 VAN RIEBEECK's PRAYER Merciful, gracious God and Heavenly Father, by Your divine will we are called to manage the affairs of the United Netherlands Chartered East-Indian Company here in the Cape of Good Hope. With this aspiration in sight we, together with our Council, are gathered in Your Holy Name in order that together with the Council’s advice we will be able to make decisions that will enable us to best endorse the interests of the Company. We are here in this place to maintain the law and, if at all possible, to propagate Your true Reformed Christian doctrine among these wild and uncultured people in order that we may glorify Your Holy Name while benefiting those who rule over us. We are least able to attain this end without your merciful help and guidance. Therefore we pray, our Supreme God and Father that You, with Your fatherly wisdom might remain with us. We pray that You will grant us Your guidance in our meeting and that You will enlighten our hearts so that all iniquitous desires, discord and other similar blemishes may be obliterated from our hearts and minds so that they may be pure and chaste from all human desires and passions. May our state of minds be so attuned that all our deliberations and decisions accede only to that which will glorify and magnify your Most Holy Name while being of serviceto those who rule over us. May we not, in any way, heed our own desires for profit or gain but merely execute our duties and that which is proper for our own salvation. We pray and ask this in the name of Your beloved Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ who taught us to pray… Our Father Who art in Heaven........ Amen
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