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4th Pastoral Letter of the Bishop of Acqui

Even supposing (and may God will it) that in all the
different schools your children might be directed to Christian
truths and in the practice of virtue, and that by your zeal in
sending them, even in leading them, to catechism or in assuring
that they might receive from the priests that teaching which only
they can dispense with authority, yet you must never forget, O
Christian parents, that it is to you that God has primarily
entrusted the care of your offspring precisely because they are
your offspring. All the preachers and all the teachers will never
be as useful to them as you, fathers and mothers, if you begin to
instruct them at an early age, when they are not yet able to go to
church or to school, pursuing that instruction zealously with
daily solicitude, because you have a much greater and much
more intimate influence on your children than anyone else. That
is why your words penetrate more deeply into their souls and
make a greater impression.
Besides instruction, you also have the obligation to give
your children the edification of good works and a good example.
The way of the precepts is long; that of examples is short
and efficacious. This is an ancient maxim, but it is still valid and
should be remembered by everyone; and if it is true for others,
how much more is it so for inexperienced children who
instinctively tend to imitation. Your children live around you,
and look especially to you, O fathers and mothers; therefore the
purest examples must start with you because all your actions and
all your steps, even the most insignificant, in the eyes of your
children take on a character of venerable and sacred authority.
Therefore, may your life always be a book open before
them, in which they learn their first duties even without the help
of longer studies. They know that you do not teach a truth of
which you are not convinced nor impose upon them any
obligation or sacrifice that you do not make easy and mild with
your own example.
Do not deceive yourselves in that by words alone you can

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