My friends in many lands:
It is profoundly moving to realize that the 1954 World Day of Prayer is to be observed, in appropriate services, by many millions of people around the globe. These services, beginning in New Zealand and the Tonga Islands, west of the international date line, follow the sun throughout the day, and end 24 hours later, in St. Lawrence Island in Alaska.
Prayer seems to bring closer together in mutual understanding, the people who unite in its practice.
At the very beginning of our own national life, at a time when the Constitutional Convention was plagued by dissension and on the point of breaking up, Benjamin Franklin suggested that all join him in a moment of prayer. After that silent moment, the delegates suddenly seemed to be united in their purposes, and there was born the great document by which we live.
Throughout the history of this country, all the men and women we most revere as inspired leaders constantly sought Divine Guidance in the discharge of their public responsibilities.
Today the innermost longing of mankind is for peace; peace for all nations, for all men, everywhere.
The hosts of people who take part in this World Day of Prayer are seeking the help of the Almighty to find the way toward the goal of peace, toward the triumph of freedom and the unity of men.
In this noble purpose all men of good will may devoutly join.
Note: The President's words were broadcast throughout the world by the Voice of America, as recorded and as translated into some 37 languages. World Day of Prayer (March 5) was sponsored by the United Church Women of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, Message Recorded for the Observance of World Day of Prayer. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/233539
