How much further could we go?

As we celebrate the 4^th of July and our independence, I am amazed how far we’ve come. Here are a few things that happened in the year of 1863.

• Jan 1 Emancipation Proclamation issued by Abraham Lincoln to free slaves in US confederate states
• Mar 19 Confederate cruiser SS Georgiana destroyed on her maiden voyage with a cargo of munitions, and medicines then valued over $1,000,000. Wreck discovered exactly 102 years later by teenage diver and pioneer underwater archaeologist E. Lee Spence.

• Jul 3 Battle of Gettysburg, largest battle ever fought on the American continent, ends in a major victory for the Union during the US Civil War
• Oct 26 International conference begins in Geneva aimed at improving medical conditions on battlefields – beginning of the Red Cross
• Nov 19 US President Abraham Lincoln delivers his Gettysburg address beginning; “Four score and seven years ago…”
• Dec 8 Abraham Lincoln issues his Amnesty Proclamation and plan for Reconstruction of the South

Something else mind blowing happened in 1863. President Abraham Lincoln wrote a proclamation and the Senate of the United States agreed, that we should set apart, as a nation a day of humiliation, fasting and prayer. What would our country look like today, if the president and members of Congress put forward this idea now?

Here is the proclamation for you to read.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN,

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!

A PROCLAMATION

For a Day of Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer.

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 truths announced in the Holy Scriptures, and proven 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 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 we have vainly imagined, in 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 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 people to abstain 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 than the pardon of our national sins, and 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.

By the President,
William H. Seward, Sec’y of State.

All I can say is wow. Let us pray that the leaders of our nation would be willing to do this very same thing and that we join in with them. How much farther could we go if we lived and believed this as a nation?

Or, “The wicked shall be sent away to hell; this is the fate of all the nations forgetting the Lord.” (Ps. 9:17 [TLB])

I’m just saying.

© 2022 Fluffy Puppy Publishing All Rights Reserved