“There is but one way to gain and keep for one’s own the beautiful vision of God which we have been contemplating with its results in the outer life; it is a way as old as mankind, that of meditation. Only in silence and solitude, where the sights and sounds of earth are not for the moment obtruding, can we find God; having found, we can then go forth in power–Sons of God.

“There are two parts to the spiritual life, intake and outgo…”

“Let us not be narrow in our ideas of what helps us to begin our work of getting away from the outward and visible and temporal things, toward the Life of the Spirit. This will at first seem dim and pale and ethereal beside the robust facts of the outward world, but it soon begins to glow and strengthen as we cultivate it, till it becomes as warm and interesting as the outer life. Some people are helped in one way and some in another.”

“To find God requires both warmth of feeling and strength of mind.”

Edith Armstrong Talbot, Lessons in Meditation, 1921

Talbot was the daughter of Samuel Chapman Armstrong (1839-1893),
a commander of regiments in the United States Colored Troops during the Civil War,
founder of Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute (later Hampton University).