p. 10Religious Training at Home—(Continued)

You should thoroughly educate your children both in the knowledge and the practice of faith. From their earliest infancy, as we have said, they should be taught the truths of faith, and be accustomed to the fulfilment of its obligations. The origin and destiny of mankind should be deeply impressed on their minds. As they advance in years their religious training should be more and more thorough, until they become competent correctly to explain the principal doctrines of the Christian religion, and successfully to refute the ordinary and popular objections against them. They should be made aware that the true faith is the greatest gift that God can bestow on them in this life, and that they should prize their holy faith above every worldly good, and be ready, like the martyrs, to offer every sacrifice, even their own life, rather than deny or endanger their faith. But they should, above all, be made to live their faith, that is, constantly to regulate their conduct in accordance with its maxims, and conscientiously to discharge all the duties it imposes. In a word, you should spare no effort to render their faith a lively faith.

Your children ought, moreover, to become acquainted with the constitution and government of the Catholic Church; with the principal points of her history; with the immense influence she has wielded over society, civilization, literature, the arts and sciences; with her wonderful victories over idolatry, pagan corruption, powerful persecutors, despotism, heresies and errors of all kinds, and false science. They should have some knowledge of the principal saints, heroes, learned men, missionaries, religious orders, pilgrimages, and charitable institutions of the Catholic Church. For this purpose there ought to be a completely new series of text-books for our schools and other educational establishments, for the present ones are deficient in many of these points. Hitherto our Catholic children have been kept in comparative ignorance concerning the glories of the Catholic Church, her beneficent influence over society, and her great, learned, noble, and p. 11virtuous men and women—the heroes and benefactors of the human race. The scientific, historical, and literary text-books used in our Catholic institutions are, in not a few instances, reproductions of anti-Catholic publications, from which the more odious calumnies and errors have been eliminated, but are not yet wholly free from error and hostile misstatements, and which are mostly silent concerning what is most glorious to the Church and most dear to the Catholic heart.

One of the great faults in the present system of educating children is the neglect to accustom them to serious thought and reflection. Serious matters are seldom brought to their notice, and when so brought are usually presented in so superficial a manner, that they make but a slight impression, which is soon cast aside as disagreeable, or even entirely effaced from their minds. We need not wonder that the young of both sexes, especially the girls, are so light-minded, so vain, so attached to trifles, so averse to work, to serious reading or study, so powerless to control their feelings and passions, so fond of dress, pleasure, and amusements.

Among the many points on which you should lay particular stress in the education of your children you cannot too greatly insist on the vanity of this world and of all its goods and pleasures, and their utter inability to satisfy the human heart and impart true happiness.

Your children should be most intimately persuaded that they are destined for something far more noble and excellent than the enjoyment of the paltry goods and insipid pleasures of this life—a life so full of misery and bitterness, of sufferings and disappointments. All their thoughts and aspirations should be principally directed to the attainment of the heavenly goods and the unspeakable happiness for which God has created them. They ought to be firmly convinced that this world is a place of labor and trial; that this life is only a preparation for another and better life; that it is wrong to attach one’s heart to earthly goods and joys; that it is their duty to use the temporal goods which God bestows on them only as means of acquiring the goods of eternity. You should teach them to seek, not so much riches, beauty, honors, learning, and pleasure, but rather virtue and supernatural merit. Often repeat to them the words of our divine Saviour: “What doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?”

But these are not the only serious thoughts you should urge upon the consideration of your children. You ought frequently to remind them that death puts an end to all earthly beauty, riches, honors, and pleasures; that it does not spare any one; that it may come at any moment; that it will most assuredly come sooner than they imagine, to separate them from everything they hold most dear on earth; that it will reduce their bodies to a hideous mass of corruption; that the hour of death p. 12is the terrible moment on which their eternity will depend, and that after death they shall be required to give a most rigorous account of all the thoughts, words, and deeds of their whole life to the all-seeing and most just Judge, who forever rewards the good in heaven and punishes the wicked in hell. These wholesome truths, however disagreeable to the animal man, will, if frequently recalled to their minds, preserve them in the path of duty, for, says the Holy Ghost, “remember thy last end, and thou shalt never sin.” These serious considerations will serve them as powerful incentives to resist and overcome temptations, to practise virtue, and to lay up a treasure of good works for the next life.

In the next place, you ought to teach your children to consider God, not as a Being who is far away and does not care for them, but as their most loving Father, their most generous benefactor, and their last end, in whose infinite goodness they should place all their trust, to whom they, with childlike confidence, should daily and even hourly have recourse in all their wants, asking forgiveness for their shortcomings, and expecting grace and strength faithfully to perform their duty and acquire life everlasting.

Your children should be intimately persuaded that they belong wholly to God, and are therefore bound in conscience to serve Him, that is, to labor daily in His service, to offer Him all their thoughts, words, and deeds, and cheerfully accept and patiently bear all the sufferings, crosses, and trials He may send them as means of atoning for their sins, and gaining merit for eternal life. They ought to be constantly reminded of the absolute necessity and unfailing efficacy of prayer as a means of salvation; and nothing should be left undone to inspire them with love for this holy exercise. You cannot insist too much on this important subject, for, as St. Alphonsus clearly proves, prayer is the key of salvation; those who pray are saved, whilst those who do not pray are lost.