Christine de Pizan, Le Livre des Trois Vertus

Paris: H. Champion, 1989. Introduction par Charity Cannon Willard et Eric Hicks. Translation (c) Garay and Jeay. p22-24.

Here is what you must do if you want to be saved. The scriptures tell of the two ways which lead to Heaven: the contemplative life and the active life. Without following these paths it is impossible to enter there. What do they involve? ...

The active life is the other way of serving God. She who follows this way is so full of charity that she would serve everyone for the love of God if she could. So she serves in hospitals, visiting the sick and the poor, generously assisting with her own wealth and her own labour, for the love of God. So great is her compassion for those creatures she sees in sin, misery or tribulation, that she weeps as if the trouble were her own; she regards her neighbour's welfare as if it were her own, and she is never idle for she is always working to do good. She has an unceasing, passionate desire to perform charitable works and she devotes all of her energies to them. Such a woman endures all suffering and difficulty patiently for the love of Our Lord. This active life, as is evident, serves the world more than the other.