the obligations of their state are so ill-understood. God grant
they may not count that to be virtue which is sin, as I did so
often! It is very difficult to make people understand this; it
is necessary our Lord Himself should take the matter seriously
into His own hands.

7. If parents would take my advice, now that they are at no pains
to place their daughters where they may walk in the way of
salvation without incurring a greater risk than they would do if
they were left in the world, let them look at least at that which
concerns their good name. Let them marry them to persons of a
much lower degree, rather than place them in monasteries of this
kind, unless they be of extremely good inclinations, and God
grant that these inclinations may come to good! or let them keep
them at home. If they will be wicked at home, their evil life
can be hidden only for a short time; but in monasteries it can be
hidden long, and, in the end, it is our Lord that discovers it.
They injure not only themselves, but all the nuns also. And all
the while the poor things are not in fault; for they walk in the
way that is shown them. Many of them are to be pitied; for they
wished to withdraw from the world, and, thinking to escape from
the dangers of it, and that they were going to serve our Lord,
have found themselves in ten worlds at once, without knowing what
to do, or how to help themselves. Youth and sensuality and the
devil invite them and incline them to follow certain ways which
are of the essence of worldliness. They see these ways, so to
speak, considered as safe there.

8. Now, these seem to me to be in some degree like those wretched
heretics who will make themselves blind, and who will consider