"As it may be truly said - of all the days for MAN'S opportunity, of man's making, of man's concern - TRULY Thanksgiving should be nearer and dearer to the hearts of those who are appreciative of Life and its opportunities, under ANY experience!" Cayce (3976-21)
"Let this day of Thanksgiving be not only that wherein to enjoy that which may satiate the body, that which may make for the gratifying of appetites of the body, but that day when each of you may give thanks to God for BEING alive – with the opportunities to raise thy voice in prayer, in praise, in thanksgiving for the love He hath shown, that He showers upon thee day by day! And as ye do this – in the SPIRIT of love, in the spirit of truth, of patience, of longsuffering – ye will receive that awareness of His closeness to thee. And this will bring you to the greater knowledge, the greater understanding of what He would have thee do." [Cayce 3976-21]
"’Let that mind be in me that will create the right environ for my body, for my mind, and for the purposes and aims that I may be preserved for a service to others,' giving praise, thanksgiving and glory to the Creator in whom there is life, light and hope." [Cayce 478-2]
"The building of self, mentally and morally, truthfully and spiritually, comes then from within. The lesson then, a presentation to body, [900], of the spirit of thanksgiving from others to self, sacrificing of self in the spirit of helpfulness to others in service and in self." Cayce (900-110)
"Then remember, Thanksgiving is thy OPPORTUNITY to show thy appreciation to thy friend, thy home, thy mother, thy children - yea, most of all to thy God!" Cayce (3976-21)
"In this land [America] ye may give praise for freedom of speech, for the opportunities to raise thy voice in whatever way and manner ye choose... Then, as ye give thanks, as ye give praise to thy friends for kindnesses, for gentlenesses, for those things that make thy experience more bearable in a cruel world... Let thy heart then be glad. Keep then that Day in praise, in thanksgiving, in such ways, such a manner that ye show to thy conscience that what ye worship as thy God is aware of thy appreciation of life!" Cayce (3976-21)
My Thanksgiving message to you all is to believe in that eternal justice through which that which is real abides and that, which is in the nature of pretense, vanishes. Every loyal obedience to the inner call of duty, every attempt at speaking bravely the thing that is within one's own heart, every attempt to utter kindness and goodwill brings us into connection with the whole history of the upward movement of the world. One who thus faces life has no fear of putting forth, to the full, all the power that is within. [Harvey Spencer Lewis, founder of Rosicrucian Order AMORC]
Proclamation 118 Thanksgiving Day, 1864
October 20, 1864
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
It has pleased Almighty God to prolong our national life another year, defending us with His guardian care against unfriendly designs from abroad and vouchsafing to us in His mercy many and signal victories over the enemy, who is of our own household. It has also pleased our Heavenly Father to favor as well our citizens in their homes as our soldiers in their camps and our sailors on the rivers and seas with unusual health. He has largely augmented our free population by emancipation and by immigration, while He has opened to us new sources of wealth and has crowned the labor of our workingmen in every department of industry with abundant rewards. Moreover, He has been pleased to animate and inspire our minds and hearts with fortitude, courage, and resolution sufficient for the great trial of civil war into which we have been brought by our adherence as a nation to the cause of freedom and humanity, and to afford to us reasonable hopes of an ultimate and happy deliverance from all our dangers and afflictions:
Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do hereby appoint and set apart the last Thursday in November next as a day which I desire to be observed by all my fellow-citizens, wherever they may then be, as a day of thanksgiving and praise to Almighty God, the beneficent Creator and Ruler of the Universe. And I do further recommend to my fellow-citizens aforesaid that on that occasion they do reverently humble themselves in the dust and from thence offer up penitent and fervent prayers and supplications to the Great Disposer of Events for a return of the inestimable blessings of peace, union, and harmony throughout the land which it has pleased Him to assign as a dwelling place for ourselves and for our posterity throughout all generations.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the city of Washington, this 20th day of October, A.D. 1864, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-ninth.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
By the President:
WILLIAM H. SEWARD,
Secretary of State
See Also