are most reigning in it, what
sorts of cheats; enter most into contracts, and societies of commerce,
that so understanding all things thoroughly and truly, you may have your
words and reasons in a readiness, to instruct and reprove those who,
being guilty of covert usuries, false bargaining, and other wicked
actions, so common in a place which is filled with such a concourse of
different nations, shall treat with you in familiar conversation, or in
sacramental confession.

"You shall walk the streets every night, and recommend the souls of the
dead to the prayers of the living; but let those expressions which are
used by you be proper to move the compassion of the faithful, and to
imprint the thoughts of religion in the bottom of their souls. You shall
also desire their prayers to God for such as are in mortal sin, that they
may obtain the grace of coming out of so deplorable a condition.

"Endeavour at all times to make your humour agreeable: keep a gay and
serene countenance, without suffering the least shadow of choler or
sadness to appear in it; otherwise those who come to visit you will never
open their hearts to you, and will not repose all that confidence in you
which it is necessary they should have, to the end they may profit by
your discourse. Speak always with civility and mildness, even in your
reprehensions, as I have already told you; and when you reprove anyone,
do it with so much charity, that it may be evident the fault displeases
you, and not the person.

"On Sundays and saints' days you shall preach at two o'clock in the
afternoon, at the church of the Misericordia, or in the principal church
of the town; sending first your companion about the streets, with his
bell in his hand, to invite the people to the sermon.

"If you had not rather perform that office in your own person, you shall
carry to church that exposition of the apostles' creed which I have put
into your hands, and the practice, which I have composed, how to pass the
day in Christian duties. You shall give copies of that practice to those
whose confessions you hear; and shall enjoin them, for their holy
penance, to do for certain days that which is contained in it. By this
means they shall accustom themselves to a Christian life, and shall come
to do, of their own accord, by the force of custom, that which they did
at the first only by the command of their confessor. But, foreseeing that
you cannot have copies enough for so many people