THE INNER LIFE
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
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THE INNER LIFE
BY
RUFUS M. JONES, A.M., Litt.D.
PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN HAVERFORD COLLEGE
AUTHOR OF “STUDIES IN MYSTICAL RELIGION”
“SPIRITUAL REFORMERS,” ETC.
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1917
All rights reserved
Copyright, 1916,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1916.
Reprinted January, 1917.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
INTRODUCTION
There is no inner life that is not alsoan outer life. To withdraw from thestress and strain of practical action andfrom the complication of problems intothe quiet cell of the inner life in order tobuild its domain undisturbed is the sureway to lose the inner life. The finest ofall the mystical writers of the fourteenthcentury—the author of Theologia Germanica—knewthis as fully as we of thispsychologically trained generation knowit. He intensely desired a rich inner life,but he saw that to be beautiful within hemust live a radiant and effective life inthe world of men and events. “I wouldfain be,” he says, “to the eternal Godwhat a man’s hand is to a man”—i.e. heseeks, with all the eagerness of his glowing[vi]nature, to be an efficient instrumentof God in the world. In the practice ofthe presence of God, the presence itselfbecomes more sure and indubitable. Religiondoes not consist of inward thrillsand private enjoyment of God; it doesnot terminate in beatific vision. It israther the joyous business of carrying theLife of God into the lives of men—ofbeing to the eternal God what a man’shand is to a man.
There is no one exclusive “way” eitherto the supreme realities or to the loftiestexperiences of life. The “way” which weindividuals select and proclaim as theonly highway of the soul back to its truehome turns out to be a revelation of ourown private selves fully as much as it is arevelation of a via sacra to the one goal ofall human striving. Life is a very richand complex affair and it forever floodsover and inundates any feature which wepick out as essential or as pivotal to itsconsummation. God so completely overarchesall that is and He is so genuinely[vii]the fulfillment of all which appears incompleteand potential that we cannotconceivably insist that there shall be onlyone way of approach from the mult