[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 110 (Wednesday, August 10, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]

                                 prayer

  The Chaplain, the Reverend Richard C. Halverson, D.D., offered the 
following prayer:
  Let us pray:
  We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created 
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable 
Rights * * * to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among 
Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed * * 
*.--Declaration of Independence.
  Almighty God, our Founding Fathers established this Nation upon the 
belief in a Creator-God. Thomas Jefferson asked, ``Can the liberties of 
a nation be secure if we have removed from the hearts of the people the 
belief that those liberties are the gift of God?''
  The prophet Jeremiah declared, ``Thus speaks the Lord: What injustice 
did your fathers find in Me that they abandoned Me, habitually followed 
after futility, and became useless?--Jeremiah 2:5, Berkeley Version.
  Forty-five years ago the editors of Life magazine wrote: ``The 
greatest threat to our civilization comes from within that civilization 
itself--our $64 euphemism for it is secularism. A much blunter word is 
godlessness. Our civilization, for all its churches and all its 
churchgoers, is predominantly a secular, godless civilization.''
  Holy God, awaken us to our national peril and help us to return to 
the God of our fathers.
  In Jesus' name and for the sake of our national welfare. Amen.

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