inhabitants.

I have therefore thought fit to recommend, and I do hereby recommend,
that Wednesday, the 9th day of May next, be observed throughout the
United States as a day of solemn humiliation, fasting, and prayer; that
the citizens of these States, abstaining on that day from their
customary worldly occupations, offer their devout addresses to the
Father of Mercies agreeably to those forms or methods which they have
severally adopted as the most suitable and becoming; that all religious
congregations do, with the deepest humility, acknowledge before God the
manifold sins and transgressions with which we are justly chargeable as
individuals and as a nation, beseeching Him at the same time, of His
infinite grace, through the Redeemer of the World, freely to remit all
our offenses, and to incline us by His Holy Spirit to that sincere
repentance and reformation which may afford us reason to hope for his
inestimable favor and heavenly benediction; that it be made the subject
of particular and earnest supplication that our country may be protected
from all the dangers which threaten it; that our civil and religious
privileges may be preserved inviolate and perpetuated to the latest
generations; that our public councils and magistrates may be especially
enlightened and directed at this critical period; that the American
people may be united in those bonds of amity and mutual confidence and
inspired with that vigor and fortitude by which they have in times past
been so highly distinguished and by which they have obtained such
invaluable advantages; that the health of the inhabitants of our land
may be preserved, and their agriculture, commerce, fisheries, arts, and
manufactures be blessed and prospered; that the principles of genuine
piety and sound morality may influence the minds and govern the lives of
every description of our citizens, and that the blessings of peace,
freedom, and pure religion may be speedily extended to all the nations