THE PRESIDENT: We are here in the middle hour of our grief. So many have

suffered so great a loss, and today we express our nation's sorrow. We come

before God to pray for the missing and the dead, and for those who love

them.

On Tuesday, our country was attacked with deliberate and massive cruelty. We

have seen the images of fire and ashes, and bent steel.

Now come the names, the list of casualties we are only beginning to read.

They are the names of men and women who began their day at a desk or in an

airport, busy with life. They are the names of people who faced death, and

in their last moments called home to say, be brave, and I love you.

They are the names of passengers who defied their murderers, and prevented

the murder of others on the ground. They are the names of men and women who

wore the uniform of the United States, and died at their posts.

They are the names of rescuers, the ones whom death found running up the

stairs and into the fires to help others. We will read all these names. We

will linger over them, and learn their stories, and many Americans will

weep.

To the children and parents and spouses and families and friends of the

lost, we offer the deepest sympathy of the nation. And I assure you, you are

not alone.

Just three days removed from these events, Americans do not yet have the

distance of history. But our responsibility to history is already clear: to

answer these attacks and rid the world of evil.

War has been waged against us by stealth and deceit and murder. This nation

is peaceful, but fierce when stirred to anger. This conflict was begun on

the timing and terms of others. It will end in a way, and at an hour, of our

choosing.

Our purpose as a nation is firm. Yet our wounds as a people are recent and

unhealed, and lead us to pray. In many of our prayers this week, there is a

searching, and an honesty. At St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York on

Tuesday, a woman said, "I prayed to God to give us a sign that He is still

here."

Others have prayed for the same, searching hospital to hospital, carrying

pictures of those still missing.

God's signs are not always the ones we look for. We learn in tragedy that

his purposes are not always our own. Yet the prayers of private suffering,

whether in our homes or in this great cathedral, are known and heard, and

understood.

There are prayers that help us last through the day, or endure the night.

There are prayers of friends and strangers that give us strength for the

journey. And there are prayers that yield our will to a will greater than

our own.

This world He created is of moral design. Grief and tragedy and hatred are

only for a time. Goodness, remembrance, and love have no end. And the Lord

of life holds all who die, and all who mourn.

It is said that adversity introduces us to ourselves. This is true of a

nation as well. In this trial, we have been reminded, and the world has

seen, that our fellow Americans are generous and kind, resourceful and

brave. We see our national character in rescuers working past exhaustion; in

long lines of blood donors; in thousands of citizens who have asked to work

and serve in any way possible.

And we have seen our national character in eloquent acts of sacrifice.

Inside the World Trade Center, one man who could have saved himself stayed

until the end at the side of his quadriplegic friend. A beloved priest died

giving the last rites to a firefighter. Two office workers, finding a

disabled stranger, carried her down sixty-eight floors to safety. A group of

men drove through the night from Dallas to Washington to bring skin grafts

for burn victims.

In these acts, and in many others, Americans showed a deep commitment to one

another, and an abiding love for our country. Today, we feel what Franklin

Roosevelt called the warm courage of national unity. This is a unity of

every faith, and every background.

It has joined together political parties in both houses of Congress. It is

evident in services of prayer and candlelight vigils, and American flags,

which are displayed in pride, and wave in defiance.

Our unity is a kinship of grief, and a steadfast resolve to prevail against

our enemies. And this unity against terror is now extending across the

world.

America is a nation full of good fortune, with so much to be grateful for.

But we are not spared from suffering. In every generation, the world has

produced enemies of human freedom. They have attacked America, because we

are freedom's home and defender. And the commitment of our fathers is now

the calling of our time.

On this national day of prayer and remembrance, we ask almighty God to watch

over our nation, and grant us patience and resolve in all that is to come.

We pray that He will comfort and console those who now walk in sorrow. We

thank Him for each life we now must mourn, and the promise of a life to

come.

As we have been assured, neither death nor life, nor angels nor

principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height

nor depth, can separate us from God's love. May He bless the souls of the

departed. May He comfort our own. And may He always guide our country.