The Works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 16

by John Dryden

"Endeavour at all times to make your humour agreeable: keep a gay and serene countenance, without suffering the least shadow of choler or sadness to appear in it; otherwise those who come to visit you will never open their hearts to you, and will not repose all that confidence in you which it is necessary they should have, to the end they may profit by your discourse. Speak always with civility and mildness, even in your reprehensions, as I have already told you; and when you reprove anyone, do it with so much charity, that it may be evident the fault displeases you, and not the person.

"On Sundays and saints' days you shall preach at two o'clock in the afternoon, at the church of the Misericordia, or in the principal church of the town; sending first your companion about the streets, with his bell in his hand, to invite the people to the sermon.

"If you had not rather perform that office in your own person, you shall carry to church that exposition of the apostles' creed which I have put into your hands, and the practice, which I have composed, how to pass the day in Christian duties. You shall give copies of that practice to those whose confessions you hear; and shall enjoin them, for their holy penance, to do for certain days that which is contained in it. By this means they shall accustom themselves to a Christian life, and shall come to do, of their own accord, by the force of custom, that which they did at the first only by the command of their confessor. But, foreseeing that you cannot have copies enough for so many people, I advise you to have that practice written out in a fair large hand, and expose it in some public place, that they who are willing to make use of it may read and transcribe it at their own convenience.

"They who shall be desirous of being received into the society, and whom you shall judge to be proper for it, you may send them to Goa with a letter, which shall point out their design, and their talents for it, or else you may retain them with you. In this last case, after you have caused them to perform the spiritual exercises for a month together, you shall make a trial of them, in some such manner as may edify the people without exposing them to be ridiculous. Order them, therefore, to serve the sick in the hospitals, and to debase themselves to the meanest and most distasteful offices. Make them visit the prisoners, and teach them how to give comfort to the miserable. In fine, exercise your novices in all the practices of humility and mortification; but permit them not to appear in public in extravagant habits, which may cause them to be derided by the multitude;—suffer it not, I say, far from imposing it upon them. Engage not all the novices indifferently to those trials which their nature most abhors; but examine well the strength of each, and suit their mortification to their temper, to their education, to the advance they make in spirituals, in such sort, that the trial may not be unprofitable, but that it may produce its effect according to that measure of grace which is given them. If he who directs the novices has not all these considerations, it will fall out, that they who were capable of making a great proficiency in virtue, with good management, will lose their courage, and go backward; and besides, those indiscreet trials, too difficult for beginners, take off the love of the master from his novices, and cause his disciples to lessen their confidence in his directions. In the mean time, whoever forms young people to a religious life, ought to leave nothing untried to bring them to a candid and free discovery of their evil inclinations, and the suggestions of the devil, at the same moment when they are tempted: for without this they will never be able to disentangle themselves from the snares of the tempter; never will they arrive to a religious perfection. On the contrary, those first seeds of evil being brooded over, and nourished, as I may say, by silence, will insensibly produce most lamentable effects; even so far, until the novices come to grow weary of regular discipline, to nauseate it, and at length throw off the yoke of Jesus Christ, and replunge themselves in the pollutions of the world.

"They amongst those young men whom you shall observe to be most subject to vain-glory, and delighted with sensual pleasures, and other vices, ought to be cured in this following manner: Make them search for reasons, and for proofs, against those vices to which they are inclined; and when they have found many, help them to compose some short discourses on them. Cause them afterwards to pronounce those discourses, either to the people in the church, or in the hospitals, to those who are in a way of recovery, so as to be present at them, or in other places;—there is reason to hope, that the things which they have fixed in their minds, by constant study and strong application, will be at least as profitable to themselves as to their audience. Doubtless they will be ashamed not to profit by those remedies which they propose to others, and to continue in those vices from which they endeavour to dissuade their hearers. You shall use proportionably the same industry towards those sinners who cannot conquer themselves so far, as, they commonly say, to put away the occasions of their sin, or to make restitution of those goods which they have gotten unlawfully, and detain unjustly from other men. After you have endeared yourself to them by a familiar acquaintance, advise them to say that to their own hearts which they would say to a friend on the like occasion, and engage, as it were for the exercise of their parts, to devise such arguments as condemn their actions in the person of another.

"Sometimes you will see before you, when you are seated in the tribunal of penance, men who are enslaved to their pleasures and their avarice, whom no motive of God's love, nor thought of death, nor fear of hell, can oblige to put away a mistress, or to restore ill-gotten goods. The only means of reducing such people, is to threaten them with the misfortunes of this present life, which are the only ills they apprehend. Declare then to them, that if they hasten not to appease Divine Justice, they shall suddenly suffer considerable losses at sea, and be ill treated by the governors; that they shall lose their law-suits; that they shall languish many years in prison; that they shall be seized with incurable diseases, and reduced to extreme poverty, without any to relieve them; in fine, that they and their posterity, becoming infamous, shall be the objects of the public hate and curses. Tell them, by way of reason for those accidents, that no man who sets God at nought remains unpunished; and that his vengeance is so much the more terrible, by how much longer his patience has been abused. The images of these temporal punishments will affright those carnal men who are not to be wrought on but by their senses, and will bring forth in their insensible souls the first motions of the fear of God,—of that saving fear which is the beginning of wisdom.

"Before you treat with any one concerning his spiritual affairs, endeavour to understand how his soul stands affected. Whether it be calm, or tossed with any violent passion; whether he be ready to follow the right way when it shall be shewn to him, or whether he wanders from it of set purpose; whether it be the tempter, or the bias of his own inclination, which seduces him to evil; whether he be docile, and disposed to hear good counsel, or of that untractable humour on which no hold is to be fastened,—it will behove you to vary your discourse according to these several dispositions: But though more circumspection is to be taken with hardened souls, and difficult of access, you are never to flatter the disease, nor say any thing to him which may weaken the virtue of the remedy, and hinder its effect.

"Wheresoever you shall be, even though you only pass through a place, and stay but little in it, endeavour to make some acquaintance; and inquire of those who have the name of honest and experienced men, not only what crimes are most frequently committed in that town, and what deceits most used in traffic, as I have already taught you in relation to Ormuz; but farther, learn the inclinations of the people, the customs of the country, the form of government, the received opinions, and all things respecting the commerce of human life: for, believe me, the knowledge of those things is very profitable to a missioner, for the speedy curing of spiritual diseases, and to have always at hand wherewithal to give ease to such as come before you.

"You will understand from thence, on what point you are most to insist in preaching, and what chiefly to recommend in confessions. This knowledge will make, that nothing shall be new to you, nothing shall surprise or amaze you; it will furnish you with the address of conducting souls, and even with authority over them. The men of the world are accustomed to despise the religious as people who understand it not: But if they find one who knows how to behave himself in conversation, and has practised men, they will esteem him as an extraordinary person; they will give themselves up to him; they will find no difficulty, even in doing violence to their own inclinations, under his direction, and will freely execute what he enjoins, though never so repugnant to their corrupt nature. Behold the wonderful fruit of knowing well the world:—so that you are not, at this present, to take less pains in acquiring this knowledge, than formerly you have done in learning philosophy and divinity. For what remains, this science is neither to be learned from ancient manuscripts nor printed books; it is in living books, and the conversation of knowing men, that you must study it: with it, you shall do more good, than if you dealt amongst the people, all the arguments of the doctors, and all the subtilties of the schools.

"You shall set apart one day of the week, to reconcile differences, and regulate the interests of such as are at variance, and are preparing to go to law. Hear them one after the other, and propose terms of accommodation to them. Above all things, give them to understand, that they shall find their account in a friendly reconciliation, sooner than in casting themselves into eternal suits, which, without speaking of their conscience, and their credit, ever cost much money, and more trouble. I know well, that this will not be pleasing to the advocates and proctors, whom the spinning out a process, and tricks of wrangling, still enrich. But trouble not yourself with what those bawlers say; and make even them comprehend, if it be possible, that by perpetuating suits, by these numberless formalities, they expose themselves to the danger of eternal damnation. Endeavour also to engage them into a retirement of some few days, to the end their spiritual exercises may work them off to other courses.