PRAYER for peace and tolerance by Voltaire

PRAYER for peace and tolerance
written by the French Enlightenment writer,
philosopher François-Marie
Arouet better known by
the pen name Voltaire
(1694-1778)
Music:
Omar Khairat-A Place In The Heart



No longer then do I address myself
to men, but to you, God of all beings, of all worlds,
and of all ages; if it may be permitted weak creatures
lost in immensity and imperceptible to the rest of
the universe, to dare to ask something of you,Who are
the Bestower of all things, Whose decrees are unchanging
as they are eternal.


Grant that You regard with pity the errors woven into our
nature, that they do not bring about our ruin. For You did
not give us hearts to hate ourselves with, and hands to kill
one another.
Grant then that we may mutually aid each other to support
the burden of a painful and transitory life;


that the trifling differences in the garments that cover our
frail bodies,in our insufficient languages, in our ridiculous
customs, in our imperfect laws,in our idle opinions, in all our
conditions so disproportionate in our eyes,and so equal in yours,


that all the little variations that differentiate the atoms
called men not be signs of hatred and persecution; that those
who light candles in broad daylight to worship you bear with
those who content themselves with the light of your sun;
that those who dress themselves in a white robe to say that
we must love you do not detest those who say the same thing
in cloaks of black wool;


that it may be all the same to adore you in a dialect formed
from an ancient or a modern language; that those whose coat
is colored or violet, who rule over a little parcel of a little
heap of mud of this world, and who possess a few round
fragments of a certain metal, enjoy without pride what they call
grandeur and riches, and may others look on them without envy:
for you know that there is nothing in all these vanities to inspire
envy or pride.

Enable us to remember that we are
brothers and sisters. And let us hold those who exercise
tyranny over souls in the same horror as the brigands who
ravage by force the fruits of industry and peaceful labor.

Let wars come to an end, let us hate
our brethren no more. And let us not destroy one another
in the midst of peace,let us use the brief moment of our
existenceto praise at once, in a thousand different tongues,
from Siam to California,Your goodness that has granted this
moment to us.

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