Presidents' Day

http://www.fireworks.com/holidays/Presidents-day.asp

Excerpt taken from the aforementioned website:

So when did Americans first acknowledge our Presidents with their own day?

Presidents' Day dates back to our founding father and first President, George Washington. Washington was born on February 22, 1732. On his birthday in 1796, when Washington was in his last full year as president, the day became the holiday known as Washington's Birthday. However, Americans didn't observe this holiday until 1832, 100 years after his birth.

Abraham Lincoln was the next President to gain reverence similar to Washington. Born on February 12, 1809, Lincoln's birthday was first celebrated in 1865, the year after he was assassinated. Although his birthday was not honored as a federal holiday like Washington's, many states adopted it as a legal holiday.

In 1968, Congress passed legislation placing any federal holiday on a Monday, including Washington's birthday, to create a three-day weekend. In 1971, President Richard Nixon combined Washington's and Lincoln's birthdays into Presidents' Day. It would be celebrated on the third Monday in February, regardless of which day it fell on. Presidents' Day is now viewed as a holiday that pays tribute to both Washington and Lincoln, as well as all those who have served as president.

With Presidents’ Day around the corner, I thought it would be interesting to discuss the two presidents that are primarily celebrated on this holiday.  There are certainly many history books that chronicle the lives of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.  Washington, of course, is one of our founding fathers.  Lincoln, or otherwise known as Honest Abe, was president during one of the most tumultuous times of our nation’s history.

 
But outside of the history books, how much do we really know about these two remarkable men?  Aside from knowing that Washington was a general in the Continental Army (actually he was Commander-in-Chief due to the fact that there was no president at the time,) we can assume that he was a man of courage and strength.  With Lincoln, we know that he fought against succession of the United States.  That had to take great moral fortitude to fight a battle that would pit brother against brother and ultimately see hundreds of thousands of lives lost.

What else can we learn from these historical figures?  What drove them?  What was their passion?  What can we learn from their character that might have some bearing on our lives today?

Knowing that history books in schools today have been diluted of some of the more significant qualities of our ancestors, students of the public school formats are learning only the basics, and secular parts I might add, of who these people were decades and centuries ago.  It’s no secret that even in today’s current events that there’s a battle over the separation of church and state.  With a letter from Thomas Jefferson taken out of context, it has become the secularists’ mantra.

The real substance in the history of the United States has been excluded, taken out, and forgotten.  But if one were to examine some of the writings and quotes of any one of these historical figures, that person could not walk away without taking some measure of the spiritual significance that not only begot this nation, but guided it successfully in the following years till today.  God was indeed influential in the transpired events of this nation’s history and still is.

So let’s look at some of the sayings that are attributed to George Washington:

• It is impossible to rightly govern a nation without God and the Bible.
• Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair; the rest is in the hands of God.
• Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
• The foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing is a vice so mean and low that every person of sense and character detests and despises it.
• The ways of Providence being inscrutable, and the justice of it not to be scanned by the shallow eye of humanity, nor to be counteracted by the utmost efforts of human power or wisdom, resignation, and as far as the strength of our reason and religion can carry us, a cheerful acquiescence to the Divine Will, is what we are to aim.
• The name of American, belongs to you…[and] with slight shades of difference, you have the same religion.
• What students would learn in American schools above all is the religion of Jesus Christ.
• While we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion. To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian.

Also, let’s examine some of what Abraham Lincoln has said:

• Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.
• Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
• I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.
• Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.
• The assertion that "all men are created equal" was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain and it was placed in the Declaration not for that, but for future use.
• With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan - to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
• All the good the Saviour gave to the world was communicated through this book. But for it we could not know right from wrong. All things most desirable for man's welfare, here and hereafter, are to be found portrayed in it.
• Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him, who has never yet forsaken this favored land, are still competent to adjust, in the best way, all our present difficulty.

Two different men from different eras.  But George Washington and Abraham Lincoln had more in common than just patriotism and being Presidents of the United States.  They had a unique understanding of God’s providence over their lives.  Throughout their terms in office, they regularly sought God’s guidance and prayed for wisdom to help them govern a great people.

Reading these quotes, you cannot deny their acknowledgement of the Supreme Authority over their lives and over the affairs of men.  These were men of spiritual significance, of godly character that helped them through some of the most difficult times our country endured.  Without men like Washington and Lincoln, our country would not have been as successful as it has.  It has prospered and it has flourished, not because of man’s greatness or ingenuity, but because of the faithfulness of men who prayed and sought the face of God.  As such, many of the technologies and scientific advancements have been the result of God’s blessings on our country.

When we celebrate Presidents’ Day, do we really celebrate its significance?  Or is it because some of us get a day off from work?  Maybe some go to some special Presidents’ Day sales.  Perhaps for most of us, the day goes by without a second thought.  Here’s a challenge:  on this Presidents’ Day, let’s honor the men who did so much for our country by honoring the One who gave them the moral character and godly attributes that made them so great!  Let’s give God the glory and honor and worship Him!

Follow these two links and get a sense of the impact God had on these two lives:

• More on the life of George Washington.

• More on the life of Abraham Lincoln.