[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 115 (Tuesday, August 16, 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:
  Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any 
people.--Proverbs 14:34.
  Eternal God, Lord of Heaven and Earth, Ruler of the nations, help us 
comprehend the faith of our fathers upon which they founded this great 
Nation.
  In his address to the first joint session of Congress in Washington 
on November 22, 1800, John Adams said, ``I congratulate the people of 
the United States on the assembling of Congress at the permanent seat 
of their Government; and I congratulate you, gentlemen, on the prospect 
of a residence not to be changed * * *. May this Territory be the 
residence of virtue and happiness!'' Adams said, ``Our Constitution was 
designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate 
for the government of any other.''
  Patient Lord, history teaches us that great empires like Rome fell, 
not because they were conquered from without, but because they 
disintegrated from within. Awaken us to the sheer necessity for a 
mighty visitation of God which will lead to spiritual and moral 
renewal, lest our Nation perish as the great empires of the past.
  In the name of God and for the renewal of our land. Amen.

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