God of all the globes and stars, the one prayer that it is meet
to offer to you is submission. How can we ask anything of him who
arranged and enchained all things from the beginning? Yet if it is
permitted to expose our needs to a father, preserve in our hearts
this feeling of submission and a pure religion. Keep from us all
superstition. Since there are those who insult you with unworthy
sacrifices, abolish those infamous mysteries. Since there are those
who dishonour the divinity with absurd fables, may those fables
perish for ever. If the days of the prince and the magistrate were
not numbered from all eternity, give them length of days. Preserve
the purity of our ways, the friendship of our brethren for each
other, their goodwill towards all men, their obedience to the laws,
and their wisdom in private life. Let them live and die in the
worship of one God, the rewarder of good, the punisher of evil; a God
that could not be born or die, nor have associates, but who has too
many rebellious children in this world.