Rufus Jones

The Inner Light is the doctrine that there is something Divine, "something of God," in the human soul. Five words are used indiscriminately to name this Divine something: "The Light," "The Seed," "Christ within," "The Spirit," "That of God …

No person can ever hope to gain an adequate idea of the religious movement which has been called by the name of Quakerism until he has discovered what is meant by the "Inner Light."

It has broken forth where the Spirit listed, and its history is mainly the story of the saintly lives through which it has appeared.

Mysticism has been for the most part sporadic. It has found an exponent now here, now there, but it has shown little tendency toward organizing and it has manifested small desire to propagate itself.

There has always been in the Society of Friends a group of persons pledged unswervingly to the ideal.