CHAPTER XLI. One Word to Maidens.

O YE virgins, I have but a word to say to you. If you look to married
life in this life, guard your first love jealously for your husband. It
seems to me a miserable fraud to give a husband a worn-out heart, whose
love has been frittered away and despoiled of its first bloom instead
of a true, whole-hearted love. But if you are happily called to be the
chaste and holy bride of spiritual nuptials, and purpose to live a life
of virginity, then in Christ’s Name I bid you keep all your purest,
most sensitive love for your Heavenly Bridegroom, Who, being Very
Purity Himself, has a special love for purity; Him to Whom the
first-fruits of all good things are due, above all those of love.

S. Jerome’s Epistles will supply you with the needful counsels; and
inasmuch as your state of life requires obedience, seek out a guide
under whose direction you may wholly dedicate yourself, body and soul,
to His Divine Majesty.
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