The Christian education of children: according to the maxims of the Sacred Scripture, and the instructions of the fathers of the church / written and several times printed in French, and now translated into English.

The Second Means. Lecture or Reading.

CAuse your children to reade the History of the holy Scripture, the New Testament, the Acts and the Epistles of the Apostles.

St. Gregory of Nisse, Brother of St. Basil the Great, in a letter wherein he describes the Life of St. Macrina his Sister, speaking of the manner how her Mother educated her, says,

That she took extreme care to have her instructed, not, (adds he,) as they ordinarily instruct them of that age, by explicating unto them the Fables of Poets; For she conceived that that was to act against the shamefacedness and civility of Vir∣gins,

and the means to empoison those well-born and yet tender souls by shewing to them in Tra∣gedies of Women transported by love, and in Comedies, such shame∣ful 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 be∣gan by the Wisdom of Solomon, out of which she selected the sen∣tences which were most conveni∣ent to regulate her life and all the motions of her spirit. She was al∣so very skilful in the Psalms, and divided them into certain hours.

St. Jerome in the Letter he wrote to a certain holy Widow, (where∣of I have already made frequent mention) to teach her in what man∣ner 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 ac∣custom 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 establish∣ment of her Faith.

St. Chrysostom acknow∣ledges no other source of all the evils which are committed in the World, 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, how St. Paul recommends particular∣ly 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 'tis 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 de∣signed 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 incli∣nation 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 ad∣mire, were lovers of Wine and good cheer: that they were slaves to their passions; and that the motives they had in all their enter∣prises were Pride and Ambition? Let them therefore seek for a Counter-poyson in the sacred Scri∣pture and apply them from their ten∣derest 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 per∣fect Christians. To this end teach them to sing the Psalms of David; those Spiritu∣al Canticles being full of that Divine Phyloso∣phy which Christ Jesus came to teach men; instructing them by recreating them. 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 Veri∣ties in Christianism, which are not contained in that sacred Poesie, they will there see the small solidi∣ty that can be found in all crea∣tures, the sweetness and the advan∣tage 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.

'Tis thus that by accustoming them betimes to taste these things, you will render them easily capa∣ble 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 Scri∣ptures.

I believe, Sister, that nothing needs to be added to these Words, issuing out of so holy and so elo∣quent a mouth, upon an occasion wherein the Holy Ghost communi∣cated 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 in∣to 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; 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 re∣gard of children who are engaged therein, as a Sea full of Monsters and of rocks, where the best pro∣vided suffer shipwrack; and that

the choicest and most eloquent Words of the Courtiers of Au∣gustus, are but Golden Vessells full of Poyson, which are presented to us by drunken Doctours and by men who have lost their right rea∣son and their good sense.

You will see how he there brands with Idolatry this manner of instru∣cting children, and that addressing himself to God as it were to com∣plain 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 o∣ther 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 Fa∣bles and the unprofitable inventi∣ons

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 sacrifi∣cing 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 occupati∣ons. St. 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 re∣membrance, 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 Scri∣ptures, 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 in∣to her the fear of God from her In∣fancy, all the Glory of that Virtue which she made appear in resisting the strongest temptation wherewith a person of her quality could be as∣saulted; 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 Mo∣ses.

Josephus attributes the eminent Virtue of the Mother of the Ma∣chabees

to the excellent Instructions which her Father gave her in her youth; 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 ex∣press 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 inces∣santly before their eyes those Truths which you have had care to cause them to learn in Books.

Notes

• S. Chry. ho. 9. Ep. ad Coloss.
• S. Chry. ho. 21. in ep. ad Eph. c. 5.
• S. Chry. ho. 9. in ep. ad. Co∣los c. 3.
• Psal. 1. v. 1. and 14.
• S. Aug. Conf. l. 1.
• 2 Epist. to Tim. v. 5. chap. 2.
• Tract. de. Ma∣chabeis.