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George Washington's
Prayer for the Nation
written at Newburg, June 8, 1783, and sent to the governors of all the states.
Almighty God, we make our earnest prayer that Thou wilt keep the United States in Thy Holy protection: that Thou wilt incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to government and entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another and for their fellow citizens of the United States at large. And finally, that Thou wilt most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility, and pacific temper of mind which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion, without a humble imitation of whose example in these things we can never hope to be a happy nation. Grant our supplication, we beseech Thee, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen. |
George Washington, at the request of the Congress which passed the Bill of Rights, proclaimed a day of , "Public prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and single favors of Almighty God".
"It is rightly impossible to govern the world without God and the Bible."
George Washington
"No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand which conducts the invisible affairs of men more than the people of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency.... We ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of heaven cannot be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which heaven itself has ordained."
George Washington
"...Let me live according to those holy rules which Thou hast this day prescribed in Thy holy word...Direct me to the rue object, Jesus Christ the way, the truth and the life. Bless, O Lord, all the people of this land." "Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National Morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."
George Washington
The Washington Farewell Address
In his Farewell Address, the first president advised his fellow citizens that "Religion and morality" were the "great Pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and citizens." "National morality," he added, could not exist "in exclusion of religious principle." "Virtue or morality," he concluded, as the products of religion, were "a necessary spring of popular government."
Source: Library Of Congress |