[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 58 (Thursday, May 9, 2002)]
[House]
[Page H2237]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

[[Page H2237]]

House of Representatives

  The Reverend Samuel P. Warner, Pastor, First Presbyterian Church, 
Lumberton, North Carolina, offered the following prayer:
  You have entrusted to us, Almighty God, a rich heritage from the past 
purchased by the lives and sacrifices of those who have gone before us 
and whose witness testifies to the cost of freedom and the price of 
peace.
  And You have blessed, O Lord, the people of this Republic, from north 
and south and east and west, each one represented here, with a dream 
for today and a vision for tomorrow: the vision of a city set on a hill 
for all to see, and the dream, the dream of a lamp shining brightly in 
every home, fueled by the promise of ``life, liberty, and the pursuit 
of happiness.''
  Yet binding the sacred story of our common past to the vision and 
hope of a waiting future is the challenge and opportunity of this one 
day, this one hour, this present moment in which we live.
  And so, Divine Master, help us; help us all, and especially those who 
labor in this Chamber, to use this day wisely.
  Teach us, Good Lord, to listen more eagerly than to speak, to unite 
more readily than to divide, to forgive more quickly than to condemn.
  And pardon, we pray, the shortcomings of those borne by the selfish 
motives of the few, rather than the needs of the many.
  Yet most of all, O God, bestow upon all in leadership and authority 
the wisdom and courage today ``to do justice, to love kindness, and to 
walk humbly with You'' so that when this day is done, the toil and 
labor of the men and women in this House might be worthy of the people 
of our great land, of those who dreamed and shaped her long ago, and of 
those who defend her now, asking no honor or reward, save the knowledge 
that they do Thy Will. Amen.

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