Dear one,
Due to the persistence of Sarah Josepha Hale, on October 3, 1863 Abraham Lincoln invited his fellow-citizens “to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise”. During a seventeen-year span as the editor of the very influential Godeys’ Lady’s Book, Sarah Hale implored presidents Taylor, Fillmore, Pierce, Buchanan, and finally Lincoln to establish a national day of thanksgiving. Lincoln heard her plea: the war’s outcome was uncertain and the need for prayer and fasting was great—even though Lee had retreated from Gettysburg on July 4th, and Grant had taken Vicksburg that same day.
According to the US Census Bureau, when Lincoln took office in 1861, our population was c. 31.4 million. At that same time, the population of New York City was c. 814,000; Boston was c. 177,840; Chicago was c. 112,000; and San Francisco was c. 57,000. Upon his assassination and at the war’s end, of that national population, nearly 2% had died in camp or on field of battle: 618,222 dead.[1] (Given today’s US population, that death toll would be 6-7million.) Or framed differently, on average nearly one family in ten knew the loss of a family member.
Given the rising death tolls on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line, Lincoln called for a day of prayer, in order that his “fellow-citizens” might “with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to [the Father’s] 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 … to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.” [2]
From my narrow little window “upon main street,” it seems clear: we live in a horribly and painfully divided land. Without question. Admittedly, our “cultural wars” have not reached the pitch and/or depths of our American Civil War; and yet fear, pain, and grief seem resident in most every neighborhood, village, town, city, and metropolis. This noted, I wonder: What would happen if 10% of us (30-35million Americans) would heed Lincoln’s call to set aside of day of prayer and fasting for our “national perverseness”? Likewise, what would happen if daily you and I gave thanks?
I also wonder: Will we heed Jesus’ humble invitation: “Ask and it will be given to you”?
Anticipating thanksgiving,
Stan
[1] In recent years historians have estimated the death toll to exceed 750,000. In WW2 291,557 US soldiers died in combat.
[2]Abraham Lincoln, Speeches and Writings, 1859-1865, The Library of America (New York: Literary Classics of the United States, 1989), p.520.