Donald Trump's Opportunity

Read.....And Maybe Weep

           The following proclamation, taken from abrahamlincolnonline.org, was written by our Senate in 1863, and placed on the desk of President Lincoln to sign. Please make the effort to read it as if our nation depended upon the words therein.....for indeed it does.  Our National Days of Prayer are "useless offerings" just as were Judah's when God used this phrase through the pen of Isaiah. Our National Prayer Breakfasts are an abomination to God. Ted Cruz and maybe three or four other Senators along with a handful of Representatives might be able to pen a proclamation such as is below but it would evoke hoots and howls of derision if placed on our president's desk and the media would unmercifully castigate its authors.
            Donald Trump will have the opportunity at tommorow night's debate, not to make statements such as these, but at least to acknowldge that we as a nation have forgotten God and no one more than he himself. Would it get him more votes? Probably not. Would his comments be a stench in the nostrals of God? Possibly not...and that is the most we can hope for in this late stage of rebellion to our Creator, our Benefactor, and our only hope for morsels of wisdom and strength in the days ahead.

Proclamation Appointing a National Fast Day

Washington, D.C.
March 30, 1863 Senator James Harlan of Iowa, whose daughter later married President Lincoln's son Robert, introduced this Resolution in the Senate on March 2, 1863. The Resolution asked President Lincoln to proclaim a national day of prayer and fasting. The Resolution was adopted on March 3, and signed by Lincoln on March 30, one month before the fast day was observed. 

By the President of the United States of America. A 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 of 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 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 we 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 than 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. 

By the President: Abraham Lincoln
William H. Seward, Secretary of State.