person of the first Woman and he presents to you another occasion to save your selves to wit the Education of your Children whom you ought to consider as so many helps he affords you to arrive at his glory Eve alone shall not be saved by the means of her Children but all they of her Sex shall not gain Heaven but by the care they have taken in the Education of them whom God hath bestowed on them in Faith in Charity and Innocency 'T is upon this ground that the same Apostle will have the first thing upon which Widows are to be examined when they were to be chosen for the Churches Ministry to be In what manner they have educated their Children As if the most evident mark of the Sanctity of a Mother were that of her Children and that it was needless to seek any other proof of her fidelity towards God and of her zeal for the good of the Church but her fidelity and her zeal to see that the conduct and the conversation of her Children was solidly Christian The foundation of all this is that Children in their low age are much more frequent with their Mothers than with their Fathers and that Fathers have right to repose themselves upon them untill their riper years And thus it belongs to them to watch particularly over their Children in their Infancy as from whom God will demand a more exact account of these years the most important of our lives As Children have almost always their Mothers before their eyes may we not presume that they do nothing but what they have seen them do that they have entred into all their ways and to make use of S. Chrysostoms terms that 't is as it were by necessity that they are become their likes And moreover since nothing can be hid from Mothers concerning the secret Inclinations of their Children because they have been witnesses of all their cries of all their plays and of all their motions may one not without injustice attribute to them all the unhappy effects which have followed the Passions that they suffered to encrease in their hearts and are they not cause of the crimes which they hindred them not to commit by not opposing themselves to the bad customes which they contracted under their government CHAP. V. Wherein particularly consists the Obligation which Parents have to endeavour the Christian Education of their Children WHat we have hitherto said sufficiently shews the Obligation which Fathers and Mothers have to labour with care to bestow on their Children a Christian Education since we have made it manifest that this Education is one of the principal Duties of persons engaged in Marriage and that they are highly obliged especially the Mothers to be very careful and faithful therein But because one cannot be too clearly convinced of this verity we must my Sister more fully establish it by shewing that it is that which God particularly exacts of Parents To be perswaded of this there needs no more but to consider on one side the submission of wills to Fathers and Mothers wherein God will have Children to live the feelings of love and acknowledgement which he commands them to have for them and the recompences he promises them to encourage them to honour them and on the other side the Authority which he gives Fathers and Mothers over their Children and the rigour wherewith he revenges the contempt they receive of them It was not enough says St. Chrysostom that God in the designe he had to recommend to parents the good Education of their Children imprinted in their heart a natural inclination which should so powerfully draw them as that they could not without using violence to themselves disobey him he would moreover that Children should have great respect towards their parents thereby to render them more dear and more agreeable and that their Obedience and their Love might be as so many charms which should allure them to take special care of them in their Infancy And since nothing more strongly engages us not to neglect business than the confidence they have in us and the absolute power they give us could God impose a sweeter necessity upon Fathers and Mothers in regard of their Children than in making them their Masters and by entrusting them with their Education to imprint on their foreheads the authority which is necessary to succeed therein By revenging so severely the injuriries done by Children to them who brought them into the World and punishing them with death when they offend them doth he not sollicit them not only to educate them in the fear and in the submission they owe to them lest Justice should take them from them but moreover to nourish them in the respect and in the fidelity which they owe to him who is truly their Father And what a confusion must it needs be to parents to see that God hath taken so much care to hinder their Children from affronting them and that they have taken so little care that these same Children should be hindred from treading under their feet his Commandements and his Ordinances But if that which God hath done in favour of Parents permits them not to neglect this Education that which he hath done for their Children doth not less indispensably oblige them to employ therein all their Vigilancy and their whole industry What then The Son of God shall annihilate himself for their love he shall have laboured so many years and suffered so many torments to sanctify them and Fathers and Mothers would not humble themselves to instruct them or use the least violence to themselves to form them in Virtue He who needs no creature made himself poor and rendred himself obedient even to death thereby to give them example and to encourage them to contemn the World and to labour for Eternity and they whose very Salvation is advanced by the means of their Children shall they not think of shewing them the way to Heaven and endeavour to withdraw them from that which leads them to eternal punishments He hath made them members of his Body in order to make them partakers of his Glory and they who have had the happinesse to procure this good for them shall they not take care to procure for them all the Spiritual Health and all the necessary proportion to encrease in Christ Jesus who is their Head and to receive from him by being united to him the encrease which he communicates as St. Paul says to all the parts of his Body by the efficacy of his influence Certainly there 's nothing more unjust nor more punishable than this conduct nor is there any thing which Fathers and Mothers ought not to do to avoid it They are to educate for God their Children as he commands them because his sole possession can make them happy They ought to do it because the exactness of his Justice will render them responsable for all the faults these their Children shall commit by their negligence They ought to
them The childe will become wiser says Solomon by the chastisement of the culpable and of him who gives him evil example Prov. 21.11 Leave them not alone but as little as may be with the domesticks and especially with Lacquais and Foot-boys These kinde of persons to insinuate themselves and to get the favour of the children please them ordinarily with nothing but sottish follies and instill nothing into them but the love of play of divertisement and of vanity and are only capable to corrupt the best natures and such as are most inclinable to goodness St. Jerome after he had recommended to a Lady of quality to use great circumspection in the choice of such Maids as she was to take to accompany her Daughter and to ferve her counsels her not to suffer them to make any particular friendship with them but to hinder them from talking together in private and from making between themselves certain petty-mysteries of I know not how many things This great man knew the danger there is in leaving children to take too much liberty with all sorts of domesticks and how much it is to be dreaded that this familiarity should come at last to make them lose their Innocence 12. Maxims touching the freedom which is to be given to children to express their thoughts and their opinions THis advice of St. Paul ought to be well weighed Ephes 6.4 Fathers do not irritate your children by an over harsh carriage towards them and by using them with overmuch rigour but take care to educate them in the discipline and in the fear of our Lord lest as he adds in another place Coloss 3.2 they should fall into a discouragement of spirit and of heart Which is as if the Apostle had said Take heed of reprehending continually your children and of treating them with too much severity in small matters Do not your self oblige them by your rigour to wound the respect which they owe to you and by commanding them things of too great difficulty do not constrain them to disobey you They must be permitted when they are a little advanced in age to have the liberty to present unto you their reasons and their complaints nor ought you to treat them harshly when they fancy they are in some sort wronged by your way of proceeding with them Imitate the prudence of that charitable Father of whom it is said in the Gospel that seeing his eldest son highly offended at the manner of his receiving his younger son into his favour and having understood that for this cause he would not enter into the house went forth himself to entreat him to come in And that son having reproached him Luk. 15.29 That he had now served him many years without ever disobeying him in any thing he commanded and that nevertheless he had never bestowed on him a kid for the entertainment of his friends but that as soon as this his other son who had wasted his means among harlots was arrived he had slaughterd for him the fat calf This good Father far from being offended with his discourse strives on the contrary to sweeten his spirit with words full of tenderness and goodness Ib. v. 31.32 My son says he you are always with me and all that I have is yours but it was fit to make a feast and to rejoyce because your brother was dead and he is revived he was lost and he is found again See how this wise Father disdains not to justify his proceedings before his son and how he endeavours by the testimonies of charity and of the preference which he gives him to diminish the resentment and the indignation he had conceived against him and against his younger brother Behold what manner of proceeding you are to propose to your self since 't is that of God himself in regard of his children which Christ Jesus hath laid open to you under this parable Think not my Sister that it is from the authority which God hath given to Fathers and to Mothers over their Children not to make them to do what they desire of them but by the way of power and command nor that Children act always against the respect they owe to their Fathers and Mothers when they finde difficulty to approve all that they do or all that they say Children ought in many occasions to submit their lights to them of their Parents and to prefer their judgement before their own but 't is also the duty of Parents to communicate to their children those very lights to which they pretend they ought to subject themselves They ought to conduct them by truth and not by humour and fancy and they ought to gain their hearts by the love of that good which they desire to instill into them and not by captivating their will under the yoak of a command full of threats and of terrour St. Jerome speaking of the manner to educate children says that one must use severity with much prudence because the persons whom one treats over-severely seek with more eagerness than they do who are left to more liberty to divert and comfort themselves with the trifles of the world from the harsh usage to which they are enslaved 13. Maxims touching the patience wherewith Parents are to support their children and to moderate their resentments of injuries received from others 'T Is not enough for a Christian Father and a Christian Mother not to irritate their children by holding over them a too severe hand in things indifferent or which are not absolutely criminal they are moreover to be disposed to support patiently their greater disobediences and to suffer their greater outrages without suffering themselves to be transported to such resentments as would be no less dismal to themselves then to their children We have a proof convincing this truth in a dreadful history related by St. S. Aug. Serm. 31. de diversis l. 22. de civit chap. 8. Augustin in several of his works and which cannot be too often presented to Fathers and Mothers amidst the displeasures they receive from their Children There was in the Town of Caesarea in Cappadocia a widow of quality who had ten children to wit seven sons and three Daughters the eldest of all these children so far lost the respect he ought to his Mother that after he had loaded her with many injurious words he was so rash as to strike her His Brothers and his Sisters were witnesses of this outrage not only without opposing themselves but even without speaking one sole word in defence of their Mother This poor Woman having her heart pearced with sorrow for so great an injury and suffering her self to proceed in the resentment of the affront she had received took a resolution to lay her curse upon her wretched son who had so highly offended her Hereupon she goes forth of her at day-break to pronounce this imprecation against him upon the sacred Font of Baptism The Devil presented himself to her in her way under the form
entire Obedience I promise by him who lives eternally that I will give him no share in my goods but that I wholly disinherit him for ever The Church believed these vows of Fathers and Mothers so advantagious to children that she obliged the said children to observe them all their life There was no difference put between the destroying of ones self and the going forth of a Monastery after they had made this manner of engagement and the children had scarcely need of any other Profession than this solemn promise by which they were consecrated to God Whence it is The 4. Council of Toledo that in the 4th Council of Toledo it is said that whether a person is engaged in a Monastery by the devotion of his Parents or by his own choice he is always obliged to stay there nor is it permitted him to return to the world And that according to St. Isidore he who is placed in a Monastery by his Father and his Mother is to know that he is bound to remain there the rest of his life There was nothing unjust nor over-rigorous in this proceeding but on the contrary it was full of justice and highly advantagious to the children For if according to the rules of law a Father may in case of extreme necessity sell his son and make him for ever a slave to men in order to preserve a temporal life why shall it not be permitted by the rules of the Gospel to the same Father to offer his children to God and to procure for them a true liberty by engaging them to his service upon the design of procuring for themselves as well as for them an eternal life and happiness What is there in this action on the Fathers side which is not holy and conformable to his duty This Sacrifice being made with a most sincere intention and with a piety altogether disinteressed was it not a convincing proof that he had changed the natural love which Parents have for their children into a Charity totally Divine that he had surmounted that so common a desire which men have to conserve their Name and their Family particularly when they have but one only Child and that they possess much Wealth Finally that he had renounced those so sweet comforts which Parents feel in the conversation of their own children On the childrens side is this engagement to Religion to be dreaded Is not the yoak of Christ Jesus easy and his burden light especially to children who have not yet been sullied with any vice who have not yet been corrupted by any evil customes who from their cradle have been formed to Virtue who have been trained up in Piety who have had nothing but good examples before their eyes who have sucked as one may say together with the Milk the Rules of Christian Sanctity and who not knowing the world have had no share in its delights and vanities But however holy and laudable this practice was we must nevertheless grant my Sister that the Church hath with great wisdom limited the devotion of Parents She hath considered that what was formerly the effect of a great and sincere devotion was somtimes scarcely any more than an effect of avarice and cupidity that Parents oftentimes in these days sought not so much in placing their children in Monasteries to give them to God as to discharge themselves of those children to render the others richer and better provided for in the world And so she hath stopped by her laws their authority and set bounds to their power because they on the one side made it serve their ambition and on the other side oppressed the liberty of their own Children Yet she hath not bereaved them of the power to place them in their tender age in Monasteries to have them there educated and to put them in a state by this happy retrait to march on both more couragiously and more swiftly and also with less danger towards Heaven supposing they have no other end in this action than his glory and the salvation of their children and that they offer them to Monastries in an indifference of their being Religious or returning to the world as it shall please God to dispose of them But in this last practise there are two principal things to be observed in order to follow therein the spirit of the Church The first is the choice of the Monastery For Parents would be so far from procuring their childrens salvation that they would endanger their destruction if they took no care in placing them in Religious Houses to see whether those Houses are indeed Religious and whether they there will not engage their children to embrace their institute by perswasions which are altogether humane and by a spirit which is totally opposite to that of God Wherein it is so much more important that Parents suffer not themselves to be deceived by how much the least negligence would be very criminal before God in a matter of so great consequence The Second thing which Parents ought to observe is That when their children are in a house truly Religious and of a solid and disinteressed piety they draw them not forth of it to return to the World lest by taking them for a time from Christ Jesus who demands them to sanctify them they should give them to the world which demands them to corrupt them I know they want not specious pretexts for this they say that a true vocation must be tried that grace will triumph amidst the conflicts that a Resolution which is from God cannot be shaken either by the life of the world or by the lustre of Riches and that the prudence of the Holy Ghost when it is in a soul cannot be deceived by the cunnings of the spirit of darkness But I also know Sister that it is said in holy Scripture That he who seeks and loves danger shall perish in it and that consequently one cannot without a very great blindness bring back into the middle of the world such children as have been holily separated from it and fancy that they cannot be sanctified in a Cloyster unless the world could not have force enough to corrupt them God will have us try our selves but not put our selves into the hands of the World and of the Devil to try our selves He on the contrary commands us to fly from the mortal Enemies of our salvation for fear of falling into their snares to save our selves in the solitude for fear to perish with Babylon and to hide the treasure which we have found for fear lest in shewing it the Devil who seeks incessantly to take his advantages should take it away from us The Prudence of Gods holy spirit cannot be deceived but it leaves us and abandons us when we quit his house and the place where he cleared and enlightned us to enter into a place of darkness and of crimes And if the Charity which is in us could not be extinguished the Apostle would not advertise us not