Proclamation 4248—National Day of Prayer

America is a nation under God. This is not a consequence of legislative mandate, but of the spiritual commitment of a people. Throughout our history, we have turned to God for guidance, for sustenance, and in gratitude for the blessings of freedom.

When our forbears stood on the rocks at Plymouth, they turned to God in prayer.

When our Founding Fathers created a nation nearly two hundred years ago, they asked God's blessing upon their endeavor.

When those who shaped our form of government met in 1787, they sought God's assistance.

When our Nation threatened to tear itself apart a little over a hundred years ago, Abraham Lincoln turned to God for the understanding to keep us together.

We do not assume God's favor, but we seek it. We do not suppose that our way is God's way, but we pray for the wisdom to understand God's way, and the grace to let it be our own. For we know that neither wealth, nor wisdom, nor strength of arms can sustain a nation's greatness, except that God look with favor on the purposes of that nation and its people.

The challenges of our future are no less grave than those faced and met by the men and women to whose faith we are indebted for the constantly recurring miracle of America. As we act to meet the challenges of the American future, let us do so with the same profound faith in the God of our fathers, mindful of the words of the Psalms: "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord; and the people whom He bath chosen for His own inheritance."

Now, Therefore, I, Richard Nixon, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim Wednesday, October 17, as National Day of Prayer, 1973. I ask that on this day the people of the United States join in reaffirming our dependence on God's grace, beseeching His blessings on our endeavors and His guidance in the search for peace, reconciliation, and goodwill among all people.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this fifth day of October, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred seventy-three, and of the Independence of the United States of America, the one hundred and ninety-eighth.

RICHARD NIXON