they design for the World For it is certain that Virtue hath this advantage to make it self esteemed by its own enemies and that if it hath not sufficient allurements and charms strong enough to gain all mens hearts yet it hath power and strength enough to draw their admiration See we not that sweetness and humility in Artists contents more than their adress and their industry If there is a Judge who will not be corrupted is he not desired by all sorts of persons to be the arbitratour of their life and fortune And they who have the least Ambition and the least love for Offices and Commands are they not says St. Chrysostom most welcom in the Courts of Soverain Kings and Princes Do not fear that the modesty of your Daughters in their dress that their reservedness in company that the little entercourse they have with young Gallants will render them less esteemed or less sought for in Marriage Their simplicity their meekness their affection for such things as concern the good government of a Family and their contempt of worldly ornaments will make them better known than strutting and vanity And if men for their diversion seek such as live according to the Maxims of the world they will not have for wives but such as follow the laws of the Gospel such as love retiredness and such as have no inclination to the Modes and Pomps of the World This fidelity to follow the Maxims of the Holy Fathers in the Education of those Children whom we designe for the World is it not advantagious to purchase them the love and esteem of all people but it is even more necessary for the salvation of their souls than for that of those Children whom they designe for Cloysters and for retrait The sole comparison which St. Chrysostom makes use of is sufficient to prove this Even as S Chry. ho. 21. in Ephes. says this Father he who stays always in the Haven stands not in so much need of a Pilot well experienced of so great a number of Mariners and of a Vessel so well equipped as he who is always at Sea and who must provide to resist the windes and the tempests so he who is designed for the solitude being to leade a quiet life and exempt from troubles and turmoils hath no need of such great strength and so many lights as he who is to sustain the most powerful shocks of the Flesh of the World and of the Devil Now if these irreconcilable enemies of mens salvation raise their strongest batteries against Children in their tenderest age they who introduce them into the World without having taught them in that tender age to contemn pleasures Riches and Honours do they not expose them naked and unarmed to the cruelty of the said Enemies We must therefore train them up to the combat from their Infancy discover to them the crafts and cunning of their enemies teach them the means to surprize and to defeat them make them know that it is almost impossible to conserve perfect health amidst the contagion and that living in the world they must always conquer or always be conquered How can they defend themselves from Ambition seeing all others greedy to make themselves great unless they are strongly perswaded of the small solidity which is found in the establishment proposed by the world Can they keep themselves to an indifference amidst the affected complacencies and the allurements of Women who will strive to gain their freindship in order to get possession of their persons and of their means unless they are perfectly convinced of the obligation they have to adhere to God alone and to prefer him before all things Or rather being not solidly setled in Piety and in the fear of God will they not suffer themselves to be carried a way by Example and by custom and losing by the Vicious habits so contracted their eternal salvation will they not make an unhappy experience of the truth of these words of St. Jerome That it is very easy to become like the wicked S. Jerom. ad Letam and to imitate in a short time the Vices of them to whose Virtue one cannot attain CHAP. XIII The means which facilitate the application of these Maxims and these Advices in the Christian Education of Children ALL these means Sister may be reduced to the care which parents ought to take to instruct their children themselves in their own persons But because we cannot receive Instruction but by the means of Speech Reading and actions and that he who plants and he who waters are nothing but that it is God who gives the encrease which he gives not ordinarily but to an humble Prayer it will be easy for you to bring up your children according to the Maxims of the Fathers of the Church if you entertain them with such things as you ought if you make them reade such Books as will profit them if you your self give them examples which they may imitate and if you take care to engage God by their Prayers and by your own to pour out his benediction upon your instructions upon their lectures and upon your Examples The first Means Speech Words or Discourse IT cannot be sufficiently deplored that Parents now adays study so little to render the Conversations which they have with their children and with their Domesticks truly Christian It seems they dare not discover to them the sentiments they have for God They hide themselves from them to say their Prayers and to acquit themselves of their least Christian duties And as if God had not placed them in their houses to give light to such as enter into it and dwell in it they rob them of their lights and contribute by a conduct so dimply shining to form the darkness which is spread over the whole World This unhappy proceeding is the cause that they ordinarily entertain themselves with nothing but trifles and things altogether unprofitable that to furnish matter for conversation they examine the actions of their neighbour they censure them and they discover their secret and unknown crimes that all their talk is but a concatenation of detraction of falshood of vanity and of pleasure and that that which should be as it were the sensible Communion of Saints in Christ Jesus and the image and expression of the communion and society which we have begun with God and with Christ Jesus by Baptism 1 Joan. 13. becomes a source of malice and is in effect nothing but a sequel of that miserable conversation which our first Parents had with the Devil Ephes 2.3 which caused the ruine of all their posterity and which rendred all their children the children of anger and indignation Shall we then wonder that the major part of the Children of Christians live in so great disorders that they are so perfectly knowing in what is necessary to frequent companies and to render themselves pleasing and that they know so little what is necessary to go to Heaven
greater part of our Entertainments and Divertisements Children accustome themselves to behold and to imitate these disorders this custome passes into nature and these unfortunate wretches learn to commit these irregularities even before they are capable to comprehend their excess and their enormity I think Sister that Christians cannot hear a Pagan discourse thus without blushing that they should have less feeling of these disorders than he had or that they should not make it appear they had better apprehensions thereof by their practise Will you then acquit your self well of your Duty and bring up your children as St. Paul ordains in the Fear and in the Discipline of our Lord live you your self in this Fear and in this Discipline Practise meekness and humility that you may render them more docible and submissive Let the respect you have for all the proceedings of your Husband teach them to honour him and to fear him Let your modesty in your cloathes and dresses instill into them an aversion from all worldly vanities Let the humanity wherewith you command your domesticks teach them to treat them civilly Finally be you such towards God as you would have your children be to him and to your self and forget not these words of our Saviour Luk. 9.41 If any one is a cause of Scandal and of falling to one of these ltttle ones who believe in me it were better for him to have a Mill-stone made fast to his neck and that he were cast into the Sea The Fourth Means Prayer IT would be a small matter for a Christian Mother to give holy Instructions to her children to cause them to reade good Books and to practise before their eyes what she would have them to practise if she applies not her self seriously to Prayer and if she endeavours not by little and little to render them capable to entertain themselves with God and to ruminate in his presence what they have been told what they have read and what they have seen practised with edification that so they may reap their profit by them I know that they have taken up in the world a certain Idea of Mental Prayer which makes them imagine that it is an exercise too hard and too high for many people and that it is only proper for such persons as have made already a large progress and are greatly advanced in the spiritual life They fancy it to be as it were a humane Art and as an effect of curiosity and of presumption and as soon as one mentions meditation they represent to themselves Methods divisions and a multitude of Discourses and thoughts which require a great contention of spirit Yet surely this manner of prayer demands only the Heart It is the most natural occupation of Piety and of Faith and the proper effect of the feelings one ought to have on the one side of Gods greatness and on the other side of ones own weakness necessitie and misery so that the simplest persons and the very children are capable thereof assoon as they begin to use their reason and to be sensible of their own wants For in how many different manners do they express themselves even in their very Infancy to make their Fathers and their Mothers and such other persons as govern them understand their wants and their pains How ingenious are they to explicate their joys their sadnesses their inclinations and their aversions Make they not use of divers crys of different accents of the voice and of various motions of the body to discover the thought and the desire of their Hearts And do they not render with a marvellous dexterity all these signes as conformable as they can to their wills to the end they may become intelligible Every thing speaks in their little Body their Eyes their Gestures their Laughter and their Tears Finally know they not how by an hundred different ways to get what they desire and even to force them that resist it to yeild at last and to grant it them Why then as they encrease in age and as their spirit opens it self may one not endeavour to teach them to ask of God what they stand in need of and to ask it of him in that strong and perswasive manner in which the heart knows how to explicate it self and how to make known its affections and its motions St. Augustin relates S. Aug. l. 1. Conf. c. 9. n. 2.3 that among the exercises of his Infancy having met with certain servants of God who invoked him in their Prayers and having learned of them as far forth as he was capable to frame some Idea of God that he was something very great and sublime and that although he was concealed from our senses he could hear our Prayers and help us in our needs he began very Childe as he was to implore his assistance and to address himself unto him as to his refuge and to his place of security I learned says he raising up himself to God and taught my stammering tongue to invoke you although I was little the affection wherewith I prayed you to hinder that I might not be whipped in the School was not little For it is true that I no less apprehended the chastisements and the punishments which I received from my Masters than Men apprehend the greatest torments and that they beg not with greater instance to be delivered from them than I conjured you to remove from me these torments of little Children Behold Sister how advantagious this encounter with these men of Prayer was to this great Saint and how children in their low age are capable to address themselves to God and to demand of him with eagerness what they desire when they are taught to conceive as far forth as they are able that it is from him alone they ought to expect it The same Saint speaking of a sickness he had in his Infancy and which they believed had brought to deaths door attributes the fervour and the faith wherewith he demanded to receive Baptism Aug. l. 1. Conf. chap. 11. to that which he had heard spoken of the eternal life which was promised to us by the mystery of the Incarnation of Christ Jesus and to the care his Mother had assoon as she had brought him into the World to cause him to be marked with the sign of the Cross upon the forehead and to put him afterwards into the number of the Cathecumens So true it is that Truth makes very strong impressions in the hearts of children when one knows how to accomodate it to their capacity and mildely and familiarly to engage them to employ themselves before God and to demand of him grace to love him Thus Sister when children finde difficulty in learning their lessons they are to be made to comprehend as far as they are capable that Wit and Knowledge comes from God and that it is to him they must address themselves in the difficulties they have in their studies When they shew any violent Passion
of the soul But verses which are animated with the modulation charm the soul with their sweetness they get possession of the spirit of the hearer and push him on with violence whither they please they perswade him to all that which they make him fancy is agreeable and they almost surprize him and entirely master his will whilst they flatter his senses You ought not then concludes this Authour conceive any thing to be sweet to your ears but that which nourishes your soul and renders it better and you should particularly apply your self to avert that Organ from vice which is given us by God to hear his truth and to receive his doctrine If you take delight in singing and in Poetry please your selves in warbling forth the prayses of God There is no true pleasure but that which is evermore accompanied with virtue Behold my Sister what you are timely to instill into your Children never suffer any thing to be done or spoken in their presence which is in the least wise unbeseeming the modesty the prudence and the charity which is due to your Neighbour whereof you make profession in quality of Christian S. Chrystost hom de ann Permit them not to hear effeminate and lascivious songs for fear lest they may prove to be an unhappy charm to mollify their soul and to make them lose all their vigour Endure not that the mouths which are to be one day sanctified by the celestial food of the Body of Christ Jesus be profaned by infamous songs and that the tongues which are to be dipped in the blood of our Saviour be employed in a language which is altogether corrupted Have evermore present to your spirit those excellent words of St. Paul Ephes 5.3 4 17 19. which includes the Rules of the conversation of the Faithful Let not fornication or any other impurity whatsoever be so much as once named among you Neither filthiness nor foolish talk nor jesting all which things are disagreeable to your vocation but rather words of thanksgiving to God Be not indiscreet but know how to discern what is the will of our Lord entertaining your selves with Psalms with Hymns and with spiritual Canticles singing and making melody from the bottom of your hearts to the glory of our Lord. Let all dishonest Words be banished from your mouth Let the word of Christ Jesus dwell in you with fulness and replenish you with Wisdom Instruct and admonish one another with Psalms with Hymns and with Spiritual Canticles Thus you see by these words of the Apostle that Christians are not permitted to speak the least word not only which is dishonest but even which is not serious or which hath in it any thing of jesting so far is he from suffering them to make such things all their joy and divertisement and that if they sing S. Augustin l. 10. confes c. 33. it must be Psalms Hymns and spiritual Canticles that so by the pleasure which touches the ears the spirit yet weak may raise up it self to feelings of piety and that being more ardently moved to devotion by the tunes animated with Divine words it may receive with more respect and sweetness the verities there included and employ it self therein more profitably Parents who will not endeavour to follow these Apostolical Rules in the education of their Children and who have not absolutely forbidden them these corrupted songs will be found by so much the more culpable before God by how much it is more easy for them in this age to hinder them from it since there are many persons of piety who have successfully laboured in putting into Verse the Psalms the Hymns and the Canticles of the Church that there are many who have composed spiritual songs which are very sweet pleasing and that they have set these Psalms these Hymns and these spiritual songs to very harmonious tunes and airs which by recreating the spirit raise it to God and nourish piety in the soul 3. Advice Concerning Romances 'T Is not yet enough my Sister to watch over the tender years of your children to hinder them from learning accursed sonnets you must furthermore when they are more advanced in age and capable to apply themselves to reading keep carefully from them the Romances and other Books of that nature which only serve to instill the spirit of the world into their mindes and to ruine in them the spirit of Christ Jesus I cannot better make you comprehend the importance of this Advice then by relating to you the words of St. Teresa St. Teresa c. 2. of her life wherein you will see how dangerous it is for Mothers to indulge their children in this point and for themselves to take pleasure in these kinde of Lectures which charming the spirit by agreeable dotages corrupt the heart with real irregularities It seems to me says she that what I am going about to relate was to me very prejudiciall I consider sometimes the great evil done by Parents to their children in not endeavouring with all their authority to place continually before their eyes the objects of virtue For although my Mother was as virtuous as I now have declared her yet when I had attained the use of reason I remember very little and almost nothing at all of her good qualities whereas the bad ones which I observed in her did strangely hurt and dammage me She was delighted with the reading of Romances but this divertisement was not to her so dangerous as it was to me because she lost no more time than what she employed in reading them and that perhaps she did it only to untire her self from the wearisome cares of her family and to hinder her children from worse employments but as for me although my Father was so much against it that we were forced to take care he might not perceive it I ceased not to keep on my ordinary custom of reading these Books and how small soever this fault was in my Mother it failed not to cool my good desires and was the cause of my falling insensibly into other defects It seemed to me that it was not evil to lose many hours of the day and of the night in so vain an occupation although I hid my self from my Father and I was so enchanted with the extreame pleasure I took in it that methought I could not be content if I had not some new Romance in my hands I began to imitate the Mode to take delight in being well dressed to take great care of my hands to make use of the most excellent perfumes in a word to affect all the vain trimmings which my condition permitted and which my curiosity invented in a very great number Indeed my intention was not bad for I would not in the immoderate passion which I had to be decent give any occasion to any person of the world to offend God but I now acknowledge how far these things which during several years space appeared to me innocent are
setled my heart and had tyed it to your service whereas it having wandred among the Fables and the unprofitable inventions of the ancient it is become the unhappy and unfortunate Prey of those bloody Birds whereof you speak in your Gospel and I have but too much experienced that there are many manners of sacrificing to the Rebell-Angels And do not think that St Jerome St Chrysostom and St Augustin were the first who reproved this disorder and who recommended to children above all things to learn the holy Scriptures and to make them the subject of their principal Lecture and of their most serious occupations St. 2 Epist to Tim. v. 5. chap. 2. Paul himself prayses the care which Lois the Grandmother of Timothy and his Mother Eunice took to instruct him from his Infancy in the sacred learning and after he had put Timothy in remembrance with great comfort of the sincere Faith of these two holy Women he excites him to remain constant in what he had learned Considering says he Ib. 3.15 that you have been nourished from your Infancy in the knowledge of the holy Scriptures which are able to make you wise unto Salvation through Faith which it in Christ Jesus The sacred Scripture attributes to the care which the Parents of Susanna took in educating her in the Law of Moses and in instilling into her the fear of God from her Infancy all the Glory of that Virtue which she made appear in resisting the strongest temptation wherewith a person of her quality could be assaulted chusing rather to expose her self to death and to confusion wherewith she was threatned than to offend God Susanna says the Scripture Dan. 13.2 was very beautiful and one who feared God for her Parents being just had brought her up according to the Law of Moses Josephus attributes the eminent Virtue of the Mother of the Machabees to the excellent Instructions which her Father gave her in her youth Tract de Machabeis who frequently entertained his children with the examples of Virtue which are found in the sacred Scripture And Eusebius observes that the Father of Origin did not only teach him humane learning but also the holy Scripture some passages whereof he caused him every day to learn and recite Yet my Sister notwithstanding all the care you can take to teach your children the obligations of Christianism and to forbid them the songs and the verses which express the beauties of Women and the passion which men have for them although you permit them not to reade Romances and to take no other Books into their hands but the Holy Scripture and the Works of the Fathers of the Church all this Prudence nevertheless will be vain if you instruct them not your self by your own good examples and if what you do sets not incessantly before their eyes those Truths which you have had care to cause them to learn in Books The Third Means Example ACtions S. Chrys ho. 5. super 2. ad Thess c. 2. says St. Chrysostom have altogether another force than Words over the spirits of men to correct them This moved St. Paul to recommend Virtue so earnestly to servants because it hath so much power that it makes it self esteemed in persons of meanest degree and makes them by its means to become very useful in Families And as to what concerns children in particular it is to them so natural to become like their Parents in their manners that our Saviour in the Gospel John 8.39 makes use of no other argument to convince the Jews that they were not the children of Abraham but because they performed not his actions and that on the contrary they were the children of the Devil because like to him they loved murder and lying And St. Chrysostom proposes as an infallible Rule to such as will marry to consider the Life of the Father and of the Mother of the person to whom they desire to joyn themselves thereby to judge certainly of their good or of their bad qualities The foundation of this truth is that children having received from their Parents the beginning and the bud of their own passions if the Fathers and the Mothers suffer themselves to be transported in their childrens presence this bud sprouts up and strengthens it self and the passions take new and more deep roots in their hearts Besides that the respect they are bound to have for their Father and for their Mother permits them not to condemn their actions And as they are not capable to chuse in them what they ought to honour the inclination which Nature hath given them to love them and to esteem them induces them to love and to esteem their very Vices and easily to embrace their most dangerous conceptions and opinions which gave St. S Greg. in Pastorali c. 2. Gregory occasion to say That a fault extends it self prodigiously by the means of example when he who commits it is honoured by reason of the eminence of his rank and of his estate And to St. Augustin that all a childe can do in so weak and tender an age S. Aug. in Psal 136. is to consider his Parents and blindely to perform what he sees them practise Let not your Daughter says St. Jerome to a Lady of quality S. Jerem. in Ep. ad lotam ever see any thing in you or in her Father which may engage her in any fault by imitating you and remember that you must rather conduct and govern her by good Example than by Words The very Pagans have acknowledged that all disorders in the World come from the bad Example which Fathers and Mothers give to their children Would to God says Quintilian Quintil. l. 1. Instit c. 3. that we were not our selves the cause of the corruption which appears in the manners of our children We bring them up in delights from their tenderest Infancy and this soft education which we call indulgence ruines insensibly the forces of their Spirit and of their Body What will not a childe desire in his more advanced age who when he is yet scarcely able to go is wrapped in Purple and knowing not yet how to pronounce a plain word knows scarlet and can gape after the most precious Stuffs They are taught to taste the most exquisite Dainties before they can express their desires They grow up in Coaches and in Litters and if they must put their foot to the ground there are servants on each side to lean upon and to support them We take pleasure to hear them speak unseemly words and oftentimes they are cherished and applauded for uttering such profane and infamous things as one would be ashamed to hear and endure in the most debauched persons Nor do I wonder at it We our selves teach them They hear us speak all these things and they see what liberties their Fathers take with Women and their Mothers with Men Almost all our Feasts resound with unchaste Songs and most shamefull things pass in the