An unrestrained flow of talk is a sure sign of a trifling, dissipated mind; and no one can turn readily from useless, frivolous conversation to recollected prayer, or spiritual reading, so as to profit by them. But 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 engaging in the fantasmagoria of picture-thoughts, whether of the past or future. How hard this is, those only who have struggled with the difficulty know! And yet how necessary it is; for how can we hope to hear God’s voice amid the invisible, but no less real, whirl of moral dissipation which such a mental habit induces? How can we gather those wandering thoughts into a recollected attitude of prayer? 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 interior mortification, you will attain that spirit of inward silence which draws the soul into a close intercourse with God. You must resolve not to be disheartened, but even if you were to fall a hundred times a day, determined to rise up each time, and go onward. What will it matter if you have fallen by the way, if you reach your journey’s end safely at last? God will forgive the falls; they often are caused by undue haste, which prevents us from taking fitting precautions, or, with timid souls, from a perpetual looking round for imaginary dangers which cause them to stumble. If God requires anything of us, we have no right to draw back under the pretext that we are liable to commit some fault in obeying. It is better to obey imperfectly than not at all. Perhaps you ought to rebuke some one dependent on you, but you are silent for fear of giving way to vehemence; or you avoid the society of certain persons, because they make you cross and impatient. How are you to attain self-control if you shun all occasions of practicing it? Is not such self-choosing a greater fault than those into which you fear to fall? Aim at a steady mind to do right; go wherever duty calls you, and believe firmly that God is an indulgent Father, and will forgive the faults which take our weakness by surprise in spite of our sincere desire to please him. A holy man writes to one of his children (a religious novice), “If you can learn to walk slowly, and speak slowly, I shall have hopes of you.”—Pere Jean Nicolas Grou.