Shewing how the method of educating daughters, makes it difficult for them to enter into the spirit of Christian humility. How miserably they are injured and abused by such an education. The spirit of a better education, represented in the character of Eusebia.
1.THAT turn of mind which is taught and encouraged in the education of daughters, makes it exceeding difficult for them to enter into such a sense and practice of humility, as the spirit of Christianity requireth.
*The right education of this sex is of the utmost importance. For tho’ women don’t carry on the trade and business of the world; yet as they are mothers and mistresses of families, that have for some time the care of the education of their children, they are entrusted with that which is of the greatest consequence to human life. For this reason, good or bad women are likely to do as much good or harm in the world, as good or bad men in the greatest business.
*For as the health and strength, or weakness of our bodies, is much owing to their methods of treating us when we were young; so the soundness or folly of our minds is not less owing to these first tempers and ways of thinking, which we eagerly received from the love, tenderness, authority, and constant conversation of our mothers.
*As we call our first language our mother-tongue, so we may as justly call our first tempers our mother-tempers; and perhaps it may be found more easy to forget the language, than to part entirely with those tempers which we learnt in the nursery.
2. It is therefore much to be lamented, that this sex, who have the first forming both of our bodies and minds, are not only educated in pride, but in the silliest and most contemptible part of it.
*They are not indeed suffered to dispute with us the proud prizes of arts and sciences; but we turn them over to the study of beauty and dress, and the whole world conspires to make them think of nothing else. Fathers and mothers, friends and relations, seem to have no other wish towards the little girl, but that she may have a fair skin, a fine shape, dress well, and dance to admiration.
Now if a fondness for our persons, a desire of beauty, a love of dress, be a part of pride (as surely it is a most contemptible part of it) the first step towards a woman’s humility, seems to require a repentance of her education.
For it must be owned, that, generally speaking, good parents are never more fond of their daughters, than when they see them too fond of themselves, and dressed in such a manner, as is a great reproach to the gravity and sobriety of the Christian life.
3. The church has formerly had eminent saints in that sex; and it may reasonably be thought, that it is purely owing to their poor and vain education, that this honour of their sex is for the most part confined to former ages.
*The corruption of the world indulges them in great vanity, and mankind seem to consider them in no other view, than as so many painted idols, that are to allure and gratify their passions; so that if many women are vain, light, gewgaw creatures, they have this to excuse themselves, that they are not only such as their education has made them, but such as the generality the world allows them to be.
*But then they should consider, that the friends to their vanity are no friends of theirs; that they are to live for themselves; that they have as great a share in the rational nature as men have; that they have as much reason to pretend, and as much necessity to aspire after the highest accomplishments of Christian virtue, as the gravest and wisest among Christian philosophers.
*They should consider, that they are abused, and injured, and betrayed from their only perfection, whenever they are taught, that any thing is an ornament in them, that is not an ornament in the wisest among mankind.
4. *It is generally said, that women are naturally of little and vain minds; but this I look upon to be as false, as to say, that butchers are naturally cruel: for as their cruelty is not owing to their nature, but to their way of life; so whatever littleness and vanity is in the minds of women, it is like the cruelty of butchers, a temper that is wrought into them by that life which they are taught and accustomed to lead.
And if it were true, that they were thus naturally vain and light, then how much more blameable is that education, which seems contrived to strengthen and increase this folly and weakness of their minds?
For if it were a virtue in a woman to be proud and vain of herself, we could hardly take better means to raise this passion in her, than those that are now used in their education.
5. *Matilda is a fine woman, of good breeding, and great sense. She has three daughters that are educated by herself. She will not trust them with any one else, or at any school, for fear they should learn any thing ill. She stays with the dancing-master all the time he is with them, because she will hear every thing that is said to them. She has heard them read the scriptures so often, that they can repeat great part of it without book: and there is scarce a good book of devotion, but you may find it in their closets.
Had Matilda lived in the first ages of Christianity, she had in all probability been one of the greatest saints. But as she was born in corrupt times, where she hardly ever saw a piety higher than her own; so she has many defects, and communicates them all to her daughters.
6. Matilda never was meanly dressed in her life; and nothing pleases her in dress, but that which is very rich, and beautiful to the eye.
Her daughters see her great zeal for religion, but then they see an equal earnestness for all sorts of finery. They see she is not negligent of her devotion; but then they see her more careful to preserve her complexion, and to prevent those changes which time and age threaten her with.
They are afraid to meet her, if they have missed the church; but then they are more afraid to see her, if they are not laced as straight as they can possibly be.
She often shews them her own picture, which was taken when their father fell in love with her. She tells them how distracted he was with passion at the first sight of her; and that she had never had so fine a complexion, but for the diligence of her good mother, who took exceeding care of it.
The children see so plainly the temper of their mother, that they affect to be more pleased with dress, than they really are.
They saw their eldest sister once brought to her tears, and her perverseness severely reprimanded, for presuming to say, that she thought it was better to cover the neck, than to go so far naked as the modern dress requires.
7. She stints them in their meals, and is very scrupulous of what they eat and drink, and tells them how many fine shapes she has seen spoiled in her time for want of such care.
Whenever they begin to look sanguine and healthful, she calls in the assistance of the doctor; and if physic, or issues, will keep the complexion from inclining to coarse or ruddy, she thinks them well employed.
By this means they are poor, pale, sickly, infirm creatures, vapoured through want of spirits, crying at the smallest accidents, swooning away at any thing that frights them, and hardly able to bear the weight of their best cloaths.
The eldest daughter lived as long as she could under this discipline, and died in the twentieth year of her age.
When her body was opened, it appeared that her ribs had grown into her liver, and that her other entrails were much hurt, by being crushed together with her stays; which her mother had ordered to be twitched so strait, that it has often brought tears into her eyes, whilst the maid was dressing her.
Her youngest daughter is run away with a gamester, a man of great beauty, who in dressing and dancing has no superior.
Matilda says, she should die with grief at this accident, but that her conscience tells her, she has contributed nothing to it herself. She appeals to their closets, to their books of devotion, to testify what care she has taken to establish her children in piety.
8. Now, tho’ I don’t intend to say, that no daughters are brought up in a better way than this; yet thus much may be said, that the greater part of them are not brought up so well, or accustomed to so much religion.
Their minds are turned as much to the care of their beauty and dress, without having such rules of devotion to stand against it. So that if solid piety is much wanted in that sex, it is the plain consequence of a corrupt education.
And if they are often ready to receive the first fops, beaux, and fine dancers, for their husbands, ’tis no wonder that they should like that in men, which they have been taught to admire in themselves.
Some people will perhaps say, that I am exercising too great a severity against the sex.
But reasonable persons will observe, that I spare the sex, and only arraign their education; that I not only spare them, but plead their interest, assert their honour, and only condemn that education which is so injurious thereto.
Their education I cannot spare; but the only reason is, because it is their greatest enemy, because it deprives the world of so many blessings, and the church of so many saints.
If it should here be said, that I even charge too high upon their education, and that they are not so much hurt by it, as I imagine.
It may be answered, that tho’ I don’t pretend to state the exact degree of mischief that is done by it, yet its plain and natural tendency to do harm, is sufficient to justify the most absolute condemnation of it.
9. But how possible it is to bring up daughters in a more excellent way, let the following character declare.
*Eusebia is a pious widow, well born, and well bred, and has a good estate for five daughters, whom she brings up as one entrusted by God, to fit five virgins for the kingdom of heaven. Her family has the same regulation as a religious house, and all its orders tend to the support of a constant regular devotion.
She loves them as her spiritual children, and they reverence her as their spiritual mother, with an affection far above that of the fondest friends.
She has divided part of her estate among them, that every one may be charitable out of their own stock, and each of them take it in their turns to provide for the poor and sick of the parish.
Eusebia brings them up to all kinds of labour that are proper for women, as sewing, knitting, spinning, and all other parts of housewifery; not for their amusement, but that they may be serviceable to themselves and others, and be saved from those temptations which attend an idle life.
She tells them, she had rather see them reduced to the necessity of maintaining themselves by their own work, than to have riches to excuse themselves from labour. For tho’, says she, you may be able to assist the poor without your labour, yet by your labour you will be able to assist them more.
10. If Eusebia has lived as free from sin as it is possible for human nature, it is because she is always watching and guarding against all instances of pride. And if her virtues are stronger and higher than other peoples, ’tis because they are all founded in a deep humility.
My children, says she, when your father died, I was much pitied by my friends, as having all the care of a family, and the management of an estate fallen upon me.
But my own grief was founded upon another principle: I was grieved to see myself deprived of so faithful a friend; and that such an eminent example of Christian virtues should be taken from the eyes of his children, before they were of an age to love and follow it.
But as to worldly cares, which my friends thought so heavy upon me, they are most of them of our own making, and fall away as soon as we know ourselves.
If a person in a dream is disturbed with strange appearances, his trouble is over as soon as he is awake, and sees that it was a dream.
Now, when a right knowledge of ourselves enters into our minds, it makes as great a change in all our thoughts and apprehensions, as when we awake from the wandrings of a dream.
We acknowledge a man to be mad or melancholy, who fancies himself to be glass, and so is afraid of stirring; or taking himself to be wax, dares not let the sun shine upon him.
But, my children, there are things in the world which pass for wisdom, politeness, grandeur, happiness, and fine breeding, which shew as great ignorance of ourselves, and might as justly pass for thorough madness, as when a man fancies himself to be glass or ice.
A woman that dares not appear in the world without fine cloaths, that thinks it is a happiness to have a face finely coloured, to have a skin delicately fair, that had rather die than be reduced to poverty, and be forced to work for a maintenance, is as ignorant of herself to the full, as he that fancies himself to be glass.
11. For this reason, all my discourse with you, has been to acquaint you with yourselves, and to accustom you to such books, as might best instruct you in this greatest of all knowledge.
You would think it hard, not to know the family into which you was born, what ancestors you were descended from, and what estate was to come to you; but, my children, you may know all this with exactness, and yet be as ignorant of yourselves, as he that takes himself to be wax.
For tho’ you were all of you born of my body, and bear your father’s name, yet you are all of you pure spirits. I don’t mean that you have not bodies; ♦but that all which deserves to be called you, is nothing else but spirit. A being spiritual and rational in its nature; that is as contrary to all corporeal beings, as life is contrary to death; that is made in the image of God, to live for ever, never to cease any more, but to enjoy life, and reason, and knowledge, and happiness in the presence of God, and the society of angels, and glorious spirits, to all eternity.
♦ ‘hut’ replaced with ‘but’
Every thing that you call yours, besides this spirit, is but like your cloathing; something that is only to be used for awhile, and then to end, and die, and wear away, and to signify no more to you than the cloathing and bodies of other people.
12. But, my children, you are not only in this manner spirits, but you are fallen spirits, that began your life in a state of corruption and disorder, full of tempers and passions, that blind and darken your reason, and incline you to that which is hurtful.
Your bodies are not only poor and perishing like your cloaths, but they are like ill infected cloaths, that fill you with ill diseases, which oppress the soul with sickly appetites, and vain cravings.
So that all of us are like two beings, that have, as it were, two hearts within us; with the one we see, and taste, and admire reason, and holiness; with the other we incline to pride, and vanity, and sensual delights.
If you would know the one thing necessary to all the world, it is this, to preserve and perfect all that is rational, holy, and divine in our nature, and to mortify, remove, and destroy all vanity, pride, and sensuality.
Could you think, my children, when you look at the world, and see what customs, and fashions, and pleasures, and troubles, and projects, employ the hearts and time of mankind, that things were thus?
But don’t you be affected at these things; the world is in a great dream, and but few people are awake in it.
We fancy that we fall into darkness, when we die; but alas, we are most of us in the dark till then; and the eyes of our souls only then begin to see, when our bodily eyes are closing.
13. You see then your state, my children; you are to improve and perfect the spirit that is within you; you are to prepare it for the kingdom of heaven, to nourish it with the love of God, to adorn it with good works, and to make it as holy and heavenly as you can. You are to preserve it from the errors and vanities of the world; to save it from the corruptions of the body, from those false delights and sensual tempers which the body tempts it with.
You are to nourish your spirits with pious readings, and holy meditations, with watchings, fastings, and prayers, that you may relish that eternal state which is to begin when this life ends.
As to your bodies, you are to consider them as poor, perishing things, that are corrupt at present, and will soon drop into common dust; you are to watch over them as enemies, that are always trying to betray you, and so never follow their counsel; you are to consider them as the place and habitation of your souls, and so keep them clean, and decent; you are to consider them as the servants and instruments of action, and so give them food, and rest, and raiment, that they may be strong and healthful to do the duties of a charitable, useful, pious life.
Whilst you live thus, you live like yourselves; and whenever you have less regard to your souls, or more regard to your bodies; whenever you are more intent upon adorning your persons, than upon perfecting your souls, you are much more beside yourselves, than he that had rather have a laced coat, than an healthful body.
14. For this reason, my children, I have taught you nothing that was dangerous for you to learn: I have kept you from every thing that might betray you into weakness and folly; or make you think any thing fine, but a fine mind; any thing happy, but the favour of God; or any thing desirable, but to do all the good you possibly can.
Instead of the vain, immodest entertainment of plays and operas, I have taught you to delight in visiting the sick and poor. What ♦music, and dancing, and diversions are to many in the world, that prayers and devotions, and psalms are to you. Your hands have not been employed in plaiting the hair, and adorning your persons; but in making cloaths for the naked. You have not wasted your fortunes upon yourselves; but have added your labour to them, to do more good to other people.
♦ ‘musick’ replaced with ‘music’
Instead of forced shapes, genteel airs, and affected motions, I have taught you to conceal your bodies with modest garments, and let the world have nothing to view of you, but the plainness, and sincerity, and humility of all your behaviour.
15. You know, my children, the high perfection, and the great rewards of virginity; you know how it frees from worldly cares and troubles, and furnishes means and opportunities of higher advancements in the divine life. Therefore love, and esteem, and honour virginity: bless God for all that glorious company of holy virgins, that from the beginning of Christianity have, in the several ages of the church, renounced the cares and pleasures of matrimony, to be perpetual examples of contemplation and prayer.
But as every one has their proper gift from God, as I look upon you all to be so many great blessings of a married state; so I leave to your choice, either to do as I have done, or to aspire after higher degrees of perfection in a virgin state.
I press nothing upon you, but to make the most of human life, and to aspire after perfection in whatever state you chuse.
Never therefore consider yourselves as persons that are to be seen, admired, and courted by men; but as poor sinners, that are to save yourselves from the vanities and follies of a miserable world. Learn to live for your own sakes, and the service of God; and let nothing in the world be of any value with you, but that which you can turn into a service to God, and a means of your future happiness.
16. Whether married therefore, or unmarried, consider yourselves as mothers and sisters, as friends and relations to all that want your assistance; and never allow yourselves to be idle, whilst others are in want of any thing that your hands can make for them.
This useful, charitable, humble employment of yourselves, is what I recommend to you with great earnestness; and besides the good you will thereby do to other people, your own heart will be improved by it.
For next to reading, meditation, and prayer, there is nothing that so secures our hearts from foolish passions, as some useful, humble employment of ourselves.
Never therefore consider your labour as an amusement, that is to get rid of your time, and so may be as trifling as you please; but consider it as something that is to be serviceable to yourselves and others, that is to serve some sober ends of life, to save and redeem your time, and make it turn to your account, when the works of all people shall be tried by fire.
If there is any good to be done by your labour, if you can possibly employ yourselves usefully to other people, how silly is it, how contrary to the wisdom of religion, to make that a mere amusement, which might as easily be made an exercise of the greatest charity?
What would you think of the wisdom of him, that should employ his time in distilling of waters, and making liquors which no body could use, merely to amuse himself with the variety of their colour, when, with less labour and expence, he might satisfy the wants of those who have nothing to drink?
Yet he would be as wisely employed, as those that are amusing themselves with such tedious works as they neither need, nor hardly know how to use when they are finished; when, with less labour and expence, they might be doing as much good, as he that is cloathing the naked, or visiting the sick.
Be glad therefore to know the wants of the poorest people, and let your hands be employed in making such things for them, as their necessities require. By thus making your labour a gift and service to the poor, your ordinary work will be changed into a holy service, and made as acceptable to God as your devotions.
This will make you true disciples of your meek Lord and Master, who came into the world not to be ministered unto, but to minister; and tho’ he was Lord of all, and among the creatures of his own making, yet was among them as one that serveth.
17. Christianity has then had its effect upon your hearts, when it has removed pride from you, and made you delight in humbling yourselves beneath the lowest of all your fellow creatures.
Live therefore, my children, as you have begun your lives, in humble labour for the good of others; not in ceremonious visits and vain acquaintances. Contract no foolish friendships, or vain fondnesses for particular persons; but love them most, that most turn your love towards God, and your compassion towards all the world.
But above all, avoid the conversation of fine-bred fops and beaux, and hate nothing more than the idle discourse, the flattery and compliments of that sort of men; for they are the shame of their own sex, and ought to be the abhorrence of yours.
When you go abroad, let humility, modesty, and a decent carriage, be all the state you take upon you; and let tenderness, compassion, and good-nature, be all the fine breeding you shew in any place.
If evil speaking, scandal, or backbiting, be the conversation where you happen to be, be as much grieved as if you was amongst cursing and swearing, and retire as soon as you can.
Tho’ you intend to marry, yet let the time never come, till you find a man that has those perfections which you have been labouring after yourselves; who is likely to be a friend to all your virtues, and with whom it is better to live, than to want the benefit of his example.
18. Love poverty, and reverence poor people; as for many reasons, so particularly for this, because our blessed Saviour was one of the number.
Visit and converse with them frequently; you will often find simplicity, innocence, patience, fortitude, and great piety amongst them.
Rejoice at every opportunity of doing an humble action; whether it be, as the scripture expresses it, in washing the saints feet, that is, in waiting upon, and serving those that are below you, or in bearing with the haughtiness and ill manners of those that are your equals, or above you. For there is nothing better than humility; it is the fruitful soil of all virtues, and every thing that is kind and good, naturally grows from it.
Therefore, my children, pray for, and practise, humility; and reject every thing in dress, or carriage, or conversation, that has any appearance of pride.
Strive to do every thing that is praise-worthy, but do nothing in order to be praised; nor think of any reward for your labours of love, till Christ cometh with all his holy angels.
19. And above all, my children, have a care of vain thoughts of your own virtues. For as soon as ever people live different from the common way of the world, the devil represents to their minds the height of their perfections; and is content they should excel in good works, provided he can make them proud of them.
Therefore watch over your virtues with a jealous eye, and reject every vain thought, as you would reject the most wicked imaginations; and think what a loss it would be to you, to have the fruit of all your good works devoured by the vanity of your minds.
Never therefore allow yourselves to despise those who do not follow your rules, but love them, and pray to God for them; and let humility be always whispering in your ears, that you yourselves would fall from those rules to-morrow, if God should leave you to your own strength and wisdom.
When therefore you have spent days and weeks well, do not suffer your hearts to contemplate any thing as your own, but give all the glory to God, who has carried you thro’ such rules of holy living, as you were not able to observe by your own strength; and take care to begin the next day, not as proficients in virtue, that can do great matters, but as poor beginners, that want the daily assistance of God to save you from the grossest sins.
20. Your dear father was an humble, watchful, pious, wise man. Whilst his sickness would suffer him to talk with me, his discourse was chiefly about your education. He knew the benefits of humility, he saw the ruins which pride made in our sex; and therefore he conjured me with the tenderest expressions, to renounce the fashionable ways of educating daughters in pride and softness, in the care of their beauty and dress; and to bring you all up in the plainest, simplest instances of an humble, holy, and industrious life.
He taught me an admirable rule of humility, which he practised all the days of his life; which was this, to let no morning pass, without thinking upon some frailty and infirmity of our own, that may put us to confusion, make us blush inwardly, and entertain a mean opinion of ourselves.
Think therefore, my children, that the soul of your good father, who is now with God, speaks to you through my mouth; and let the double desire of your father, who is gone, and me, who am with you, prevail upon you to love God, to study your own perfection, to practise humility, and, with innocent labour, to do all the good you can to all your fellow creatures, till God calls you to another life.
*Thus did the pious widow educate her daughters. And a very ordinary knowledge of the spirit of Christianity, may convince us, that no education can be of true advantage to young women, but that which trains them up in humble industry, in great plainness of life, in exact modesty of dress, manners and carriage, and in strict devotion. For what should a Christian woman be, but a plain, unaffected, modest, humble creature, averse to every thing in her dress and carriage, that can draw the eyes of beholders, or gratify the passions of lewd and amorous persons?
21. *These considerations may teach you to let no day pass, without a serious application to God, for the whole spirit of humility: fervently beseeching him to fill every part of your soul with it; to make it the ruling, constant habit of your mind, that you may not only feel it, but feel all your other tempers arising from it; that you may have no thoughts, no desires, no designs, but such as are the true fruits of an humble, meek, and lowly heart.
That you may always appear poor, and little, and mean in your own eyes, and fully content that others should have the same opinion of you.
That the whole course of your life, your expence, your house, your dress, your manner of eating, drinking, conversing, and doing every thing, may be so many continual proofs of the humility of your heart.
That you may look for nothing, claim nothing, resent nothing; that you may go thro’ all the actions of life calmly and quietly, as in the presence of God, looking wholly unto him, acting wholly for him; neither seeking applause, nor resenting neglects, or affronts, but doing and receiving every thing in the meek and lowly spirit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.