Abraham Lincoln's 1863 Thanksgiving Day Proclamation

By the President of the United States of America.

A Proclamation.

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consiousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.
In testimony 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 Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln

William H. Seward,
Secretary of State

Texas A&M Law Professor: Time 'to Repeal and Replace Second Amendment'

"Speaking in a gun violence symposium at University of Connecticut's School of Law, Texas A&M law professor Mary Margaret Penrose said it's time "to repeal and replace [the] Second Amendment.""

I never thought I'd see the day that Texas A&M University, home of the Fighting Texas Aggies and the birthplace of the military careers of thousands of American patriots, would wave a banner of liberalism!

"Penrose said her problems with the Constitution are not limited to the Second Amendment. She "advocates redrafting the entire U.S. Constitution" in her law courses at Texas A&M."

The Holy Spirit removes our blinders ...

Sometimes I get to just look at myself and laugh! I grabbed a new pair of reading glasses off my counter and put them on to do a little reading and was confused that the vision before me was more blurry than without the spectacles.  I pulled them off and put them back on a couple of times with no improvement.

Thinking that the glasses  must have been mislabeled in the store, I put on another pair to check the label on the frame, only then noting that there was a plastic cover on both lenses!  It took one pair of glasses to see the need to remove the cover off the next pair of glasses.

The Holy Spirit works like this in those who have come into a redeemed relationship with our Lord, Jesus.  The Bible shows us that it is only by the Spirit of the Lord, that we are able to discern the deep secrets in His Word.

"So he said, "You have been given knowledge about the secrets of the kingdom of God. But to others they are given in parables, so that 'they might look but not see, and they might listen but not understand.'"    Luke 8:10

"But, as it is written, "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him"—  these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.   For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.   Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.   And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.   The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned."  1 Corinthians 2:9-14 (ESV)


The Holy Spirit has removed my blinders, and maybe yours as well.  The rest of life is picking up the glasses, putting them on and searching for deeper things.