"Except the Lord Keep the City"

The new year of 1942 calls for the courage and the resolution of old and young to help win a world struggle in order that we may preserve all we hold dear.

We are confident in our devotion to our country, in our love of freedom, in our inheritance of courage. But our strength, as the strength of all men. everywhere, is of greater avail as God upholds us.

Therefore I, Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States of America, do hereby appoint the first day of the year 1942 as a day of prayer, of asking forgiveness for our shortcomings of the past, of consecration to the tasks of the present, of asking God's help in days to come.

We need His guidance that this people may be humble in spirit but strong in the conviction of the right, steadfast to endure sacrifices and brave to achieve a victory of liberty and peace.

So last week, in an hour of national crisis, the President set aside Jan. 1 as a national day of prayer--only the twelfth ever proclaimed in the U.S.* Britain promptly chimed in with its ally, proclaimed Jan. 1 as its sixth National Day of Prayer in World War II.

* The other eleven were proclaimed by Presidents Tyler, Johnson, Arthur and Coolidge for the deaths of their predecessors in office, Lincoln (three), Wilson (three), Franklin Roosevelt.

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