them are of one accord in these principles as I hope to shew you in the sequel in the mean while because I should enlarge my self a little too much and that this work would swell extraordinarily if I would relate unto you the entire passages of the other Fathers where these Maxims couched permit me to propose to you only the substance and to represent them to you in few words according as I have conceived them Maxims concerning the manner how Parents are to love their Children BEar always my Sister a tender love to your Children yet let it be rational and not concerned in their tears in such occasions wherein you must use violence to their Inclinations Now as these Inclinations are all corrupted and not governed in them by reason they will not permit them to take pleasure and divertisement but only in such things as incline them to vice You must not fancy that you can wean them presently from those faulty divertisements without their resistance and complaint Fortify then your heart against their moans and tears and resolve not to listen to the feelings of nature when there is question of making them feel pain or of depriving them of some satisfaction rather than to suffer them to contract bad customs and to become obstinate in their own will Salvian observes that there is nothing that brings greater dammage to Fathers and Mothers and works them greater displeasure than the Children they have too much loved And you are to take so much more care and heed of this irregular affection by how much we see in the sacred Scripture that it hath been the origin of the greatest crimes and of the greatest irregularities of men For the Holy Ghost discovers unto us no other source of Idolatry Wisdom 4.15 than the over-strong passion Fathers have had for their Children And if that which the major part of Fathers and Mothers in our days have for their Children makes them not to erect Altars to them nor to offer them sacrifice yet it but too frequently engages them to make them their Idolls to which they sacrifice all their cares and all the quiet of their life Love then your Children but with a love which is holy and disengaged from the senses a love which stays not on the outside and on that which pleases the World as upon beauty a good grace a gentile garb a pleasing humour and a quick vivacity in conversation and in reparties or returning nimble jests and replies Love them with a love that is strong and full of sweetness a love which patiently suffers their weaknesses and their infirmities their unaptness to do the good things you tell them their lightnesses and even their little disobediences without ever altering or cooling it but on the contrary redoubling its ardour towards them whose infirmities of body or Spirit are the greatest A good Mother says St. Bernard most tenderly cherishes that childe whom she sees to be infirm 4. Maxims concerning the care they ought to take to disintangle children from the World and to instil into them Christian sentiments and feelings PLace frequently before their eyes the vows they have made in Baptism make them comprehend them make them love them make them have a high esteem of them Let them know that the Pomps of the devil which they have renounced are nothing else as St. Augustin explicates them but the allurements of Pleasure Balls Comedies and Shows Tertul. l. 1. explicat Symboli ad Cathe c. 1. and according to Tertullian the complements and honours which the people of the World render to one another and mutually exact the great offices and great employs the days specially dedicated to pastime and to debauchery the popular divertisements the formed compacts and designs of voyages and walkings abroad the flatteries the follies and generally all the other actions wherein the World makes ostentation of so great passion for gold and silver for ambition for pleasures and for the rest of the false Divinities of the earth Mothers are wont to teach their children in such manner that they may conceive a horrour for the devil who can ordinarily have no power over them but by the means of the Vanities of the World whereof he makes use to blinde them and to surprize them Is it not then more rational that they should instill into them an aversion from all that the World values and instruct them to tremble at the sole Name of dangerous divertisements and at the sight of such persons as are not governed but by ambition and vanity Do you thus dexterously manage all the occasions God shall give you to inspire into them a contempt of the World and of the honours of the Earth which are so passionatly sought after In the disgraces which happen to persons of quality and in the death of great ones make them to reflect on the vanity of all humane greatnesses and on the advantage there is to be linked to nothing but God alone If some one of singular piety and of eminent virtue suffers for having undertaken the defence of the Innocent and for the publick Interest extoll before them the glory of these sufferings and strive to make them relish the happiness there is in exposing ones life goods and quiet rather than to do any thing against God against a good conscience and against ones King and Country Make use thus of all things even in their most tender Infancy to instill into them Christian sentiments In the affliction they testify to you for the loss of their Poppets and play-games and such other petty-toys tell them that it is thus that they ought not to set their affection upon any creature because they are all perishable If they complain to you that they have been beaten or abused answer them well my Children you must for the love of God suffer your selves to be ill-treated And then endeavour to make them render some small service or shew some little civility to the persons by whom they pretend to have been misused or at least to make them comprehend that they must in no sort revenge themselves Do not at that time seek to pacify them as Parents do ordinarily by speaking ill of those who offended them or by threatning them your self or by exciting them to testify feelings of revenge and of displeasure against those things although inanimated and insensible which seemed to have contributed to their fall or to the misfortune which hath hapned unto them 5. Maxims concerning the search Parents should make of the predominant Inclinations of their Children STudie the nature of your Children and their Inclinations and having observed that to which they are most biassed apply your self particularly to conquer it if it is bad by making them practise by little and little the contrary actions and if it is good strive to strengthen it day by day by the exercise of that Virtue which it hath for its object The knowledge you shall get of this Inclination which
effectually and really criminal I do not think my Sister that any thing needs to be added to these words to make you abhor the reading of Romances since they discover so cleerly the greatest part of the bad effects which these fabulous Histories produce which the idleness and licentiousness of these later times have invented to nourish and entertain the most dangerous passions For you see in the words and in the example of this holy woman how these unhappy lectures charm in such sort the spirits of young people by the pernicious sweetness and the dismal pleasure they present unto them that they neglect all other exercises to tye themselves to this that they make it their only and their principal business and that they employ the days and the nights even against the will of their parents to satisfy the curiosity which the connexion of the diverse adventures they meet with in those books excites more and more in their spirits as they proceed in the reading thereof You see how these empoysoned Lectures change all the good inclinations they received from nature how they chill by little and little the desires they had for goodness and how they banish in a short time out of their Soul all that was there of solidity and of virtue You see how they instill into their Readers the love and esteem of all worldly vanities how they teach them to seek out means whereby to please the world to flatter their senses to trick up themselves to render themselves pleasing to stay and deceive the eyes finally to finde out disguises and cunnings to conceal that wherein the body is defective and to place in its highest splendour whatever may make for their advantage Oftentimes one is surprized to see young girls educated in a great reservedness and in great modesty take all on a sudden an air full of vanity and gallanterie and to make shew of no other ardour than for that which the world esteems and which God abominates One is astonished at this deplorable change and since they had not as yet haunted companies one knows not well to what it may be attributed 'T is that Fathers and Mothers have not watched over them to hinder their reading of these dangerous books which have instilled into them this secret vanity and this desire to raise in them who look upon them those passions for which they conceived so high an esteem by seeing them expressed so agreeably in those Books Those feigned and imaginary adventures have charmed their hearts They have redoubled the ardours of their passions and have permitted to pass first into their souls and afterwards into their gestures and into their actions all the motions they have found registred of those fabulous Ladies They have espoused their Maxims their spirit their conduct their language and all their manners of proceedings They have there learned not to be so untractable nor so severe to be somewhat tender and compassionate to suffer themselves to be coneerned in the services cherishings kindnesses and tears of their wooers finally to hide themselves from themselves and to cloak the motions of a love which is totally irregular with the appearances of a civil honesty and of an easy complying and gay humour and disposition Be vigilant therefore my Sister and carefully hinder your Children from falling into this dangerous snare which the devil lays to entrap their Innocence Let them not be hurried away with this dismal torrent which St. Augustin says S. Aug. l. 1. Confes. c. 16. drags along the children of Eve into that vast and dangerous sea out of which they scarcely says this Saint can escape and save themselves who pass over upon the wood of the Cross of Christ Jesus And let them not say adds this Father that in these Books they may learn the purity of the language and that it is from them that this eloquence is to be sucked which is so necessary to perswade what one desires and to express with a grace ones advises and conceptions You ought to take greater care of the purity of your childrens heart than of that of their language And although there may be found good things in those books intermixed with the bad S. Jerome to Leta yet as St. Jerome observes upon the subject of dangerous books one needs much discretion to seek and finde out gold in the dirt and one is ofttimes in danger to defile himself in this search without finding what they look for After all there are now an infinity of Books of Piety much better written from which your children may draw together with the knowledge and the love of Christian Verities true Eloquence and where they may finde all the graces of the Language without any need of seeking them in fabulous Histories which are only capable to quench Charity in their souls and to enkindle there forreign flames which will consume by little and little all the feelings of piety which you have endeavoured to instil into them 4. Advice Touching Balls Dancings and publick meetings IN the occasion of scandal which the world is ful of we are not sollicited to evil at the same time by all the ways by which we are susceptible of it But as Salvian observes Salvian l. 6. de gubernat Dei either the spirit alone is set upon by thoughts contrary to purity or the eyes are struck with dishonest objects or the ears filled with discourses opposite to charity so that if any one of these senses suffers it self to be engaged in the sin the others may at the same time be exempt from it and may serve the soul for an instrument to raise her up from this fall But in Balls and Assemblies which are at present but too common among Christians the World the Flesh and the Devil assault the spirit of young people by all the ways whereby they may instill vice into them They present at the same time to all their senses all the different objects which may charm them and allure them to evil You may say that they have heaped together in the same place all that which can give entrance to pleasure into the heart of man by which they are wont to make themselves Masters of him The Ear is there charmed with the concert of Musical Instruments and the Eyes with every object which riot and vanity can produce and expose as most proud and pleasing the delight which is found in sweet odours is there awaked by most precious parsumes and most agreeable smels and the taste by most delicious fruits and most exquisite dainties Finally there is as it were a general conspiration of all that voluptuousness hath of allurements and of charms to effeminate the heart of man and to flatter his several passions The persons who are invited to these assemblies apply themselves only to render themselves pleasing and to make themselves to be loved They spend whole days in dressing trimming and disguising themselves and in hiding as much as
to effeminacy to the arts and disguises which triumph upon the Stages and which you ought to endeavour to banish from their heart I do not doubt but that they have inclinations altogether contrary to these practises But it is for that very reason that you ought to be constant and not swerve from this discipline and from this fear of our Lord in which St. Paul ordains you to educate them lest they engaging themselves insensibly in these disorders should fall at last to affect and search after these criminal divertisements And I may say upon this occasion what St. S. Augustin Augustin said in regard of the Prayers which we present to God to obtain such goods as he foresees would be the cause of our ruine and which he for that reason refuses to afford us Let them weep their fill let them lament all the day long you shew your love to them if you do not listen to them and you are cruel to them if you hear them 6. Advice Against Gaming and against the soft and idle life of Worldlings ST Ambrose advertises the Faithfull to take heed lest in desiring to relax their spirit they break not all the harmony and all the concert of their good works This advertisement is by so much more necessary in these our days by how much the major part of Christians live in a continual relaxation and that instead of diverting themselves only as much as is needfull for them in order to enable them afterwards to follow their employments with more ease and attention they make their divertisements their whole business and occupation You ought therefore to forget nothing my Sister to fortify your children against this disorder and to hinder them from engaging themselves insensibly in this soft and delicious way of living which is so common among the people of the world To see the manner of their life and conversation it seems they were born only for pleasure and that the advantages they have above others either by the nobility of their descent or by the great riches they possess give them a right to remain in an idleness altogether profane and in a wretchlesness altogether opposite to the life of true Christians which ought to be all vigilant and all laborious These persons upon pretext that they feel I know not what aversion from all gross and shameful crimes and that they propose to themselves only to pass pleasantly each day make no scruple to consume days and nights in vain conversations in walkings abroad in banquets and in gaming without fearing that the freedom they give to their senses and to their desires in all these things should afford them the occasions of being corrupted wherewith it cannot be but that they are incessantly accompanied I pretend not Sister to stay here in order to make you see the illusion of this conduct nor the obligation which all the faithful have to avoid it I have already shewed it in the second Chapter of this Book and I know that you are thanks be to God fully convinced thereof I desire only to encourage you to beat down timely in your children the passions which cause these irregularities and particularly that of play and gaming which exercises at this day in the world so great a tyranny over mens spirits and which causes such dreadful evils I avouch unto you my Sister that I cannot comprehend how this passion could get possession of so many persons and how the effects it produces should not make them abhor it and should not have yet stopped its course For what excesses doth not the love of gaming cause to them who abandon themselves unto it Doth it not stifle in them by little and little all the feelings of piety towards God of charity towards their children their Domesticks and their Neighbour and of the love one owes to himself This passion enchants them in such sort by the pleasure they finde in it or by the hope of gain wherewith they flatter themselves that they forget all things that they let slip the hours which are even most necessary for repose that they lose their drink and meat that they embusy their mindes only upon that which they imagine to have been the cause of their gain or of their loss They have no more gust for all other things of life the exercises of piety are irksom unto them They apply themselves no longer to prayer or if they do it is with a spirit full of perplexity disquiet and despair as they themselves acknowledge for the losses they have sustained or with a false joy for the gain which hath befallen them And if they pretend an indifferency to win or lose they cease not at least to shew an extreme impatience to return to their play and gaming Instead of sanctifying the Sundays and Holy-days they profane them as if they had no sense of the Christian Religion They know no more what it is to assist at the Divine Office or to hear the Word of God or if they go to the great Solemnities it is to make there new Matches and to engage themselves afterwards in gaming with more eagerness and with less scruple as if people of quality and such as have means enough to play away were therefore dispensed withall in the duties of piety and in the keeping of Gods Commandements or that it were permitted them to make no distinction between Holy-days and others than by assisting at a low Mass and that also in such a manner as that they make so little piety appear that it is sisible they seek rather to discharge themselves of a burden than to acquit themselves lawfully of a duty But what shall I say Sister of the power which gaming hath to nourish to strengthen and to entertain the most criminal passions Doth not vanity slide ordinarily into gain and do not they fancy that to be due to their own address and good conduct which they only owe for the most part to hap-hazard Anger Envy Spight Rage and Fury do they not flash out in losings and in bad success and all the other passions do they not follow one after another in this manner Do we not see them in less than an hours space to appear with all their different motions in the gestures in the words and in all the actions of these Gamesters They are dejected and jolly moderate and transported almost in the same moment And they who conserve outwardly a greater equality and who strive to keep more moderation cease not whether they will or no to be agitated interiourly with all these violent passions I let alone the Lies the Injustices and the Infidelities which are there committed the Blasphemies and the execrable Oaths wherewith they are transported the Quarrels the Enmities and the Murders which happen and all the other accursed effects which the passion of Play ordinarily produces The inability into which they bring themselves to asist the poor in their need and the harshness they shew
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
God have all of them received displeasure in some of their Children Adam had the grief to see his younger Son murdered by his elder Brother Adam and to see that elder Son by a just judgement of God to be a Vagabond and Fugitive upon the earth for the punishment of his crime Of the three Sons of Noah Noah one of them discovered to his Brethren with contempt the undecent posture wherein he had found his Father in his drunkenness instead of hiding it from himself through respect as did his Brethren which drew upon his other posterity the malediction of his Father and that of God What displeasure had Isaac for the dissention which was between Jacob and Esau Isaac and which obliged him to banish Jacob many years from him and to send him into Mesopotamia till such time as Esau's anger was appeased Did not Esau marry strange Women against his will against which he had so great an aversion that he expresly recommended to Jacob not to imitate therein his Brother and never to take a Wife among the children of Canaan Jacob had the affliction to see four of his Children fall into a great crime Jacob. of which Joseph who was his youngest accused them before him He had the displeasure to hear that Reuben who was hiâ—â—â—â—est Son had abused Bala one of his Wives The indiscretion of Dina his only Daughter was the cause that she was carried away and ravished by Sichem who was a young Lord of his Neighbourhood Simeon and Levi two of his Children entred into a confederacy without his leave and against his will to revenge this fact and killing all the subjects of that Prince exposed their Father as he himself complained to the hatred of all his Neighbourhood All the world knows the affliction which the jealousy of his Children against Joseph caused him to undergo and the sorrow he had for the captivity of Benjamin whom he so tenderly loved Aaron saw two of his Sons who were consecrated to the service of the Altar Aaron punished with death for having committed a fault in the exercise of their ministery and he was so lively touched therewith that he could not eat that day of the meats which had been offered in Sacrifice nor apply himself as he ought to the functions of his Priesthood because as himself says he had his heart and his spirit overwhelmed with sorrow for this loss The great Priest Heli Heli. who was a very holy man had two very wicked Sons who after they had caused him much displeasure by the disorder of their life made him dye with grief when he was informed in what manner they were slain and the dreadful chastisement they had drawn down from Heaven by their crimes upon the whole people of Israel Samuel had but two Sons whom he had established Judges of the people Samuel But they were no sooner raised to that dignity but they suffered themselves to be corrupted with presents and appeared so self-interessed and so unjust that all the people rejected them and demanded a King of Samuel to place in their stead What displeasures did not David receive from his children David Ammon his eldest Son committed an Incest with his Sister Thamar Absalon his second Son slew Ammon at a banquet to revenge the injury done to his Sister and this Wretch having recovered the friendship of his Father studied secretly to raise the people against him then openly declaring himself and taking arms forced him to fly from Jerusalem abused his Wives in the sight of all the people and had the insolence to pursue him with his weapons in his hand and to give him battle Now if you desire to know why God permitted that these great men for whom he had done so many wonders and to whom he had testified so great love received notwithstanding such sensible displeasures from their children and that these children did so strangely degenerate from the Virtue and the piety of their parents it is easy to answer you that it is to teach Fathers and Mothers who have not the merit of these so illustrious men First that they are indebted only to Gods grace that their children cause not to them the same displeasures and that it would little avail them to have applied themselves with much care to the education of their children if he did not bless their endeavours Secondly that the greatest tryall which can befall a Christian Father and which God makes use of to prove his fidelity and his submission to the orders of his providence is to permit his children to fail in their duties and in what they are bound to render to God and that thus Fathers and Mothers ought to dispose themselves to support these sorts of afflictions and tryalls how hard soever they be with Christian dispositions when he shall please to send them Thirdly that as it is a matter of great difficulty not to commit some fault either in the manner of educating their children or in overmuch indulging them or finally in being too much tyed to them in a humane way God according to the immutable order of his Wisedom who punishes us by the same things whereby we have offended him makes use of children to chastise Fathers and Mothers for the faults they have committed upon their consideration Thus God punished the incontinence of David by taking out of the world the Son he had by Bathsheba and revenged afterwards the Adultery committed by him in secret with this Woman by the abuse which Absalon made of his wives in the open sight of all his people Finally God permits that parents should receive displeasure from their children not only to humble them and to try their fidelity and to punish the faults they may have committed in their Education but furthermore to purify the rational affection they have for them and to teach them to love them not because of the sweetness they finde in the submission and the respect they render them but because they belong to God For God will have them accustom themselves to look upon him alone in all they do for their children and to surmount all the difficulties which occur in the designe they have to bring them to his service even to suffer patiently the contempt they make of their advertisements and to pursue them by the example of St. Monioa St. Monica in spight of all their resistance till God hath touched their heart and till they have obtained their conversion by their tears and by their perseverance as that Saint obtained it for St. Augustin You will perchance tell me that I exact great things of you that I demand you should do all your actions in a spirit of Piety and Zeal for the interests of God that you should be perpetually employed to procure his glory in the children he shall please to give you and that by consequence I engage you to a continual Prayer since I propose unto you a conduct and Maxims which you cannot keep without being powerfully supported by him whose help we obtain by humble prayer All this is true Sister and I aver that to acquit your self worthily of the obligation you have to give your Children an entirely Christian Education you are to follow in this Education the Maxims of the sacred Scripture and the Advices of the Fathers of the Church to apply them from their tender Infancy to them particularly whom you de sign to live in the World to embrace the means which may enable you in this generous enterprise to overcome the oppositions which you shall meet therein and to imitate perfectly the excellent Idea's of the holy Education I have here traced to you in the conduct of God and that of his Church I avouch I say that to acquit your self worthily of all these Duties you stand in need of very powerful Graces and you ought to live in a continual search and in a profound adoration of the designes of God upon your Children You are very instantly to crave of him the use of his Lights to enter into the knowledge of their necessities you are to abandon your self to his spirit for the choice of such sentiments and feelings as you ought to instill into them and of the times when your chastisements and your instructions will be profitable unto them and you must pray unto him that since he who plants and he who waters is nothing he himself will give virtue to your Words that he will engrave in their hearts his Fear and his Love and that as he would make use of you to give them the Life of Body and to employ your cares to procure that of their Soul by Baptism he will also make use of you to conserve and strengthen in them his Spirit and his grace To conclude you are to propose to your self the attaining of a very high perfection and the faithfull practise of all the most Christian Virtues and to make it appear to the whole world by the Christian Education of your Children that you engaged not your self in Marriage upon humane considerations or upon any other score unworthy of Christianism but to make use of the terms of St. lib. of the good of Marriage c. 25. Augustin That you were not a Wife nor desire to be a Mother but for the love of Christ Jesus and for the interests of his Church FINIS