Silence by Jean N. Grou

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jan 13, 1914

Silence

By Jean N. Grou

THERE is another kind of silence to be cul-tivated, besides that of the tongue as regards others. I mean silence as regards oneself—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 fu-ture. 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 can not 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 practise 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.