examination of the heart 372 know the difference between good and evil, because they do not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, that is, they do not sin. Finally, they accept with gratitude even the punishments inflicted on them by their parents and do not offend people or God, either by word or by deed. Therefore, you should be simple, faithful, peacemaking, obedient, perfect, innocent, patient and gentle if you desire to enter the heavenly paradise. 3. “their angels always behold the face of [M]y Father who is in heaven” (Mt 18:10). O how good and kind is the Lord who thus exalted childhood, who praised it so much! O fortunate childhood, which merited having such a Patron and Eulogist! Certainly, you should know that God always protects those who either do not know how to defend themselves because of their simplicity, or do not want to do it because of their innocence. But if the Lord attests that the angels of little children always see in Heaven the face of the Heavenly Father, think how gravely those people sin who scandalize little children; and again, how much merit those gain who instill them with virtues, with upright conduct, and with piety joined to learning,176 because their angels present to the eternal Father both scandals and good examples, both bad and good instruction. Ask the Lord through the intercession of the Prince of the Archangels to grant you the grace of exerting upon little children a beneficial influence through good example, and also to make you into a little child. 176 It must be remembered that St. Stanislaus was telling this to the Piarists, i.e., the members of the Order of Pious Schools, in which the education was based on the principle established by its Founder, St. Joseph Calasanz, namely that the students of these schools had to be imbued with both learning and piety: “Si enim diligenter a teneris annis pueri pietate ac literis imbuantur, felix totius vitae cursus procul dubio sperandus est” [(“If we impart knowledge to a student together with piety from very early on, we may hope that his entire life will be happy”)] (Constitutiones Congregationis PauperumMatris Dei Scholarum Piarum, in: Clericorum Regularium Scholarum Piarum I. Constitutiones cum Notis. II. Regulæ et Ritus Communes, …, s.l., 1768, Prooem., I). [Hereafter Constitutiones Congregationis Pauperum Matris Dei Scholarum Piarum will be abbreviated as ConstSP.]
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