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.