Nation Pauses for Remembrance, Prayer

In Washington, bells tolled as President Bush and four former U.S. presidents joined political, police and military leaders at the National Cathedral for a solemn memorial service.

“We are here in the middle hour of our grief,” Mr. Bush told the gathering. “So many have suffered so great a loss and today we express our nation’s sorrow. We come today before God to pray for the missing and the dead and for those who love them.”

The president also spoke of the clear role the U.S. must play following Tuesday’s attacks.

“Our responsibility to history is already clear — to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil,” Mr. Bush said.

The service, led by an array of religious leaders including Islamic, Jewish and Christian leaders, offered words of comfort and calls for unity before a packed invitation-only memorial service.

“[E]vil has visited America this week and too many of her 
children are no more,” Reverend Nathan Baxter told the assembly. The reverend also warned that in our anger “we do not become the evil we deplore.”

Across the Potomac River, officials at the Pentagon held a series of religious services in a fifth floor auditorium.

Tears flowed as a military chaplain expressed the losses of Tuesday. Many held small American flags and as the service ended, those gathered sang “God Bless America.”

This morning’s cabinet meeting at the White House opened with a prayer from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

“We pray this day, heavenly father, the prayer our nation learned at another time of righteous struggle and noble cause — America’s enduring prayer: Not that God will be on our side, but always, O Lord, that America will be on your side,” Rumsfeld said.

In New York, different churches held ceremonies mourning the dead and urging solidarity. The Islamic Center of Long Island, stunned by terrorist attacks and the anger directed against some of its members, held a second service to mourn those lost.

“We’re hurting, too, and we’re also Americans,” Arshad Majid, a member of the center, told the Associated Press. “There were Muslim lives lost in that building, as well. We’re all human and we need to get together.”

Throughout Europe, life drew to a halt as millions marked a three-minute moment of silence to remember those lost.

“This is an occasion, this day in particular, where we can remember to say that we have a close relationship and say we were with you in your hour of need,” Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern told reporters as nearly 20,000 stood in line to sign condolence books at the U.S. embassy in Dublin.