SHEPHERD TO
SHEEP
PRESIDENT
GROVER CLEVELAND THANKSGIVING PROCLAMATION (1887)
By the
President of the United States:
The goodness
and the mercy of God, which have followed the American people during all the
days of the past year claim our grateful recognition and humble acknowledgment.
By His omnipotent power He has protected us from war and pestilence and from
every national calamity; by His gracious favor the earth has yielded a generous
return to the labor of the husbandman, and every path of honest toil has led to
comfort and contentment; by His loving kindness the hearts of our people have
been replenished with fraternal sentiment and patriotic endeavor, and by His
Fatherly guidance we have been directed in the way of national prosperity.
To the end
that we may with one accord testify our gratitude for all these blessings, I,
Grover Cleveland, President of the United States, do hereby designate and set
apart Thursday, the twenty-fourth day of November next as a day of Thanksgiving
and Prayer, to be observed by all the people of the land.
On the day
let all secular work and employment be suspended; and let our people assemble
in their accustomed places of worship and with prayer and songs of praise, give
thanks to our Heavenly Father for all that He has done for us while we implore
the forgiveness of our sins and a continuance of His mercy.
Let families
and kindred be reunited on that day and let their hearts, filled with kindly
cheer and affectionate reminiscence, be turned to the source of all their
pleasures and to the Giver of all that makes the day bright and joyous.
And in the
midst of our worship and enjoyments let us remember the poor, the needy, and
the unfortunate; and by our gifts of charity and ready benevolence let us
increase the number of those who with grateful hearts shall join in our
Thanksgiving.
In witness
whereof I have set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be
hereunto affixed.
Done at the
city of Washington, this twenty-fifth day of October in the year of our Lord
one thousand eight hundred and eighty-seven, and of the Independence of the
United States the one hundred and twelfth.
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HAVE A BLESSED THANKSGIVING!
(Psalm
118:1) Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures
forever.
Louie
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