"HeyBub" wrote in message
m...
Bob Villa wrote:
A Proclamation.

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 theater of military conflict; while that theater 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 Union.

In testimony 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 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 Eighty-eighth.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln

Figures. A Republican president memorializing the perserverance and
success of religious fanatics with guns.


Yeah, a political holiday, made by politicians, nothing to do with religion
or anyone's religious beliefs, but picked up by most of Christendom because
it can fill the churches, and the contribution boxes.