1. We must elect effective fathers already advanced in years, of lively complexion and conversation, agreeable to visit these ladies, and whence they can promptly note in them appreciation or affection for our Society; making offerings of good works and the merits of the same; that, if they accept them, and succeed in having them frequent our temples, we must assign to them a confessor, who will be able of guiding them in the ways that are proper, in the state of widowhood, making the enumeration and praises of satisfaction that should accompany such a state; making them believe and yet with certainty that they who serve as such, is a merit for eternal life, being efficacious to relieve them from the pains of purgatory.
2. The same confessor will propose to them to make and adorn a little chapel or oratory in their own house, to confirm their religious exercises, because by this method we can shorten the communication, more easily hindering those who visit others; although if they have a particular chaplain, and will content to go to him to celebrate the mass, making opportune advertencies to her who confesses, to the effect and treating her as being left to be overpowered by said Chaplain.
3. We must endeavor skillfully but gently to cause them to change respectively to the Order and to the method of the House, and to conform as the circumstances of the person will permit, to whom they are directed, their propensities, their piety, and yet to the place and situation of the edifice.
4. We must not omit to have removed, little by little, the servants of the house that are not of the same mind with ourselves, proposing that they be replaced by those persons who are dependent on us, or who desire to be of the Society; for by this method we can be placed in the channel of communication of whatever passes in the family.
5. The constant watch of the confessor will have to be, that the widow shall be disposed to depend on him totally, representing that her advances in grace are necessarily bound to this submission.
6. We are to induce her to the frequency of the sacraments, and especially that of penitency, making her to give account of her deeper thoughts and intentions; inviting her to listen to her confessor, when he is to preach particular promising orations; recommending equally the recitation each day of the litanies and the examination of conscience.
7. It will be very necessary in the case of a general confession, to enter extensively into all of her inclinations; for that it will be to determine her, although she may be found in the hands of others.
8. Insist upon the advantages of widowhood, and the inconvenience of marriage; in particular that of a repeated one, and the dangers to which she will be exposed, relatively to her particular businesses into which we are desirous of penetrating.
9. We must cause her to talk of men whom she dislikes, and to see if she takes notice of anyone who is agreeable, and represent to her that he is a man of bad life; procuring by these means disgust of one and another, and repugnant to unite with anyone.
10. When the confessor has become convinced that she has decided to follow the life of widowhood, he must then proceed to counsel her to dedicate herself to a spiritual life, but not to a monastic one, whose lack of accommodations will show how they live; in a word, we must proceed to speak of the spiritual life of Pauline and of Eustace, &c. The confessor will conduct her at last, that having devoted the widow to chastity, to not less than for two or three years, she will then be made to renounce a second nuptial forever.
In this case she will be found to have discarded all sorts of relations with men, and even the diversions between her relatives and acquaintances, we must protest that she must unite more closely to God. With regard to the ecclesiastics who visit her, or to whom she goes out to visit, when we cannot keep her separate and apart from all others, we must labor that those with whom she treats shall be recommended by ourselves or by those who are devoted to us.
11. In this state, we must inspire her to give alms, under the direction, as she will suppose, or her spiritual father; then it is of great importance that they shall be employed with utility; more, being careful that there shall be discretion in counsel, causing her to see that inconsiderate alms are the frequent causes of many sins, or serve to foment at last, that they are not the fruit, nor the merit which produced them.