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State of Maine.

By Albion K. Parris,

Governor of the State of Maine:

A Proclamation,

For a day of Public Praise and Thanksgiving.

“When the Most High divided unto the nations their inheritance” and “appointed the bounds of their habitation”, He was pleased to reserve for our highly favored Nation, “a good land,” on which His richest gifts were to be poured out, in unexampled profusion; where civil and religious liberty, with all their attendant blessings, should fix their abode, and where in consequence; national prosperity and individual happiness should be enjoyed in a degree, which has seldom if ever, been equalled in any other part of the world.

By fulfilling these purposes of His mercy to our fathers, and by still continuing to fulfil [fulfill]] them to us, He has laid us under peculiar obligations to yield Him ample returns of gratitude and praise; obligations which we cannot disregard or forget, without incurring the guilt of ingratitude in a greater degree than it has ever been incurred by any other civil community. Of these obligations we are reminded by the return of the present season of the year. it is the season in which the bounteous “Lord of the harvest” rewards the labours of the husbandman with its rich and various fruits. It is the season in which New England has long been accustomed to present herself with all her children before the throne of her Munificent Benefactor in the attitude of devout and adoring thankfulness, and to offer from ten thousand thousand tongues her humble tribute of praise and thanksgiving.

Animated by the spirit, and sharing in all the prosperity of her elder sister States, this State has not failed to imitate their laudable example by united with them in offering their annual sacrifice; and it cannot but be considered as highly desirable, that a custom so reasonable in itself, and associated with so many pleasing and sacred recollections, should be perpetuated among us, and that the time may never arrive when the people of these States shall