There are others yet more strong and much more considerable For you sin against God you lose your shamefac'dness which is the glory of your Sex you enkindle criminal flames in the hearts of men and you render your selves like to those infamous sacrifices of publick unchastity Consider then with attention all these advices I have given you Despise for the future these Diabolical ornaments Renounce these false embellishments or rather these true deformities to embusy your self no longer but only upon that interiour and invisible beauty of the Soul which the Angels desire which God loves and which will be precious and venerable to them to whom you are united by a sacred tye You have my Sister in these words of this great Saint all that is necessary to strengthen your Daughters against the evil inclination which they of your Sex have to make themselves fair and to please You have there all that is necessary to inspire into them the horrour of these painted and counterfeit beauties which they so much affect Finally you there finde the motives which oblige your self to educate them in the modesty and in the reservedness which the Christianism you profess requires 2. Advice Concerning Worldly Songs TAke a very particular care to hinder your children from learning profane songs I cannot my Sister too much recommeud this advice unto you nor express as I ought the evils which these accursed songs produce which nevertheless are the main divertisement and the chief joy of them who follow the Maxims of the World God hath given us eyes St. Chrys ser 2. in Matth. 1. a mouth and ears to the end says St. Chrysostom that we should consecrate them to his service that we should not talk but of him that we should not act but for him that we should sing only his prayses that we should render to him continual thanksgivings and that by these holy exercises we should purify the bottom of our hearts But instead of making this use of them we profane them by words and actions altogether vain and superfluous and would to God they were only superfluous and not wicked and dangerous Who is he among all you who listen unto me adds this Father that can say by heart either one Psalm or any other part of the Scripture if I should demand it of him there would not one be found and which is more to be deplored in this indifference for sacred things you have at the same time an ardour which out-passes that of fire it self for such detestable things as are only worthy of the devils For if any one should entreat you on the contrary to recite some one of these infamous songs and of these shameful and Diabolical Odes there would many be found who have learned them with care and who would relate them with pleasure Think not my Sister that these words are too strong to be applied to such songs as are common in the world and which are taught children when they begin to speak Those songs which pass for the most honest include oftentimes the most subtil poyson And if you examine all them you have ever heard you will observe that there are few which wound not either truth or charity whether it be in giving false prayses to things and persons which deserve them not or whether it be in rending the honour and the reputation of the Neighbour you will mark that there are scarcely any which are not full of bitter backbitings and slanders and which are not bloudy Satyrs sparing neither the sacred persons of Soveraigns nor of Magistrates nor of the most innocent and pious people you will perceive that there are hardly any which serve not either to express irregular passions or to entertain them that there are few or none which flatter not the said passions which represent them not with a colour to disguise their horrour and to make injustice and infamy to be loved and cherished which are not employed to render criminal flames illustrious which are not stuffed with dishonest equivocations and which bring not into the imagination such filthy and shameful Idea's and images that it is impossible they should not totally wound purity Yet notwithstanding how many Fathers and Mothers are there who suffer without any scruple their children to fill their spirits and their memories with these songs which they sing with pleasure in their presence and by their free and frequent repetitions of them accustome themselves insensibly to lose their shamefacedness though they would blush to hear them in a more advanced age if they had not timely inured them to this corrupted language Lactantius in the abridgment he made of his Institutions says That one of the dismal effects of these songs is to leave in the heart a very great disposition to crimes and to liberty insomuch as they who love them and who make them their divertisement suffer themselves to be easily engaged in all manner of disorder and impiety He adds that they instill a disgust of all holy things and above all of the sacred Scriptures because corrupted nature finding nothing there which flatters her becomes distasted and unjustly prefers those wretched verses and songs which foment and entertain its passions before the solid Truths which those holy Books discover unto it and which condemn its irregularities What care then ought not Fathers and Mothers to take to preserve their children from this plague which infects almost the whole world what crime do they not commit not only when they please themselves to hear them sung by their children but even themselves teach them to sing them St. Cyprian speaking of Parents who caused their Children to eat meats offered to Idols makes the children utter these astonishing words Our own Fathers have been our Murderers And St. Augustin explicating this passage says that although these children having no share in this criminal action by their own will did not really dye in their soul yet their Fathers ceased not to be their Murderers because forasmuch as depended on them they caused their souls to dye spiritually How much more culpable are Parents who teach their children songs of detraction or of obscenity then these whom St. Cyprian blames For surely the meats offered to Idols are the creatures of God but these Songs are the productions of the devil who composes them by his ministers Those meats did not really corrupt either the soul or the body of the Children they only passed through them like other victuals without leaving in them any malignant impression whereas these sacrilegious songs corrupt the spirit of such as sing them and sticking close to their memory prove a temptation to them as long as they live Finally as Lactantius excellently observes Lactant. l. 6. Instit c. 21. whatever sweetness there is in the harmonious sounds which flatter the ears one may easily contemn them because they leave no impression in the heart and because they adhere not if we may say so to the substance
and to please Christ Jesus that they are ignorant of nothing that concerns the Modes which Vanity and Flattery have introduced into the World and that they are so ill instructed in the Rules of the Gospel and in the laws customs and ceremonies of the Church 'T is long since Sister that God would have brought a Remedy to this Disorder In the law of Nature he ordained according to the Tradition we have from S. Jerome that the first born of the Family should be exalted to the Priesthood that they should be initiated therein by their own Parents and that they should have no other Doctours and Teachers but them concerning the truths they were to believe and the functions they were to exercise 'T was for this that when he was ready to revenge the crimes of Sodom and Gomorra Gen. 26.18 he said that he could not conceal this his design from Abraham because he knew he would make use of this dreadful example to induce his children and all his Domesticks to walk after him in the way of his Divine Ordinances and to live holily giving thereby all Fathers and Mothers to understand that the means to become his familiar friends and to oblige him to discover unto them his secrets and to conceal nothing from them was the care they should take to instruct their Family In the Law of Moses at the same time when God ordained the days of Feasts and of Solemnities he commanded Parents to instruct their children in the Ceremonies which were there to be observed and to teach them the reasons and the motives of their Institution Thus after he had prescribed to the Israelites what they were to observe in eating the Pascall-Lamh Exod. 13.8 he commanded them to recite to their children on that day what he had done in their favour to draw them out of Egypt and feee them from the tyranny of Pharoah He would have the Feast of Tabernacles yearly celebrated and that they should remain seven whole days under Tents made of the branches of Citron-trees of Myrrhs of Palms and of Willows to the end their children might learn how God had conserved their Ancestours the space of Forty years in the Desart under Tents and Pavillions Finally he ordained them to offer up unto him all the first born of the Males as well of Men as of Beasts to the end that their children being surprized at these so extraordinary and so frequent presents might enquire the cause and so come to be instructed of the meaning of these Ceremonies and as the sacred Scripture says that the Parents might have evermore in their mouths the recital of the benefits they had received from Gods bounty and that from thence they should take occasion to teach their children his Law and to make them have it in high esteem according to that more particular Commandement which he gave them in Deuteronomy where he ordains them to have his Law in their heart Deut. 6.6 to entertain their children therein and to teach them to meditate upon it and to think on it in their house and in their journeys during their rest and during their labour and finally in all their occupations and at all the hours of the day Deut. 1.18 In the Law of Grace the Church which is animated with the same spirit renews every year the Memory of the Mysteries which Christ Jesus wrought for us and she endeavours to place before our eyes by many ceremonies and sensible signs the marvails which have been so long concealed from the eyes of Angels and whereof they were not informed but by the Ministery of this holy Spouse 'T is true that she particularly destines her Pastours to explicate them to her Children But that also which St. Chrys ho. 9. in 3. ad Colos John Chrysostom says is no less true That the Heads of Families are not to remit all entirely to them of the Church That as for themselves they are indeed to be instructed by the Preachers of the Gospel but that after that they ought to instruct their children and like those Birds whereof the same Doctour speaks having heard something that is profitable for the nourishment of their own souls to bring it home upon the tip of their tongue to communicate it unto them This moved Venerable Beda to say in the Discourse he made upon the Shepheards who watched when our Saviour was born S. Beda hom de Nativ Do not fancy to your selves that there are no other Pastours but the Bishops the Priests the Deacons and the Superiours of Monasteries for all the Faithful who have the government of their family are truly Pastours since they are established to command and to take care of all their domesticks and he among you who hath any authority over one or two of his Brethren is assuredly obliged to exercise in their behalf the Office of a Pastour and to feed them to the utmost of his power with the Word of God And I say furthermore Each one of you my Brethren although you leade a private life ceases not to be a Pastour since you feed a spiritual flock and watch in the night to conserve it if you truly endeavour to heap up a great treasure of holy actions and good thoughts if you govern it with prudence if you employ all your care to nourish and entertain it with the delicious pastures of holy Scriptures and if you watch continually over this holy flock to defend it against the assaults of the Enemy St. St. Chry. Ser. 77. in Matt. Chrysostom says the same in one of his Sermons where after he had related the words of Christ Jesus to St. Peter If you love me feed my sheep he says That one is not to take these words as spoken only to the Pastours of the Church They are adds he for every one of us to whom Christ Jesus hath committed but a small flock for although 't is small yet 't is not to be neglected since Christ Jesus himself says that his heavenly Father finds there his pleasure and his delight Each one of you hath some sheep in his Family let him take care to govern them and to feed them As soon as a Father arises from his bed let him not think of any other thing till night but to do and say what may contribute to the spiritual good and advancement of his Family Let a Mother have the same care 'T is good she should think of her house-wifry but she is to apply her self yet more to the salvation of her whole Family and to take care that each one of it be saved and be zealous to gain Heaven You are not therefore to perswade your self Sister that you have satisfied the obligation you have to instruct your Children because you send them to Catechisms that they follow you to the Church that they assist with you at Sermons and that they faithfully recite the abridgements of the Christian Doctrine You must furthermore when you make them render
and civility of Virgins and the means to empoison those well-born and yet tender souls by shewing to them in Tragedies of Women transported by love and in Comedies such shameful filthinesses as are unfit to be heard by persons of their Sex who are obliged not so much as to think of them But in lieu of these she caused her to learn such passages of the sacred Scripture as were most easy to be understood and most proper for her age Thus she began by the Wisdom of Solomon out of which she selected the sentences which were most convenient to regulate her life and all the motions of her spirit She was also very skilful in the Psalms and divided them into certain hours St. Jerome in the Letter he wrote to a certain holy Widow whereof I have already made frequent mention to teach her in what manner she was to train up her Daughter will have this little girl to apply her self timely to the reading of the holy Scripture to learn in the Proverbs of Solomon the Rules and the Maxims of good life to accustom her self by the Lecture of Ecclesiastes to despise the World and to trample under her feet all its grandures and all its vanities to furnish her self with examples of courage and of patience by reading the Book of Job that afterwards she should reade the Gospels and have them always in her hands that she should reade with fervour the Acts of the Apostles and their Epistles and after she shall have filled her self with the riches she hath heaped up by these precious Lectures let her moreover reade the rest of the Books of sacred Scripture He will also have her reade the works of the holy Fathers take delight therein and seek there the nourishment and the establishment of her Faith St. Chrysostom acknowledges no other source of all the evils which are committed in the World S. Chry. ho. 9. Ep. ad Coloss but the ignorance of the holy Scriptures Listen says this Father all you who are engaged in the World and who have a Family and children to govern S. Chry. ho. 21. in ep ad Eph. c. 5. how St. Paul recommends particularly unto you the reading of the holy Scripture with great diligence Think not that the Lecture of holy Books is unprofitable to your son One of the first things he will there finde will be the obligation he hath to honour you and without doubt God hath so permitted it that you might not say 't is only for solitary and Religious persons to reade it Say not that you have no designe that your Son should be Religious and that therefore he needs not this reading since you ought at least to make him a good Christian and that those children who are designed to live in the World are they to whom the science of the sacred Scripture is principally necessary There is says the same Saint much weakness and a strong inclination to wickedness in children the weakness and this dangerous inclination encreases dayly by the impression they receive from such things as they learn What bad effects then may it not have in a young man to know that those Hero's of antiquity whom they admire were lovers of Wine and good cheer that they were slaves to their passions and that the motives they had in all their enterprises were Pride and Ambition Let them therefore seek for a Counter-poyson in the sacred Scripture and apply them from their tenderest Infancy to this holy reading I well see that I shall seem to dallie adds this Saint because I always say over the same thing yet I will never cease to do what is in me to render your children perfect Christians To this end teach them to sing the Psalms of David S. Chry. ho. 9. in ep ad Colos c. 3. those Spiritual Canticles being full of that Divine Phylosophy which Christ Jesus came to teach men instructing them by recreating them Psal 1. v. 1. and 14. They will learn there in the beginning to fly the company of the wicked and to seek that of the good And as there is scarcely any Mysteries and Verities in Christianism which are not contained in that sacred Poesie they will there see the small solidity that can be found in all creatures the sweetness and the advantage that is found in the practise of Virtues and finally they will there finde the knowledge of their duties towards God and towards their Neighbour 'T is thus that by accustoming them betimes to taste these things you will render them easily capable of higher truths And like as Fruits of Trees retain much of the quality of the earth where they are planted and of the waters which moysten them so the actions which your children shall do during their whole life time and which will be properly the fruits of their souls will always retain something of the sweetness and of the purity of those wholesome waters which they drew in their Infancy from the holy Scriptures I believe Sister that nothing needs to be added to these Words issuing out of so holy and so eloquent a mouth upon an occasion wherein the Holy Ghost communicated to him not only the lights which he bestows on all them who preach the Gospel but wherein according to the common opinion of Divines he assisted him more particularly than he did the other Doctours to give him entrance into the sentiments and feelings which he had inspired into St Paul and which this great Patriark explicated to his people Now if you desire to know more fully the importance of this second means I have proposed to you S. Aug. Conf. l. 1. take the pains to reade in that excellent Translation which is published of the Confessions of St. Augustin four or five of the last Chapters of the first Book You shall see how that great Saint examining there all the actions of his life by the help of the lights of that Grace which he had received in Baptism and which ever after he had strengthned makes it appear that the study of Poets and profane Authours is in regard of children who are engaged therein as a Sea full of Monsters and of rocks where the best provided suffer shipwrack and that the choicest and most eloquent Words of the Courtiers of Augustus are but Golden Vessells full of Poyson which are presented to us by drunken Doctours and by men who have lost their right reason and their good sense You will see how he there brands with Idolatry this manner of instructing children and that addressing himself to God as it were to complain to his Divine goodness of the Tyranny which is exercised upon their spirits by instilling Vice into them by these studies he exclaims and utters these admirable Words What then Lord was there no other means to exercise my spirit and my tongue Without doubt O Lord had I discovered your praises in your sacred Scriptures and had they made me reade them they had
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
that what he thus ordains us to do is not that he may know our will since that cannot be concealed from him but to enflame our desires by the instance of our prayers and to render us capable to receive that which he is ready to grant us For by how much his Presents are great and magnificent by so much our hearts are little and limited to receive them Therefore the Scripture says Open your Hearts Now these so excellent and so sublime Goods which the Eye hath not seen because they are not colours which the Ear hath not heard because they are not sounds and which are not elevated in the heart of man because the heart of man ought on the contrary elevate it self towards them these Goods I say shall be communicated unto us with so much more aboundance by how much we have believed with more Faith hoped with more Confidence desired with more Ardour 'T is therefore by a continual Desire founded upon Faith Hope and Charity that we pray without intermission But if at certain hours and certain times we employ Words in prayer 't is only to animate us by those exteriour signs to conceive these holy affections to make us observe what progress they have made in our heart and to excite us to encrease them For the effect of our prayer is by so much greater by how much the ardour of our desires hath been greater So that when the Apostle says Pray without ceasing he intends only that we should desire without ceasing to obtain that happy life which is no other than the eternal blisse of him who alone can give it us If then we demand this of God incessantly we pray incessantly But because the cares and Incumbrances of the World cool sometimes our desires we recall at certain hours of the day our spirit to prayer and we re-place before our Eyes by the Words which we address to God this last end whether we ought to tend by our desires for fear lest that which begins to fall into Tepidity should pass into a Coldness and proceed in the end to be totally extinguished if it be not re-inkindled by frequent prayers This being so it cannot be bad or unprofitable to employ much time in prayer when our leasure permits it that is when it hinders us not from acquitting our selves of other laudable and necessary things to which our duty obliges us although in these very occupations we ought always to pray by the activity of our desires For it is to be observed that it is not one and the same thing to pray along time or to pray with many words as some imagine but that there is a difference between a long and continual desire since it is written That our Lord passed over the night in Prayer and that he prayed very long And there is reason to believe that he would induce us thereby to imitate his example he who prayed so perfectly to his Father in the time of his mortal life and who hears us so mercifully with his Father in eternity They say that our Brethren the Hermits of Egypt make frequent Prayers but very short and that they only lift up their hearts to God from time to time by lively and ardent prayers without staying too long upon them for fear lest this application and this fervour of spirit so necessary in prayer should relent or be dissipated if this prayer were too continual This also gives us to understand that as we ought not to weary and blunt our spirit by forcing our selves to entertain it in this fervour when it begins to slacken so we ought not to hasten to interrupt it when we feel it continues Because if on the one side one ought to bannish from prayer the superfluity of Words one ought on the other side to sustain it by continual desires and demands so long as the spirit perseveres in its application and in its fervour For to speak too much in prayer is to employ superfluous Words to ask a thing necessary and to pray much is by holy and continual motions of the heart to press him to whom we pray to render himself favourable to our demands But oftentimes this passes more in sighing than in speaking Discourses have not so great a part as tears and then it is that he whose eternal word made all things makes it appear that they are not the temporal Words of men which are pleasing to him but their sighs and tears 'T is then Sister this prayer of the heart and this entertainment with God which is done in silence in recollection in the disengagement from all exteriour things and by the interiour sighs and affections of the soul that Christian Mothers ought to make their Children love and practise 'T is a Yoak which is good for them to bear from their youth and as soon as they begin to make use of their understanding and their reason 'T is a Yoak which replenishes the Soul with comfort and sweetness 'T is a Yoak which sustains and strengthens and renders them who bear it capable to raise up themselves above themselves and above all earthly objects And do not alledge to me S. Chrysost says St. John Chrysostom that Children are not capable of this fervour of this recollection and of this application which Prayer requires since we have in Scripture the examples of several children and of many young people who have by the means of Prayer drawn upon them very great blessings Samuel was but twelve years old when God called him in the Temple Samuel and discovered to him the designes he had upon the house of Heli. Solomon was very young when he made that admirable Prayer which moved God to render him the wisest and the most powerful Prince that ever was Finally Solomon Daniel Daniel was no more than eight or nine years of age when by a feeling of piety he refused to eat the Meats presented to him from the table of King Nabuchodonosor and by the means of Fasting and Prayer he merited those extraordinary gifts which rendred him at the age of twelve years the deliverer of the chaste Susanna and afterwards the Miracle of his age Nor must Mothers alledge their domestick affairs and the cares of their family to dispense themselves from following their Prayers since we see in that little Collection of Pietie now newly printed Recuil de piete that a Princess of our days prescribed to her self a method of praying three times every day Marg. de Portug Dutchess of Parma to wit half an hour in the Morning half an hour at mid day and half an hour in the Evening For if persons of that condition and so much engaged in the world as Princes are have the fidelity to apply themselves to this Exercise and acknowledge the need and the fruit thereof what a lesson should not this Example give to all other persons who have more leasure and liberty and with what ardour should all
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
to comfort them and to cure them strive nevertheless to make them in love with sufferings accustome them to complain as little as may be and by little and little instill into them constancy and stability Repress in them such inconsiderate desires as are ordinary in that age and teach them for example so to regulate their thirst and their hunger according to the laws of temperance that they may inure themselves by little and little not to have so much as a desire to do what they know they may not do honestly St. Augustin for a mark of the discretion and of the prudence of a mayd-servant extremely aged St. August l. 9. Conf. c. 8. n. 1. to whom the Parents of St. Monica had committed the conduct of their Daughters relates that except the hours in which they repasted themselves very soberly at the table of their Father whatever violent thirst they felt she permitted them not so much as to drink water for fear lest they might contract that bad custome The thing which I entreat you most religiously to observe is my Sister to accompany always the refusal which you are constrained to make with so much sweetness and such testifications of good will that it may be to them supportable and by giving them such reasons as they are capable to rellish and which relate only to their own Interest strive to send them away better satisfied with your refusal then they would have been with your overmuch easiness 9. Maxims touching what is particularly to be avoided in conversation before Children NEver suffer in their presence vices to be covered with the name of virtue St. Chrysost Let it not be said that 't is to be of a good humour to frequent Shews Balls and Comedies That 't is to be liberal to make great expences and that 't is to be couragious to have ambitious designs Permit not the name of vice to be given to virtue to call devotion that which is hipocrisy liberality that which is prodigality the love of retreat a savage disposition the fear to offend God a scrupulosity and a weakness Rowse up their courage without raising in them ambition render them bold without egging them on to rash enterprizes teach them to be meek without effeminacy constant without obstinacy grave without severity eivil and obliging without baseness frank and free without folly and fondness prudent without cousenage secret without dissimulation liberal without prodigality good husbanders without avarice devout and religious without superstition Repeat unto them no less frequently then did the Mother of a great King these words my children God knows how well I love you but I had rather an hundred thousand times see you carried to your graves than to see you commit one only grievous sin Perhaps you may be so happy as to engrave deeply in their soul this sentiment and to conserve them as this Princess did this great person in the Innocence of their Baptism 10. Maxims touching the correction of Children YOu must let pass no faults without punishment but you must not equally punish every fault The blemishes which dust makes upon a garment is cleansed by shaking it off and not by casting water upon it or by applying fire to it You are to employ remedies according to the strength and the nature of the constitution and complexion of the diseased person As nothing but love ought to move you to punish them it were to be wished that they could be perswaded that you acted towards them only by that principle and that you should always appear rather their Mother than their Mistress according to these pithy words of the Authour of that letter to Celancia You ought to be have your self says that excellent man towards all them of your house and rule them in such sort as that they may consider you rather as their Mother than as their Mistress and it must be rather the goodness and the sweetness you testify to them than your rigour and your severity which must oblige them to render you all the respect they owe you Above all beware of treating them amiss when you are in choler and take heed of entring into passion against any one in their presence to the end they may not lose the natural fear they have of angring you and that they may always apprehend the effects of an irritated power whereof they never have had the experience Because a childe stands in awe of you do not reprehend him nor threaten him upon all sorts of occasions but only in such things as are absolutely vicious or which conduce to sin Leave them in great liberty as to things indifferent and which will pass away as they encrease in age and in judgement and remember that there 's nothing more dangerous than to accustome children to chastisement because thereby one hardens them rather then corrects them It were to be wished that children had never heard the mention of blows or of rods that the sole desire to please you or the sole dread to anger you regulated all their motions and that following the Counsel of a great Bishop you could bring them to respect you rather by your sweetness and by your goodness than by a harsh and severe carriage For my part I conceive that the rigour which the sacred Scripture in those many passages which I have before-cited ordains to follow in regard of children is exercised much more perfectly and even according to the spirit of God by the refusal of a kiss or of ordinary cherishings than by whippings or other bad treatments of the body and that the greatest dexterity of Fathers and Mothers consists in rendring their children so jealous of the marks of goodness they give them whereby they become much afflicted at the least coldness appearing in their countenance that they fear nothing more than to be deprived of their presence and that nothing is to them more sensible than to see their Father or their Mother prefer the service even of an underling upon occasions when they were disposed themselves to obey them 11. Maxims touching the differences and disagreements which children ordinarily have with the domesticks and the liberties they take with them TAke good heed that you be not transported with anger when it chances that the servants exclaim against your children Inform your self gently of the subject of their plaints and tears and even when you shall finde out that your servants were in fault never reprehend them in the childrens presence for fear they should thereupon grow insolent and should from thence take an occasion to be absolute in all things and to exercise a petty-tyranny over your domesticks upon the assurance of being supported by you in their self wills But if on the contrary your servants have chanced to say or to do something that is bad in the presence of your children although otherwise they may be excusable yet fail not to testify your being displeased and to reprehend them vigorously before
may be all the defects of their faces they employ all imaginable addresses and artifices to cheat the eyes of their beholders All the world enters there with this disposition which is so vain but so precious to corrupted nature to love and to make ones self loved Nor is one content to have this disposition they explicate it by all manner of means and oftentimes the looks the gestures and the very dressings explicate what the tongue dares not express Who can represent all the snares which the devil then lays for young people What indiscreet compliances What passionate respects What dangerous adhesions What feigned and dissembling protestations What vain impertinent and Idolatrous discourses It seems as if all they who compose these assemblies had forgotten not only that they are Christians but even that they are Men so much they make appear in their gestures in their postures in the motions of their bodies of effeminacy of wantonness of irregularity You would imagine it were a troop vowed to pleasure and which had undertaken by common consent to place the creature in the place of God I dare not here paint forth unto you what passes in the heart of all such persons whose passion to please and to be beloved rules all their motions There it is that the gross and impure vapours which arise from the dirt and mudd of the flesh St. Aug. l. 2. Conf. c. 2. and from the boilings of youth obscure the hearts and overclowd them in such sort that they cannot discern the pure and resplendent serenity of a lawful affection from the darksom images of an infamous love 'T is there that they swim in this unhappy joy and the dismal pleasure whereby the children of the world tye themselves to base things by the irregularity of their corrupted will and being animated by their passions which as fumie wine dim by their imperceptible vapours the highest part of their souls forget God to adhere to the creature What desires What dreads What impatiences What envies What jealousies What suspicions What displeasures What irregular Motions toss their spirit and their heart One cannot my Sister explicate all the interiour evils which these Assemblies ordinarily cause and produce and without taking notice of the quarrels flights and murders which there take their birth our tongue is too chaste to express the other unhappy effects and the rest of the dangerous sequels of these meetings where the most innocent souls learn to lose their shamefac'dness and become in the end the sacrifices of an infamous pleasure What shall I say of the laws and of the rules which are observed so inviolably in these Assembles and which the spirit of licentiousness hath there established of that indispensable obligation which the persons where such meetings are made have to open their door indifferently to all the world of the liberty which all young people have to enter in to examine all the persons who compose it to adhere to such as best please them to entertain them to leade them out to dance and to use with them such freedoms as the Parents would be ashamed to permit in their particular houses Insomuch as properly speaking the places where these sorts of Assemblies are held are as it were the infamous and publick houses where Parents expose their own Daughters to the most licentious Gallants and where these Daughters by the little modesty and reservation which appears in their dress in their looks in their garb and in all their comportment prostitute themselves to the eyes and to the desires of all them who there enter and even instill into the more moderate motions contrary to their duty and who too frequently degenerate into most shameful practices Shall any one wonder after this S. Charls Bor. tract against Dances if St. Charls Boromeus in an excellent Treatise he made against Dances and in which he shews that they are condemned by the Holy Scripture by the Councils and by the Fathers relates that when he was yet a Student having constrained with his companions a Philosopher of a very solid judgment to go to a Ball this Philosopher after he had well observed all the circumstances of that assembly and the actions which were there done was struck with astonishment and presently told them that surely it was an invention of the Devil to destroy souls and to corrupt the manners of the faithful And think not Sister that the Dances which are done in private and with less pomp are less dangerous St. Ambrose in the Books he made for the instruction of Virgins S. Amb. l. 3. de Virg. and which he addressed to Marcellina his Sister after he had set down that all Christians are obliged according to the precept of St. Paul Coloss 3. to refer to Christ Jesus all their words and all their actions compares divertisements to remedies and says that as remedies profit not the body but when they are used according to the advice of the Physitian and that on the contrary they serve oftentimes to entertain the disease when they are taken contrary to his advice So all that we do according to the rules which Christ Jesus who is the Physitian of our Souls hath prescribed unto us contributes to their health and serves them for a remedie whereas that which is not conformable to his spirit and to his rules insensibly weakens and destroys her strength It follows then concludes this holy Doctour that a Christian should place all his joy in a good conscience and not in Feastings in Dancings and in worldly Meetings For the chastity is not in security and the pleasure which allures us ought to be suspected when the Dance is the companion or the end of the divertisement we seek for There is no one said an Ancient who dances being sober unless he has lost his wit If according to the very Pagan-wisdom drunkenness or folly is the cause of Dancing what can we think the sacred Scripture would insinuate unto us when it represents unto us the Fore-runner of Christ Jesus condemned to death at the desire of a Dancer but that the pleasure which Herod took to see the Daughter of Herodias dance before him was more unfortunate unto him than the sacrilegious resentment he had of the freedom wherewith that Saint had presumed to reprehend him Then after he had made reflexion upon the greatness of the crime wherein this Prince was engaged having been as it were enchanted by this unhappy dance and by the boldness of this Girl in daring to dance before him he adds these words What could this Daughter learn of an incestuous Mother but to lose all Modesty In effect is there any thing more proper to excite shamefull passions than to discover as they do in dancing those parts of the body which nature and civility oblige to hide then to conduct the eyes with a certain artifice and cause the looks to agree with the undecent postures of the body and then to mark
this matter that they may know how to use it as Christianly as they do all other solaces which necessity forces us to seek for Who would not blame a person who because he hath need of meat and drink to repair the ruines of his body and to sustain his life would sit at table day and night and make that his whole occupation they who consume almost all their life in play are no less faulty although there were nothing vicious in play considered in it self nor in the circumstances which accompany it and that they sought nothing therein but a simple divertisement For Christians are not permitted to do that for divertisement which they ought not to do but only for necessity and they are no less obliged to fight against the pleasure they meet with in such exercises as serve to refresh the minde and body for fear of being transported beyond the bounds of necessity than against that which is mixed with the most necessary actions of life From whence it comes that the Holy Fathers compare divertisements to remedies because in effect we are no otherwise to seek and make use of them than as we desire and use Remedies If so it is Sister as no one can doubt of it who hath never so little knowledge of the Evangelical Maxims and if St. Paul said speaking of Widows 1 Tim. 6.5 That she who lives in delights is dead however she seems living What are we to think of so many persons who pass all their life in Play and in Pleasures and who imitate those young Widows of whom the same Apostle speaks That the wantonness of their life inducing them to shake off the yoak of Christ Jesus they will not only by marrying again engage themselves in condemnation by violating the faith they had formerly given him but moreover they learn to be idle and use to wander about from house to house nor are they only idle but tatlers also and curious discoursing of things which they ought not For doth it not seem that the Apostle in these words hath made a Portrait of the major part of the Women of these days who fancy that because they are nobly born or have wit or beauty they have a dispensation from governing their family and from employing themselves profitably in working with their domesticks and that they may pass all their life in an idleness which the honester sort of Pagans would have been ashamed of since Cicero Cicero l. 1. Offic. as very a Pagan as he was acknowledged that Nature did not cause us to be born into the world for Play and Divertisement but to leade a serious life and to employ our time in grave and solid accupations Resolve therefore Sister to beat down this disorder in your children and particularly in your Daughters whose Sex is more inclined to this soft and delicate life Represent forcibly unto them that there is nothing more contrary to the spirit of Christianism than continual divertisements That Christ Jesus did not descend from heaven to earth to teach us to pass our life in plays and pleasures That we finde in the sacred Scripture that he wept and that his life was a continual chain of labours and pains but that we reade not that he ever divertised himself or that he took any joy or pleasure That we profess to represent his life by ours and that accordingly if we will divert our selves it must be in taking pleasure to be like him every day more and more in humiliy in Modesty and in Patience which are the Virtues he practised That it is not by the way of Play and divertisements that the Saints came to eternal delights That the Gospel places the happiness of this life in weeping and in tears and on the contrary its unhappiness in joy and laughter That this present life is not lent us but to labour for Eternity and consequently that the least Moments thereof are too dear and too precious to lose in profane and trifling amusements Finally St. Chrys Ser. 6. in Matt. inculcate frequently unto them with Saint Chrysostom that we were not called into the Church as into an Assembly where nothing is thought on but mirth and laughter but on the contrary that we are come into it to sigh and lament and to get a Kingdom by our sobs and tears 7. Advice That in the Education of Children Parents should particularly propose to themselves to induce them to consecrate themselves to God and to serve him YOu will finde little difficulty to withdraw your children from all these Precipices which I have noted into which the world strives to thrust them headlong if you remember that you ought not to love them but only in God and for God You cannot Salvian l. 1. Epist ad totam Eccles says Salvian better love those precious gages of Gods bounty which you have in your hands than in loving them in himself from whom you have received them And how hath God commanded Fathers and Mothers to love their children I my self will not tell you says this great man the sacred Scripture must teach it them which addressing it self to all parents ordains them to instruct their children to place all their hope in God Psal 77. and never to forget the effects of his power and of his mercy and to seek always with care the knowledge of his holy will Behold what riches God loves and which he will have parents leave to their children to wit Faith the fear of God Modesty and Sanctity and not earthly and perishable treasures Employ not therefore the love you owe to your children in heaping up for them temporal riches You can procure for them nothing greater or more precious than the eternal good which they can never lose Nothing will make them more rich than if you make them become the treasure of God himself This is the most important Advice which one can give to parents since upon it rowls all the rest and since the principal end you are to propose to your self in the Education of your children is to render them Saints and to induce them as much as in you lies to consecrate themselves entirely to God and to renounce the World The Apostle St. Paul says 1 Cor. 7.36 That if a Father thinks it is a shame to him to let his Daughter pass over the time of her youth without Marrying her and that he judges that he ought to do it he sins not if acting according to his thought he gives her in Marriage But he adds this Apostle v. 37. who being not engaged by any necessity and who finding himself in a full power to do what he pleases takes a firm resolution in his heart and judges himself that he ought to conserve his Daughter a Virgin does a good work Thus concludes he v. 38. he who marries his Daughter does well but he who marries her not does yet better Where you see Sister that although St. Paul blames not parents
Mothers endeavour to follow it Mothers I say who ought as much as they possibly can to instill into their Children this holy custom of frequent prayer and to have always at hand these excellent Words of St. Augustin to that holy Widow of whom we have formerly spoken S. Aug. ep ad Probam The more you labour to govern holily your house the more you ought to employ your self diligently in prayer without embusying your self in the affairs of the World and in exteriour things but only as far forth as Charity engages you CHAP. XIV What is most opposite to the Application of these Maxims and of these Advices in the Christian Education of Children THere are two things particularly which hinder Fathers and Mothers from following the Maxims of the Gospel and the Advices of the Fathers of the Church in the Education of their Children to wit Custom and Ambition The First although most commonly it hath no more lawful foundation than the disorder of Inferiours and the remissness of Superiours makes it self nevertheless to be followed by all the world It gains the heart and the spirit of them who most resist it and as S. S. Augustin Augustin excellently says it choaks Christians and stifles in them the most tender feelings of piety by the very example of Christians The Second transports the spirits of men to seek after the goods of the World It serves it self of the natural desire we have of glory to make us seek it in the estate of a high fortune And at the same time when Custome hinders parents from following the Evangelical Maxims in the Education of their children by instilling contrary principles into them Ambition withdraws them from them by applying all their thoughts and all their affections to the temporal settlement of their children Here it is that I pray you to observe the cunning of the Devil to deceive us and what art he makes use of to destroy us Parents cannot chuse but labour in the Education of their children and it is a feeling which is too natural to them not to be inclined thereto even with some sort of violence He will not therefore fight openly against it and labour to destroy it but he dexterously turns this inclination towards an end which is altogether carnal and terrestriall and shutting their eyes against the lights of Reason and Faith he presents to them a false day-light which causes them to make a thousand false steps I would say which engages them by humane respects to follow in the Education of their children the ayr of the World and the Rules which worldly corruption hath introduced Resolve therefore my Sister to renounce all that the world approves and to enter upon thoughts opposite to them which the World inspires into its bond-slaves You will finde no difficulty to follow this counsel if you reade the 15. and the 17. Chapter of St. John John ch 15. and c. 17. where Christ Jesus instils into his Disciples so strong an aversion from the world that in good truth I think one cannot believe the Gospel and live without trembling in the esteem and approbation of the world Now when I tell you that you ought to dread nothing more than to live according to the World think not that I pretend you should having children leade a solitary life and break all the customs which Blood and Friendship permit unto you whilst you live upon earth 'T is not that which Christ Jesus demands of a person engaged as you are in Marriage I desire only that you keep in your discourses and in all your proceedings so great a modesty so great a reservedness and so perfect a sweetness that your sole exteriour may condemn all the Vanities and all the pomps of the World I desire that entring into company they who are so gorgeously cloathed may blush at your simplicity and that your modest dress may give them a confusion in their excesses I desire that your children may be cherished by all the world by reason of the Innocence and the piety you have instilled into them that all Fathers and all Mothers should envy your happiness because of their obedience and that they be not sought for in Marriage but because of their Virtue and their Modesty Finally I desire that your house should be so well regulated and your domesticks so well instructed that all things with you may breathe nothing but Piety and Honesty and as St. S. Chrysost Chrysostom says that your house in particular may be as it were a little draught and an image of the whole Church For this end Sister you must unfetter your self by little and little from all creatures not studying to scrape up wealth for your children you must not rob the poor of their due to content your covetousness and to bereave your Children of the protection of God who is their true Father If our Lord himself builds not a House in vain says the prophet Psal 126.1 they labour who strive to raise it up To raise it extremely high is to seek its ruine Prov. 17.17 And he who governs himself by a spirit of Avarice troubles and overthrows his house Prov. 15.27 And if according to St. Augustin 't is God who makes the poor and who makes the rich S. Aug. ho. 48 why should you so much disquiet your self for your Children Why should you not have a confidence in his providence Why should you not employ all your cares to render them gratefull to him and a part of your means to procure for them Intercessours and Freinds near his Divine Majesty Luk. 16.9 For the rest Sister although God should give you grace to observe exactly in the education of your Children all that we have here represented unto you and that you should apply your self totally to instill into them the Maxims of the Gospel and of the Fathers of the Church and to imprint in them a horrour of all that is contrary thereunto You are nevertheless to leave the event entirely to God committing to his Wisdom and to his Goodness to make your solicitudes profitable to your Children For as you ought to look only on his Glory in the pains you take to educate them according to the Laws of the Gospel if he suffers you to be frustrated in some of them of the fruit of your labour and that they should neglect all the good feelings which you have endevoured to instil into them to abandon themselves to the passions and to the disorders which reign in the World you ought in this to submit your self to his holy Will as in every thing else and to beware of suffering your self to be transported to any words of murmure or to believe that God had not accepted your cares and your pains since nothing will happen to you in this which he hath not permitted to befall many Saints Finally I observe in the holy Scripture that the major part of them who have been particularly favoured of
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