Finding the Meditative Life - Cultivating Silence - A Beautiful Passage from Jean Grou

There is another kind of silence to be cultivated, besides that of the tongue as regards others. I mean silence as regards one's self,--restraining the imagination, not permitting it to dwell overmuch on what we have heard or said, not indulging in the phantasmagoria of
picture-thoughts, whether of the past or future.

Be sure that you have made no small progress in the spiritual life, when you can control your imagination, so as to fix it on the duty and occupation actually existing, to the exclusion of the crowd of thoughts which are perpetually sweeping across the mind.

No doubt, you cannot prevent those thoughts from arising, but you can prevent yourself from dwelling on them; you can put them aside, you can check the self-complacency, or irritation, or earthly longings which feed them, and by the practice of such control of your thoughts you will attain that spirit of inward silence which draws the soul into a close intercourse with God.

JEAN N. GROU.


Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable
in Thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer.
Psalm 19, verse 14.

The thoughts that in our hearts keep place,
Lord, make a holy, heavenly throng,
And steep in innocence and grace
The issue of each guarded tongue.

T. H. GILL.