Mysticism and the Experience of Love

I would like to acknowledge in this Rufus Jones Memorial Lecture my indebtedness to him for so large a share in helping me to stake out the area of thought and the interpretation of experience which has been my formal concern for the past thirty years. In 1929, I was a special student with Rufus Jones at Haverford College. He gave to me confidence in the insight that the religion of the inner life could deal with the empirical experience of man without retreating from the demands of such experience. To state what I mean categorically, the religion of the inner life at its best is life affirming rather than life denying and must forever be involved in the Master’s instruction, “Be ye perfect, even as your heavenly father is perfect.”

Howard Thurman 

pages 23

Pendle Hill Pamphlet #115 (1961)