On this day 250 years ago in Williamsburg, Robert Carter Nicholas, Member of the House of Burgesses and Treasurer of Virginia introduces an Order for a Day of Fasting and Prayer to Virginia House of Burgesses. The Order passes unanimously but would soon receive a furious response for its revolutionary language:
This House being deeply impressed with Apprehension of the great Dangers to be derived to British America, from the hostile Invasion of the City of Boston, in our Sister Colony of Massachusetts Bay, whose Commerce and Harbour are on the 1st Day of June next to be stopped by an armed Force, deem it highly necessary that the said first Day of June be set apart by the Members of this House as a Day of Fasting, Humiliation, and Prayer, devoutly to implore the divine Interposition for averting the heavy Calamity, which threatens Destruction to our civil Rights, and the Evils of civil War; to give us one Heart and one Mind firmly to oppose, by all just and proper Means, every Injury to American Rights, and that the Minds of his Majesty and his Parliament may be inspired from above with Wisdom, Moderation, and Justice, to remove from the loyal People of America all Cause of Danger from a continued Pursuit of Measures pregnant with their Ruin.
The Order was signed by George Wythe as Clerk of the House of Burgesses. During the Revolution Nicholas would go on to serve in all five Virginia Conventions that replaced the House of Burgesses. Wythe, along with the Burgesses who drafted the Order for a Day of Fasting, Humiliation, and Prayer, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, and Francis Lightfoot Lee, would all go on to serve in Continental Congresses and other illustrious service during the Revolution.
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-01-02-0082
On This Day In The Revolution 