which you are liable to render an account to your Sovereign Master. Besides the efficacy of a good example, you are called upon to give them education, instruction, and good advice.
Watch over the manners of your children and servants; with regard to morals and religion, pass over nothing; do not suffer any one to give them bad example; check, warn, and correct with zeal and mildness.
In whatever condition of life you may be, remember that you have to fulfil the duties of an apostle. Christian charity obliges you to take to heart the salvation of your brethren, and do not forget to do all you can to obtain this desirable object.
It is not solely by preaching that the conversion of many are brought about; there are other ways much more efficacious. A kind word in season, a warning, a charitable advice, a good example, an alms — all these may be used with a zeal truly apostolic.
There is no father or mother who can fail to do an immensity of good in the home and with the servants.
What good cannot a superior in a community do, if he is animated with a pure and ardent zeal and an exemplary piety! What an immense benefit could princes do at the court and in their estates if they had at heart the truths of our holy religion! Would not honour, honesty, and justice then reign throughout their lands?
The will of My Father, says His divine Son, and the reason He sent Me, is to save souls, and not to lose one He intrusted to Me. In fact, as God has nothing more dear to Him than the salvation of men, so nothing is more pleasing to Him than to see them withdrawn from the
