If, however, we were to risk a parallel between modern society and a convent, what kind of convent would the former be?
Here is a monastery where the brethren eat according to rule, wear hygienic clothing, are correct in their language, never indulge in noisy quarrels, have all their interests in life in common, and dispense their charities coldly, as if they were a custom or an obligation of their order; they meditate on eternal life, on salvation, and rewards and punishments in a future life, but without being touched by these thoughts. The real truth is that they have lost their faith, and that they do not love one another; ambition, anger, envy and even hatred, drive away internal peace; and corruption begins to filter in under these other sins; a sign of a deeper decadence now begins to show itself, for chastity has been lost. That which is, par excellence, the standard of Christianity, the sign of respect for life, the consecration of the purity which leads to eternal life, has been overthrown together with faith. The love of man is not compatible with the excesses of the beast. It is through purity that an ardent love to all mankind, and comprehension of others, and intuition of truth, arise like a perfume. It is that ardent fire called charity or love, which keeps life kindled, and gives value to all things. "Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned," says St Paul, "and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and have not charity, I am nothing. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not charity, I am became as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal" (1 Cor. xiii.).
In "degenerate" convents the greatest and most elevated acquirements, and the highest level of perfection reached, are lost; just as a person punished by degradation first loses the last and highest acquisitions, and only keeps the lower.
In social convents, on the other hand, the ultimate attainment has not yet been reached; that is the difference and the contrast. The social elevation towards Christianity is only on its first steps. Love is lacking, and thence chastity; and all this is absent owing to the arid void left by the absence of faith, and the oppression of spiritual life. Positive science has not yet touched the inner man, and the social environment does not therefore realize, in its "force of universal civilization," the loftier human acquisitions.
When we occupy ourselves with the "moral education" of our children, we ought to ask ourselves if we really love them and if we are sincere in our wishes for their "morality."
Let us be practical. Fathers and mothers, what can you hope for from your children? The European war is far less dangerous to their bodies than the spiritual risks which they run. We must imagine a much greater war, a universal one, to which all young men are called, and where the survivors are pointed out as absolutely exceptional. Therefore you are educating your sons for death. What, then, is the use of troubling so much about them? Is it not useless to take care of their soft hair, and their rosy nails, and the fresh and bewitching beauty of their vigorous little bodies, if they are to die before long?
Ah! all those who love children must fight in this deadly war, and struggle for peace:
The creed which Mme. de Héricourt sets forth in her book, "La Femme Affranchie," about the time of the French Revolution, is very eloquent.
"Mothers, you admonish your children, saying, 'Do not tell lies, because this is unworthy of a person who respects himself. Do not steal: would you like it if people stole your things? It is a dishonest thing to do. Do not oppress those of your companions who are weaker than yourself, and do not be rude to them, for that would be a cowardly act.' These are excellent principles. But when the child has become a young man his mother says, 'He must sow his wild oats.' And sowing his wild oats means that he must perforce be a seducer, an adulterer, and a frequenter of brothels. What? Is this mother, who told her boy not to tell lies, the same person who permits him now that he is a man, to betray a woman like herself? And, although she taught her child not to steal another child's toy, she thinks it lawful for her son to rob a woman like herself of her life and her honor. And she who advised him never to oppress the weak, now permits him to range himself among the oppressors of a human being whom society has made into a slave."