[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 4]
[House]
[Page 5711]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

                                 PRAYER

  The Reverend L.H. Hardwick, Jr., Pastor, Christ Church, Nashville, 
TN, offered the following prayer:
  Almighty God, whose law kindles human conscience and sustains human 
government, we acknowledge our Nation to be yet sustained by those 
precepts our Founders committed us to keep. Strengthen, we pray, the 
foundations of this land. Save us from any hardness of heart or from 
the cynical disregard for Your ways. Deliver us, O Lord, from petty 
dissension. Increase our civility. Cultivate in us all that is good, 
beautiful, and true.
  Grant to our leaders a tender spirit toward the people whose trust 
they hold and whose futures they influence. Give them forbearance and 
grace one toward another, that they may faithfully discern the common 
good for our country.
  We ask You now to hold these, the Members of the United States 
Congress, in Your holy and mighty hand. May they do justly, love mercy, 
and walk humbly with their God. We confidently ask these things in the 
name of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.

                          ____________________