prayer 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 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 owe 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 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 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.

Abraham Lincoln, President
William H Seward, Secretary of State"