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This month’s biography:
RUFUS JONES
AMERICAN QUAKER MYSTIC
(1863 – 1948)
One of the most influential
Quakers of his time, his upbringing was simple and rural. His family home was
a farm in South China, Maine
- ‘the product of generations of deep inward religious life.’ He grew up accustomed to household duties
and hard work outside. A natural leader, he joined in all the games,
competitions and celebrations; he sometimes truanted from school; in his
teens he struggled inwardly and felt he was ‘helplessly drifting’. But the deep, stable influence of the
Quaker Meeting, a three mile walk away, set him right again. An important influence in his early life
was that of his uncle, Eli Jones.
–A Travelling Friend, a powerful orator, he convinced his nephew of the vital
importance of education, at whatever cost. Thus Rufus
Jones was sent to the Friends
Boarding School in Rhode
Island, and later, to Haverford
College. Here he discovered his vocation: to be an
interpreter of this ‘religion of the inward way’ and years later, he was
appointed Professor of Philosophy there.
Further studies in Heidelberg,
Oxford and Harvard
brilliantly equipped him in the mastery of languages, philosophy and
psychology. In 1905, Joseph Rowntree
made it financially possible for him to produce five volumes on Quaker
history and two more on the history of mysticism.
While scholarship and teaching
were central in his life, he was by no means removed from his contemporary
world, living as he did through two World Wars. He was also a reforming spirit in the
Society. In his later years Rufus
Jones looked back with amazement on the
situation he had known in earlier times: ‘We can hardly imagine that state of
mind which would lead a Monthly Meeting to disown a high – minded Friend
because he owned a piano. It is
difficult for us to comprehend the fact that 100, 000 Friends were dropped
from membership for marrying out of Meeting.’
His ministry of reconciliation
is one of his most notable achievements. From 1893 – 1912 he was editor of
the ‘American Friend’. He travelled
far and wide to address Quaker Meetings both in the US
and the UK,
eventually succeeding in bringing unity to the very turbulent state of
American Quakerism then rent by theological and legalistic controversy.
Probably more than any other, Rufus
Jones was responsible for the founding of
the American Friends Service Committee. In 1915, funds were collected and he
selected four young American Friends to join the work of the Friends
Ambulance Unit. When America
entered World War One in 1917, he became Chairman of the new organisation to
provide for some form of constructive service for those who conscientiously
could not serve in the army. Between
the wars, the American Committee worked in philanthropic service together
with British Quakers, in Europe and elsewhere. In
1938, Rufus Jones
led a delegation to Berlin, to
face the Gestapo at Hitler’s headquarters. They said: ‘We
represent no sects, we do not come to judge or criticise but to ask if there
is anything we can do to promote human welfare and relieve suffering.’ In
1947, through its representative bodies, the American Friends Service Committee
and the Friends Service Council of London , the
Society of Friends was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
In many of his published books,
Rufus Jones
sought to define the kind of mysticism exemplified by Quakerism. He saw it as
‘life – affirming, rather than being a discipline of self – denial. Its fruit
was an abiding sense of the divine presence rather than a hard- won
experience of ecstasy. Its best
expression came in social awareness and concern rather than in intense
devotional life. It therefore led to
the group mysticism of the silent meeting and the Quaker business
method.’ (John
Punshon.)
Rufus
Jones died in 1948 at Haverford
College where he had taught for
many years. He left his collection of nearly one thousand books on mysticism
to the college library.
In ‘Quaker Faith &
Practice’, these words of Rufus
Jones are quoted after he was asked to
preside over a meeting of the Friends World Conference:
‘In regard to the World
Conference, I sincerely hope for good results, but I have become a good deal
disillusioned over ‘big’ conferences and large gatherings. I pin my hopes to
quiet processes and small circles, in which vital and transforming events
take place. But others see differently and I respect their judgement.’
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