While in college, I was asked to paint some portraits for a "mastermind group" collection. Two of the inspiring figures chosen by the commissioner were Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. The more I learn about each of these good men, the more I respect and appreciate what they have done for the world.
Each year as I gather with family for Thanksgiving, I make time to reread Abraham Lincoln's 1963 Thanksgiving speech. It's a personal tradition--an anchor that pulls me back and puts things into proper focus.
Thanksgiving traditions far predate Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, but both presidents formally acknowledged the divine hand of providence in this blessed country.
In 1789, George Washington issued a proclamation designating a national day of thanksgiving for that year. Almost a century later, at the persistence of Sarah Josepha Hale, and in the turbulent wake of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln proclaimed Thanksgiving Day to be an annual event celebrated throughout the United States. While remarking on the “blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies,” President Lincoln made the following observation:
Each year as I gather with family for Thanksgiving, I make time to reread Abraham Lincoln's 1963 Thanksgiving speech. It's a personal tradition--an anchor that pulls me back and puts things into proper focus.
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| Painted from a photograph taken by Alexander Gardner in 1863 (archived in the Library of Congress) |
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| My rendition of President Washington based on 1853 painting by Rembrandt Peale (currently held in the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.) |
Thanksgiving traditions far predate Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, but both presidents formally acknowledged the divine hand of providence in this blessed country.
In 1789, George Washington issued a proclamation designating a national day of thanksgiving for that year. Almost a century later, at the persistence of Sarah Josepha Hale, and in the turbulent wake of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln proclaimed Thanksgiving Day to be an annual event celebrated throughout the United States. While remarking on the “blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies,” President Lincoln made the following observation:
To these
bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the
source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so
extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the
heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of
Almighty God.
Then,
recounting the current struggles of a civil war “of unequaled magnitude and
severity,” he noted that the American people somehow continue to prosper. Despite the “waste” of war, he observed, the Nation
increased in population and development, and the land “yielded even more
abundantly than heretofore.”
President
Lincoln concludes:
No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these
great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while
dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.
I thank God for inspired leaders
like Presidents Washington and Lincoln. I thank God for this country with its
foundation rooted in true and eternal principles. I thank Heaven for this
beautiful earth with all its variety, simplicity, and breathtaking grandeur.
I thank my Father in Heaven for a
loving plan that is both perfectly just and perfectly merciful; for the gift of
His Son who makes salvation possible for all; and for the knowledge that
families can be together forever through covenant.
May we who are "prone to
forget" make the simple effort to see what is always before our eyes--our freedom, our faith, our family, and all with which the God of Heaven and Earth has blessed us.
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