Selections From The Rufus Jones Collection

EDITED BY Mary Hoxie Jones
Pendle Hill Pamphlet #127, 1963

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"This pamphlet of notes for sermons and talks given by Rufus M. Jones during the 1930's and 1940's represents a selection drawn from four cartons containing sermons written out on cards, now in the Rufus Jones Collection at the Haverford College Library.

"Rufus Jones never appeared to use notes when he was speaking. The cards may have been in his coat pocket or at home on his desk. In church services they may have been lying, unseen by the audience, on the pulpit before him. They served primarily to fix a central idea firmly in his mind and were only a spring board from which he took off into larger and freer environment as he began to speak.

"As far as I have been able to ascertain, this selection does not repeat any of the sermons which have appeared in books and articles. The choice of sequence was not difficult. The first one seemed right for the opening, the last one right for the end, the others fell into their obvious places in between. They all seem to bear the unmistakable hallmark of the author. Whether the occasion was a Friends meeting for worship, a more formal church service, an academic gathering in a college chapel, or the intimate group at South China; whether it was a time of joy or sorrow, Rufus Jones had a simple, direct manner of speaking and bringing his message to his listeners, who like Francis Howgill: an early Publisher of Truth, knew that the Kingdom of Heaven had gathered and caught them as in a net."

Mary Hoxie Jones