The Education of Catholic Girls | Page 7

faith and sanctity are the chief
means of extending the kingdom of God on earth.
But this apostleship needs preparation and training. The early teaching
requires to be seasoned and hardened to withstand the influences which
tend to dissolve faith and piety; by this seasoning faith must be
enlightened, and piety become serene and grave, "sedate," as St.
Francis of Sales would say with beautiful commentary. In the last years
of school or school-room life the mind has to be gradually inured to the
harder life, to the duty of defending as well as adorning the faith, and to
gain at least some idea of the enemies against which defence must be

made. It is something even to know what is in the air and what may be
expected that the first surprise may not disturb the balance of the mind.
To know that in the Church there have been sorrows and scandals,
without the promises of Christ having failed, and even that it had to be
so, fulfilling His word, "it must needs be that scandals come" (St.
Matthew XVIII. 7), that they are therefore rather a confirmation than a
stumbling-block to our faith, this is a necessary safeguard. To have
some unpretentious knowledge of what is said and thought concerning
Holy Scripture, to know at least something about Modernism and other
phases of current opinion is necessary, without making a study of their
subtilties, for the most insecure attitude of mind for girls is to think they
know, in these difficult questions, and the best safeguard both of their
faith and good sense is intellectual modesty. Without making
acquaintance in detail with the phenomena of spiritualism and kindred
arts or sciences, it is needful to know in a plain and general way why
they are forbidden by the Church, and also to know how those who
have lost their balance and peace of mind in these pursuits would
willingly draw back, but find it next to impossible to free themselves
from the servitude in which they are entangled. It is hard for some
minds to resist the restless temptation to feel, to see, to test and handle
all that life can offer of strange and mysterious experiences, and next to
the curb of duty comes the safeguard of greatly valuing freedom of
mind.
Curiosity concerning evil or dangerous knowledge is more impetuous
when a sudden emancipation of mind sweeps the old landmarks and
restraints out of sight, and nothing has been foreseen which can serve
as a guide. Then is the time when weak places in education show
themselves, when the least insincerity in the presentment of truth brings
its own punishment, and a faith not pillared and grounded in all honesty
is in danger of failing. The best security is to have nothing to unlearn,
to know that what one knows is a very small part of what can be known,
but that as far as it goes it is true and genuine, and cannot be outgrown,
that it will stand both the wear of time and the test of growing power of
thought, and that those who have taught these beliefs will never have to
retract or be ashamed of them, or own that they were passed off, though
inadequate, upon the minds of children.

It is not unusual to meet girls who are troubled with "doubts" as to faith
and difficulties which alarm both them and their friends. Sometimes
when these "doubts" are put into words they turn out to be mere
difficulties, and it has not been understood that "ten thousand
difficulties do not make a doubt." Sometimes the difficulties are
scarcely real, and come simply from catching up objections which they
do not know how to answer, and think unanswerable. Sometimes a
spirit of contradiction has been aroused, and a captious tendency, or a
love of excitement and sensationalism, with a wish to see the other side.
Sometimes imperfect teaching has led them to expect the realization of
things as seen, which are only to be assented to as believed, so that
there is a hopeless effort to imagine, to feel, and to feel sure, to lean in
some way upon what the senses can verify, and the acquiescence,
assent, and assurance of faith seems all insufficient to give security.
Sometimes there is genuine ignorance of what is to be believed, and of
what it is to believe. Sometimes it is merely a question of nerves, a
want of tone in the mind, insufficient occupation and training which
has thrown the mind back upon itself to its own confusion. Sometimes
they come from want of understanding that there must be mysteries in
faith, and a multitude of questions that do not admit of complete
answers, that God would not be God if the measure of