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State of Maine

By

William king,

A Proclamation

Whereas it is the duty of rational beings to acknowledge the wisdom of the Creator, and the beneficence of his providence; it is therefore not less the dictate of reason than piety to worship that Supreme Power and Perfect Goodness, which ordains in wisdom the diversified conditions of men. Yet more emphatically is it the duty of a people, in whose condition, like that of the citizens of this State, a benevolent Providence has been pleased to grant so many favors, with so few of the evils, which usually fall to the lot of men, publicly and unitedly to acknowledge, by wary expression of grateful veneration, the mercies of that Being, who has distinguished them by such peculiar and signal favors:

I, therefore, William King, by the advice of the Council, and in conformity with the usage of our ancestors, who have left us so many examples of moral wisdom and rational piety, do appoint Thursday, the thirteenth day of November next, to be observed by the good citizens of this State, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise; and I do exhort them to assemble in their respective places of public worship, and to unite in devout ascriptions of praise to that Providence, which has signalised [signalized] them by so many favors; That we are blessed with a system of government, founded on the national rights of men, and wisely adapted to maintain the peace and order of society, to preserve our liberties, to promote the general happiness, and to diffuse the advantages of education and useful knowledge among all ranks of people: That with the inestimable blessings of a pure and holy faith, we enjoy the advantages of religious freedom and universal toleration; and while the various religious sects divide from each other in their speculations on abstruse points of theology, uncontrolled by any power but that to which they all owe obedience, all may unite under the great moral precepts of religion, in the harmony of Christian love: That while we see other nations involved in alarming confusions, and divided into acrimonious factions by the domestic dissension of their rulers, or struggling with generous devotion to repair the mischiefs of a long period of hereditary misrule, or reclaiming with violence the