ON MARCH 30, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the following proclamation calling for a Day of Prayer. It is a sample of the kind of sentiment and sincerity that gave moral strength and character to our United States in the past. Let all of our readers realize what a rich, spiritual heritage they have, as they read:

“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 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 proved by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord:

“And, inasmuch 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 just be 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 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.