American theologian and author (1835-1922)
Here we are at last. And here the evergeens are about us in a profusion which would make the eyes water of my honest friend the Dutch grocer who supplied me with my family trees so many years in New York. Our smoking nag is over his impatience now, and, being well blanketed, understands what is wanted of him quite as well as if he were tied, and stands as still as if he were Squire Slowgoes' fat and lazy "family horse." With pants tied snugly over our topboots to keep out the intruding snow, we plunge into the woods. The ringing blows of our hatchets on the cedar-trees bring down a mimic shower on our heads and backs. Young Wheaton understands his business, and shows me how the fairest evergreens are hid beneath the snow, and what rare forms of crystalline beauty conceal themselves altogether beneath this white counterpane. So, sometimes cutting from above and sometimes grubbing from below, we work an hour or more, till our pung is filled to its brim. Long before we have finished Jip has returned from his useless search, and the neighing horse indicates his impatience to be off again.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
The minister entered solemnly at the appointed hour, walked straight to his desk, without a word, a bow, a smile of recognition; read a long hymn, offered a very respectable imitation of the "long prayer," gave out a second hymn, and called on an elder to pray, who always imitated the imitation, and included in his broad sympathies all that his pastor had just prayed for-the Church, the Sabbath-school, the unconverted, backsliders, those in affliction, the President and all those in authority, the (Presbyterian) bishops and other clergy, not forgetting the heathen and the Jews. Then followed a passage of Scripture for a text from the pastor, with a short sermon thereafter. Nor was it always short. I fancied he felt the necessity of occupying the time. It was not unfrequently long enough for a very respectable discourse, if length gives the discourse its respectability. Then we had another prayer from another layman, and then the invariable announcement, "the meeting is now open," and the invariable result, a long, dead pause. In fact, the meeting would not open. Like an oyster, it remained pertinaciously shut. Occasionally some good elder would rise to break the painful silence, by repeating some thought from the previous Sunday's sermon, or by telling some incident or some idea which he had seen in a previous number of "The Christian Union." But as we had all been to church, and as most of us take "The Christian Union," this did not add much to the interest of the meeting. Generally another prayer and hymn, sometimes two, sufficed to fill the hour. The pastor kept his eye on the clock. When the hand pointed to nine he rose for the benediction. And never did a crowd of imprisoned schoolboys show more glad exultation at their release than was generally indicated by these brethren and sisters when the words of benediction dismissed them from their period of irksome restraint. Every man, and every woman, too, found a tongue. We broke up into little knots. A busy hum of many voices replaced the dead silence. The "social meeting" commenced when the "prayer-meeting" ended. This, I think, is a fair portraiture of our prayer-meetings at Wheathedge as they were during our late pastor's presence with us.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
Conscience is the factor which recognizes the inherent and essential distinction between right and wrong, and which impels to the right and dissuades from the wrong. It does not come within the province of this book to discuss either the basis of ethics or its laws; to consider either why some things are wrong and others are right, nor to point out what is wrong and what is right. That belongs to moral science, not to mental science. It must suffice here to say that the distinction between right and wrong is recognized in all peoples, and is one of the first objects of perception in childhood. Standards differ in different races and in different ages. The power of moral discrimination is subject to education both for good and for evil. But the sense of ought is as universal as the sense of beauty. That there is a right and a wrong is as evident to every mind as that there is a wise and a foolish, a beautiful and an ugly, a pleasant and a disagreeable.
LYMAN ABBOTT
A Study in Human Nature
He that heeds the Gospel message must be ready to do as Lot did. He had neither time nor opportunity to save any thing but himself from the universal wreck. Houses, lands, property, position, honors, friends—all must be left behind. Every interest bound him fast to Sodom—every interest but one. All were offset by that fearful cry," Escape for thy life." What ransom is too great to give for that? The conditions of the Gospel are not changed. The voice of Christ still is," Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he can not be my disciple." It is no easier in the nineteenth century than in the first to serve both God and Mammon. The judgment which God visited upon Ananias and Sapphira is perpetually repeated. The Church is full of dead Christians, struck down with spiritual death, because they have kept back part of the price—because they have not given all to Him who gave up all that he might ransom them from sin and death.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Old Testament Shadows of New Testament Truths
An untempted soul may be innocent, but cannot be virtuous, for virtue is the choice of right when wrong presses itself upon us and demands our choosing.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
God is revealing Himself to humanity. He is a Word, always speaking. He speaks through His works; all nature interprets Him to us. He speaks through His prophets; all men who have felt the inspiration of His presence interpret Him to us.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
Do not think that you can fight corruption without while you let corruption fester within.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Problems of Life: Selections from the Writings of Rev. Lyman Abbott
I am convinced that no mere intellectual opinion is a sin. If Mr. Gear is in darkness it is because he neglects some known if not some recognized duty. My work is not to convince him of the error of his opinions. I probably never could do that. And his opinions are not of much consequence. My work is to find out what known duty he is neglecting, and press it home upon his conscience. And so far I have not discovered what it is. He is one of the most conscientious men I ever knew. Yet something is wanting in Mr. Gear. I believe he half thinks so himself. He is mentally restless and uneasy. He seems to doubt his own doubts, and to want discussion that he may strengthen himself in his own unbelief. But still I make no progress. Since that first night I have got no farther into his heart.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
Solemn faces do not make sacred hours.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
I hear men talk as though prayer were of no avail unless we believe beforehand with assurance that we were going to receive all for which we asked. It is not true. We are not heard for our much asking, nor for much our believing, but for God's great mercy's sake.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
A golden thread, woven into the Old Testament history, renders the various lives whose stories it recounts only different phases of the same experience. That golden thread is faith.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Old Testament Shadows of New Testament Truths
She does not simulate youth, and yet she is young. Her smile is as captivating as ever, her laugh as merry and as contagious; and though she can no longer romp with her juniors, she enjoys a vivacious game by proxy as much as she ever did in person, and teases with the same innocent and admirable coquetry. Age has quieted her body but not sobered her spirit. As the life of youth is still hers, so are all its interests. In truth, they have widened with the widening years. As her children have grown up and entered into their several professions, she has accompanied them. Whatever touches their life touches hers, whatever interests them interests her. If she cannot enter into their fields, she can at least come to the fence and look over. So, disavowing all professional knowledge, she is yet singularly intelligent in medicine, law, journalism, theology, and teaching. Her children, when they come home, find her always a ready pupil, and, often to their surprise, their intellectual comrade. Although infirmity begins to put its limitations on her activities, never did life seem to her to be so large, so varied, so full of ever-broadening interest. She occasionally brings out of the past sacred and stimulating memories. But she does not live in the past. She lives in her children, that is in the present, and in her grandchildren, that is in the future.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Home Builder
He who would see God must use the faculty with which God is seen; and if he would do this, he must let men who are rich in the faculty which perceives the invisible, — which looks not at the things which are seen and are temporal, but at the things which are not seen and are eternal, — guide, teach, inspire him.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God
It costs something to give life. And the great God above us—it has cost him something to give his life. It has cost him his Son; or, if we transfer the figure, it has cost the Son the crown of thorns and the cross and all the Passion to give himself. He is the example — showing what we may be; he is hope — inspiring us with the ambition to be; he is still with us, pouring his life unto us; he is the great sufferer and the great self-sacrificer — pouring out his life-blood that he may give his life-blood to us.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God
The artist does not really create; he discovers.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Great Companion
It is in vain for us to devise schemes by which competition can be put out of civilized life. Competition is the condition of life.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Problems of Life: Selections from the Writings of Rev. Lyman Abbott
Man is equipped with various senses, each of which has its own peculiar function. It can perform that function, and no other. The ear can hear, but it cannot see; the eye can see, but it cannot taste; the palate can taste, but it cannot smell. The body is composite. It is made up of different organs or faculties. The whole man is an orchestra; each organ is a single instrument. If that is broken, or gets out of tune, no other can take its place. Now some persons suppose that the mind is similarly a composite; that it is made up of a variety of faculties and powers; that there is one power or faculty which reasons, another which compares, a third which remembers or recalls, a fourth which imagines, etc. Those who hold this opinion, however, are not agreed as to how many mental faculties or powers there are. Some suppose there are very few, others that there are very many. A very common classification or division of the mind is into three powers or classes of powers: the reason, the sensibilities or feelings, and the will. Others divide these generic classes again into a great variety of reasoning and feeling powers, each confined to its own exercise or function, as the ear to hearing and the eye to seeing.
LYMAN ABBOTT
A Study in Human Nature
The story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is one of the most extraordinary in the Old Testament. It is singularly attested by the imperishable witness of the mountains and the sea. Skepticism may scout at the plagues of Egypt; may smile incredulously at the marvelous deliverance of Israel through the Red Sea; may look with ill-concealed pity upon those who, fed daily by God's bounty, believe that God fed the hungry Israelites in the wilderness; may account the stories of the marvels which he wrought in answer to the prayers of Elijah the legends of a romantic age, and reject with ridicule the assertion of the apostle that the effectual fervent prayer of the righteous man availeth much; it will find nowhere in the Bible a story more extraordinary and intrinsically incredible than that of the destruction of the cities of the plain. Yet to deny this, it must not only impugn the sacred writers, but must also repudiate the traditions of heathen nations reported by secular historians, and refuse to listen to the silent testimony of nature itself. For, until the vision of Ezekiel is fulfilled, and the sacred waters, flowing from God's holy hill, heal the waters of the Salt Sea and give life again to this valley of death—until mercy shall conquer justice in nature as it already has in human experience, this scene of desolation will remain, a terrible witness to the reality of God's justice, and the fearfulness of his judgments.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Old Testament Shadows of New Testament Truths
The object of the American college in 1850 was to prepare the student for one of the three learned professions — law, medicine, or the ministry. I do not think that any one of the members of my class looked forward to another than one of these three careers. Engineering was not regarded as a learned profession, nor journalism, nor literature, nor music, nor art, nor acting, nor agriculture, nor teaching, nor business. For business what was needed was not education, but experience. Teaching was not a profession. Very few chose it as their life work. College professors frequently, college presidents almost uniformly, were clergymen who from choice or necessity had left the pulpit for the college chair; other teachers had generally taken up the work for bread-andbutter reasons or en route to something else. The farmer looked upon "book larnin'" with good-humored contempt, not without some justification, since the agricultural books and papers of that day were largely the work of academicians without practical experience.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Reminiscences
Faith in Christ is, first of all, this: Such as he was I want to be; his is the kind of life I want to live; his is the kind of character I want to possess; his is the kind of blessedness I desire for myself and for my children. A man may believe what creed he will, and if this is not in his heart, he has not faith in Christ He may be baptized with holy water taken from the Jordan, blessed by the priest, bishop, archbishop, and Pope; and if this desire is not in his heart, he has no faith in Christ. He may have joined in succession all the churches in Christendom, from the Quaker meeting to the Roman Catholic hierarchy, and if in his heart there is not the faith that desires the lowliness of spirit which suffers long and is kind, the meekness which inherits the earth as a gift, the purity of heart which sees God, he has no faith in Christ. Faith in Christ cannot find its interpretation in any creed, however orthodox; it finds its interpretation in some hearts that do not understand nor accept any recognized orthodox creed.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God