Page:Thecompleteascet01grimuoft.djvu/229

 in a  manner  apt  to  attract  notice,  and  whose  whole appearance exhibits  worldly  vanity! Speaking of  seculars, St.  Cyprian  says  that "women  decorated  with  gold, necklaces,  and  precious  stones  lose  the  ornaments  of  the soul." What would  the  saint  have  thought  of  the  religious who  imitates  worldlings  in  the  vanity  of  her dress? "The ornaments  of  a  woman  are,"  says  St. Gregory  Nazianzen,  "to  be  conspicuous  for  probity;  to converse  with  the  divine  oracles;  to  seek  wool  and  take hold  of  the  spindle;  and  to  keep  a  restraint  on  her  eyes and  on  her  lips." Yes, the  ornaments  of  holy  women are probity  of  life;  continual  conversation  with  God  by prayer;  constant  labor;  and  a  perpetual  guard  over  the eyes and  tongue,  by  modesty  and  by  silence.

II. A religious  should  be  modest  in  her  walk. "Let your gait,"  says  St. Basil, "be  neither  slow  nor  vehement." Your walk,  to  be  modest,  must  be  grave,  neither too quick  nor  too  slow.

III. A religious  must  practise  modesty  in  sitting. She must avoid  every  slothful  posture;  she  must  abstain from crossing  her  feet,  and  from  putting  one  limb  on  the other.

IV. She must  be  modest  at  meals,  by  taking  her  food without avidity,  and  without  rolling  her  eyes  around  in all  directions,  as  if  to  observe  how  and  what  the  others eat.

V. Above  all,  a  religious  must  be  modest  in  her  conversation, by  abstaining  from  all  the  words  unbecoming the religious  state. She must  be  persuaded  that  all words   that    savor    of    the  world    are    indecorous    in    a