Letters

¹² Follow the example of your Spouse: be subject to your grandmother and to your mother. Never look upon a man, especially upon a young man, except in their company. Never know a man whom they do not know. It is a maxim of the world that the only sure friendship is one based on an identity of likes and dislikes. You have been taught by their example as well as instructed by the holy life of your home to aspire to virginity, to recognize the commandments of Christ, to know what is expedient for you and what course you ought to choose.

But do not regard what is your own as absolutely your own. Remember that part of it belongs to those who have communicated their chastity to you and from whose honourable marriages and beds undefiled you have sprung up like a choice flower. For you are destined to produce perfect fruit if only you will humble yourself under the mighty hand of God, always remembering that it is written: “God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble.” Now where there is grace, this is not given in return for works but is the free gift of the giver, so that the apostles' words are fulfilled: “it is not of him that wills nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy.” And yet it is ours to will and not to will; and all the while the very liberty that is ours is only ours by the mercy of God.