I will put enmity between you and the woman,

    and between your offspring and her offspring;

he shall bruise your head,

    and you shall bruise his heel.”

15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life[a]—is not from the Father but is from the world. 17 And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful years and healthful

skies. 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 can not fail to penetrate and

soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence…

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign

states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been

maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the

theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of

the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have

not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines,

as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than theretofore.

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. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully

acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-

citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign

lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our

beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions

justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our

national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His 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, as soon as may

be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. ~

Abraham Lincoln (October 3, 1863, passed by an Act of Congress.)

7 Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word that you have heard. 8 At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. 9 Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. 10 Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. 11 But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

3 And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments.

4 Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him,

5 but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him:

6 whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.