It is the experience, I believe, of all those who have been most deeply conscious of His revelations of Himself that they are made emphatically to the waiting soul to the spirit which is most fully conscious of its own inability to do more than to wait in silence before him. ... The one corner-stone of belief upon which the Society of Friends is built is the conviction that God does indeed communicate with each one of the spirits he has made, ... and that in order clearly to hear the divine voice thus speaking to us we need to be still; to be alone with him in the secret place of his presence; that all flesh should keep silence before him.

The silence we value is not the mere outward silence of the lips. It is a deep quietness of heart and mind, a laying aside of all preoccupation with passing things--yes, even with the workings of our own minds; a resolute fixing of the heart upon that which is unchangeable and eternal. This "silence of all flesh" appears to us to be the essential preparation for any act of true worship. It is also, we believe, the essential condition at all times of inward illumination. "Stand still in the Light," says George Fox again and again, and then strength comes--and peace and victory and deliverance, and all other good things. "Be still, and know that I am God." Caroline Steven Quaker Strongholds