[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 1]
[House]
[Page 194]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

                                 PRAYER

  The Chaplain, the Reverend Daniel P. Coughlin, offered the following 
prayer:
  God of justice and Lord of history,
  In 1821 John Quincy Adams said, ``Let us not be unmindful that 
liberty is power . . . The nation blessed with the greatest portion of 
liberty must, in proportion to its numbers, be the most powerful nation 
on Earth.''
  Your scriptures tell us, Lord, ``Balance and scales belong to the 
Lord; all weights of justice are His concern.''
  Lord God, through the years, the three branches of government and the 
Electoral College have had a lot to do with balancing power in this 
Nation.
  Today as the legislative branch of government counts the votes of the 
Electoral College to verify the election of the President, we praise 
and thank you for the intuition of law-abiding citizens who seek 
justice in every free election and for the desire of founding fathers 
to have both the voice of large and small States, and the votes of 
States with the most and the least in population, both be heard and 
counted.
  May the 109th Congress measure and be measured in the balance of 
dialogue and justice. And may every citizen of this great Nation find 
balance in his or her own life so to find peace in oneself and fairness 
with others.
  So we will pray and act now and forever. Amen.

                          ____________________