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period have been strikingly adapted to convince us of our entire dependence on His sovereign will, and of the ease with which He can strip us of all our possessions; they no less clearly exhibit His unwillingness to exert His power for that purpose, and His readiness in the midst of wrath “to remember mercy”; that though His afflicting hand has fallen heavily on some portions of this State, with whose suffering inhabitants it becomes us affectionately to sympathize; the State at large has been preserved from desolating calamities; that when conflagration was spreading on the wings of the wind and threatning [threatening] wide devastation, He was pleased to arrest its progress; and to incline many, not only in this State but in our sister States, to contribute liberally for the relief of the sufferers; that through the labours [labors] of the husbandman have been less abundantly rewarded than in some former years, He has granted us a sufficiency of the fruits of the earth, and smiled upon our Commerce, Manufacturers and Fisheries; that our civil rights and privileges remain unimpaired, and our Literary Institutions continue to flourish; and above all, that we are still permitted to enjoy the inestimable blessings of the Gospel; that so many exertions have been made to impart these blessings to our destitute fellow creatures; and that he has been pleased to crown these exertions with such a measure of success. And as He requires us to unite confession and supplication with our Thanksgivings, let us, while gratefully acknowledging these undeserved favors, penitently confess our own abuse of them, together with the other numberless offences, which have justly provoked him to withhold from us still greater blessings, and beseech Him for the sake of His Son, to pardon our transgressions, and turn us from our iniquities; to remember in mercy those of our fellow citizens whom He has afflicted; to grant us the continued enjoyment of those civil, literary and religious privileges which we have forfeited; to inspire with wisdom and fidelity all who are entrusted with the care of these privileges, and to crown with his blessings all the means of moral and religious improvement with which we are favored.

Extending our concern to the interests of our common country, let us present our supplications in behalf of these United States, intreating [entreating] that God who has so long bestowed His favors upon them with an unsparing hand, that He will still be pleased to rejoice in their prosperity; to preside in their National Councils; to preserve and bless their Chief Magistrate, and all others who are entrusted with the administration of the General and State Governments, and to grant that a spirit of harmony, order and regard to the interests of morality and religion may prevade [pervade] our Country, and that the returns, which He receives from us as a Nation, may correspond with our obligations to His goodness. Embracing in the arms of an expansive benevolence all our fellow creatures, let us beseech the Universal Parent to look down