Declaration of prayer and fasting

The Congress…Desirous…to have people of all ranks and degrees duly impressed with a solemn sense of God’s superintending providence, and of their duty, devoutly to rely… on his aid and direction…do earnestly recommend Friday, the 17th day of May be observed by the colonies as a day of humiliation, fasting, and prayer; that we may, with united hearts, confess and bewail our manifold sins and transgressions, and, by sincere repentance and amendment of life, appease God’s righteous displeasure, and, through the merits and meditation of Jesus Christ, obtain this pardon and forgiveness.

— from a declaration of prayer and fasting by the Continental Congress, May 16, 1776

• The Continental Congress (1774–1789) was a convention of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies called to govern the nascent United States during the American Revolution. While the Congress began as a divided body, as the above declaration indicates, it soon unified in the Second Congress on July 2, 1776 and voted unanimously for independence from Great Britain, issuing the Declaration of Independence two days later.