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He has withheld the “pestilence that walketh in darkness and the destruction that wasteth at noon day.” He has restrained the devouring element, which in some former years has spread desolation and terror through our fields and villages. He has remembered mercy in His wrath, and when the earth under our feet was as iron, and the Heavens above us were as brass, hearing the cry of our distress, He spake the word and the Heavens gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit in abundance. He has smiled upon our Commerce, Manufacturers and fisheries, and rendered successful the efforts of our Citizens engaged in these pursuits. He has caused our Literary Institutions to flourish and visited them with His peculiar favour [favor]. He has continued to us the blessings of freedom, of equitable laws, and an able and faithful administration of our National affairs; and above all through His abundant mercy, Zion has had her secure and happy dwelling among us, and the present season has witnessed her prosperity and enlargement. Truly He has not dealt so with any people, and as for his chastisements we have not known them. For all the mercies and more especially for the “unspeakable gift” of His Son, and the blessings of salvation through Him, we will enter GOD’s gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise.

And, while on this occasion we recount the mercies of the Most High, let us mingle penitence and confession with our songs of praise. Wherein we have not honored the Lord with our substance and the first fruits of all our increase; wherein we have not rendered to Him according to His benefits, in thankfulness and love and devoted service; wherein we have violated His righteous law and abused His blessed Gospel, let us, with penitent confession, beseech Him to pardon us for the sake of His Son, and to turn us from all our iniquities. and as we unite in blessing GOD for past favours [favors] and in humbling ourselves before Him four our sins, let us also unite in supplication and intercession to the same source of all blessings through the Great Mediator, that we may henceforth “lead quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness and honesty”; that we, and our children may here be fitted for a goodly land and a heavenly country beyond the grave; that our State and National rulers and Magistrates may constantly be guided by wisdom from above; that this State and the several States, and this great and growing Nation may ever be favored with liberty and peace and elective governments, and

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