At a sessions of the General Court held at Boston the 3d. of November 1675. : This court being in some measure sensible of the hand of the Lord being stretched forth against us in the way of his judgments, by sickness and war shortning our numbers ... This court doth appoint and set apart the second day of December next to be kept a day of solemn humiliation and prayer throughout the severall churches, congregations and town in this colony ...