YOUR calling is to forsake in reality the world and its spirit, to continually reckon yourself dead to your corrupt nature and to a selfish life, to converse with God night and day in the exercise of true prayer. Pray much and speak little. Let me particularly recommend to you that sacred silence which God and His saints love so much. The spirit of loquacity is the bane of religious society and the extinction of devotion. It causes confusion of mind, and is an abuse of time and a denial of the divine presence. Love, obedience, courtesy, or necessity, must influence the tongue to Speak, else it should continue silent. Edify one another more by a holy walk than by a multitude of words.