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Swartbmore Uecture.
conception of the Inner Light wins a very modernmeaning. It was, is and will be the centre of theQuaker's message. So Rufus Jones, one of theleading interpreters of modern Quakerism, speaksof the Inner Light as a " radiation of the centrallight of the spiritual universe."
As a Christian society the Quakers believe thatthe Inner Light broke through with peculiarradiance in the man Jesus , without denying thedivine mission of other prophets. Together withthe old church they call Jesus their Master andLord, the Son of God, the Logos. By Him deathis turned to victory, Good Friday to Easter Day.He lives ; where two or three are gathered togetherin His spirit He is there in their midst. Are weto believe that the visible appearances of therisen Lord ended with the ascension, the story ofwhich, as a later interpolation to the Biblicalreport, signifies nothing other than a weakeningof the belief in resurrection. Was the Lord lessvisible to St. Francis when he received the stigmatathan to Paul on the road to Damascus ?
But Quakers have no dogmatic Christology .For them Jesus is an intimate personal experiencewhich every Christian must express in his ownlanguage or about which he may prefer to be silent.He is a progressive experience which grows deeperin the life of the seeker. He is heard differentlyby the man in the fulness of life and the man onhis deathbed. He speaks to each individual inhis own tongue-—in one way to the great liberatorKant, to the all round Goethe , in another to thedevout mother or the watching sick nurse. But