PROCLAMATION OF THANKSGIVING - Pastor Ed Calderon

PROCLAMATION OF THANKSGIVING

-President of the United States of America

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful

fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are

prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so

extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which

is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of

a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign

States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations,

order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has

prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been

greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of

wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense, have

not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our

settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded

even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding

the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country,

rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect

continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor

hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most

High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered

mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and

gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People.

I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those

who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the

last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent

Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the

ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with

humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender

care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable

civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition

of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be

consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States

Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one

thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the

By the President: Abraham Lincoln

 

Giving thanks is a state of being and a ______ of life.

Being thankful is expressed through prayer, public

proclamation and also one’s ____________ in living life.

Thankfulness completes ___________________.

We thank God for the _____________ and __________

that we experience during crises.