American theologian and author (1835-1922)
When I first came to Wheathedge the Calvary Presbyterian church was externally, to the passer-by, distinguished chiefly for the severe simplicity of its architecture, and the plainness, not to say the homeliness, of its surroundings. It is a long, narrow, wooden structure, as destitute of ornament as Squire Line's old fashioned barn. Its only approximation to architectural display is a square tower surmounted by four tooth-picks pointing heavenward, and encasing the bell. A singular, a mysterious bell that was and is. It expresses all the emotions of the neighborhood. It passes through all the moods and inflections of a hundred hearts. To-day it rings out with soft and sacred tones its call to worship. To-morrow from its watch-tower it sees the crackling flame in some neighboring barn or tenement, and utters, with loud and hurried and anxious voice, its alarm. Anon, heavy with grief, it seems to enter, as a sympathising friend, into the very heart experiences of bereaved and weeping mourners. And when the rolling year brings round Independence day, all the fluctuations of feeling which mature and soften others are forgotten, and it trembles with the excitement of the occasion, and laughs, and shouts, and capers merrily in its homely belfry, as though it were a boy again.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
New joys usurp the old ones in her life. She did enjoy music; now to her the sweetest songs are the lullabies she sings to her own babe. She did enjoy literature; now the best literature is the stories she reads to her children. No society is to her so delightful as the society which they afford her. Better than any dance she ever shared is it to watch their frolic; the ball-room has no charms that can compete with the nursery. No eloquence thrills her heart as does the language of her children, who speak what is even to their father an unknown tongue.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Home Builder
We are not, however, to judge of a truth beforehand by the fruit which we think it will produce. It is the truth which makes free, not any kind of error. It is the truth which sanctifies men, not any kind of falsehood. All truth is safe. All error is dangerous. It is only the truth that the minister is to use. He is never to say, "This is the philosophy that my people are used to and this is the philosophy that I think will do better service, and so, though I do not believe it, I will preach it." Never! It is only the truth he is to use, but he is always to use the truth. Truth is always an instrument.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God
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
Evolution does not attempt to explain the origin of life. It is simply a history of the process of life. With the secret cause of life evolution has nothing to do. A man, therefore, may be a materialistic evolutionist or a theistic evolutionist; that is, he may believe that the cause is some single unintelligent impersonal force, or he may believe that the cause is a wise and beneficent God.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Problems of Life: Selections from the Writings of Rev. Lyman Abbott
I never fancied the country. Its numerous attractions were no attractions to me. I cannot harness a horse. I am afraid of a cow. I have no fondness for chickens—unless they are tender and well-cooked. Like the man in parable, I cannot dig. I abhor a hoe. I am fond of flowers but not of dirt, and had rather buy them than cultivate them. Of all ambition to get the earliest crop of green peas and half ripe strawberries I am innocent. I like to walk in my neighbor's garden better than to work in my own. I do not drink milk, and I do drink coffee; and I had rather run my risk with the average of city milk than with the average of country coffee. Fresh air is very desirable; but the air on the bleak hills of the Hudson in March is at times a trifle too fresh. The pure snow as it lies on field, and fence, and tree, is beautiful, I confess. But when one goes out to walk, it is convenient to have the sidewalks shoveled.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
Little leading makes much following.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
Reader, if you are out of Christ you are living in the city of Destruction. There is but a hand's-breadth between you and death. But there is deliverance. The mountain of refuge is not far off. A voice, sweeter than that of angels, and far mightier to save, cries out to you, Escape for thy life; look not behind thee; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed. It is the voice of the Son of God. The irreparable past he effaces with his blood. The wasted life he makes to bloom again. "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners"—not to teach, not to govern, but to save. For he comes not as a pilot to give safe voyage to vessels yet whole and strong; but to those already lying on the rocks and beaten in the angry surf, threatened every moment with engulfment, he conies, to succor, to rescue, to save. There is death in delay. There is safety only in the Savior's arms. "Haste thee; escape thither."
LYMAN ABBOTT
Old Testament Shadows of New Testament Truths
God is our native air. The godless soul gasps out a feeble life in a vacuum. "I will not leave you orphans," saith Christ; "I will come to you." Yet, despite this promise, how many orphaned Christians there are. They are not exactly fatherless. They have a memory of a father in the dim past. They have a hope of a Father in the far future. But now they live without him. They are like travelers in a long and gloomy tunnel. They look back to the days of the patriarchs and prophets. There is light there. They look forward to the revelations of the future life. There is light there. But here and now it is dark.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Old Testament Shadows of New Testament Truths
But the philosopher will also perceive that the doctrine of evolution does not necessarily mean that the geniuses of a later age will transcend those of the earlier ages. The spiritual evolutionist does not believe that man is the mere creature of his circumstances. He does not believe that "the differences between one nation and another, whether in intellect, commerce, art, morals, or general temperament, ultimately depend, not upon any mysterious properties of race, nationality, or any other unknown and unintelligible abstractions, but simply and solely upon the physical circumstances to which they are exposed." He does not deny the reality of character, and the effect of character on life. He does not think that "if W. Shakespeare had died of cholera infantum, another mother at Stratford-upon-Avon would needs have engendered a duplicate copy of him, — just as the same stream of water will reappear, no matter how often you pass a sponge over the leak, so long as the outside level remains the same." All that the believer in evolution and revelation affirms or is called upon by his philosophy to affirm is that spiritual development in the Hebrew race was analogous in its process to the spiritual development to be seen in other peoples. There is one characteristic feature in all such development which calls for greater consideration than I think has yet been given to it. Evolution in the race appears rather in a broadening of capacity to receive than in a creation of capacity to impart. At certain epochs great men appear who, as types, seem never to be surpassed in subsequent generations. But the capacity to understand and appreciate is surpassed in subsequent generations. Greater writers of epic than Homer, greater writers of philosophy than Plato and Aristotle, greater dramatists than Shakespeare, the world has never seen. We are still studying Homer, Plato, Shakespeare, with profit; they are still our teachers. But more people understand them, and understand them better, than in their own time. So, greater interpreters of the divine law than Moses, greater preachers of righteousness and mercy than Amos and Hosea, greater singers of God and the divine life than the authors of the Psalter — let me say, than David, whom I count the greatest of them all — greater interpreters of the Christ life than Paul, never have lived, — perhaps never will live. We do not look for evolution to produce greater poets than Homer, Dante, Milton, and Shakespeare, nor greater teachers of righteousness than Moses, David, Isaiah, and Paul. But the phenomenon which we call inspiration in the realm of religious thought is not more mysterious than the phenomenon which we call genius in the realm of secular thought. Perhaps the best explanation of both is that each is a scintillation of the mind of God in and through the minds of men. Certainly the one is as consistent with theistic evolution as the other. Such men are the instruments of growth; if the reader pleases, the seeds of future life.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
The mother who tries to keep her child away from all temptation simply prepares the boy for a terrible fall when he gets old enough to leave the home. It is not by taking away the bonds, it is by giving strength to the man that he may break the bonds, that he is redeemed. Every man is like a Samson bound by his enemies, and he must acquire the strength within himself to break them.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
Literature, music, art, and the stage were thought to be only for bohemians, who were regarded as the unpractical estrays of life who could do nothing better than act, paint, play, and write stories.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Reminiscences
If the consciousness of God is possible to all healthful souls, why are so many men and women without this consciousness? There are men and women, not a few, who do not want God. They would be very glad to have God if he were always on their side; glad to have God if he would always do what they want him to do. But a supreme will ... a masterful will, a will to which they must conform, they do not want.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God
The forgiveness of sins is, in my thinking of it, no longer an exceptional, episodical manifestation of a supernatural grace; it is the revelation and effect of the habit of mind of the Eternal Father toward all his children. The laws of forgiveness are a part of the laws of the Almighty and the All-gracious. It is said that the violation of natural law is never forgiven. It is said that if you put your finger in the candle, it will burn, pray as you will, and if you fall from your horse, you will break a bone, however pious you may be; whether the bone breaks or not depends, not upon your piety, but upon your age. Is it indeed true that there is no forgiveness in natural law? What a strange-looking audience this would be if there were none. The boy cuts his finger and nature begins to heal it; he breaks his arm — nature begins to knit the bone; he burns his finger — nature provides a new skin. Nature, that is, God, implants in man himself the help-giving powers that remove disease; and, in addition, stores the world full of remedies also, so that specifics may be found for almost every disease to which flesh is heir. The laws of healing are wrought into the physical realm; they are a part of the divine economy; and shall we think that He who helps the man to a new skin and to a new bone cares nothing for his moral nature, and will not help him when he has fallen into sin?
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God
We celebrate on Christmas, not the birth of Santa Claus, the patron saint of the children; not merely the birth of the Christ-child, symbol of all innocent childhood; nor yet alone the birth of the martyr-hero, leader and type of all who have lived and loved and suffered for their race. We celebrate a new unveiling of God to humanity, the dwelling of God in humanity. We celebrate the day when the love of God dawned on the world and the fear of the gods began slowly and sullenly to give way before the coming of the new day. Every year Christmas repeats its message: Fear God no more. He brings liberty to the enslaved, light to the despairing, purer joy to the glad. He is the Comforter of the sorrowing, the Physician of the sick, the Healer of the sinful, the Friend and Companion of man.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God
To some it seems a profanation to think of God as suffering. To me it is a profanation to think of him as incapable of suffering. Love suffers when the loved one suffers. If God is love, God knows the sorrows as well as the joys of love. If Jesus Christ is God manifest in the flesh, the tears shed at the grave of Lazarus and at the prospective destruction of Jerusalem are divine tears. To me the greatness of the infinite power and skill manifested at the same moment in the most distant star and in our globe by the forth-putting of the same wisdom and power is not so marvelous as the greatness of soul manifested in a sympathy which can share at one and the same time the joys of the wedding and the sorrows of the funeral. But why should I believe his power and his skill are infinite and refuse to believe that his sympathies are infinite? His children crowd about him, some with their gratitude, some with their reproaches, some exultant with victory, some humiliated by their defeats, some joyous, some in tears, some saints with songs and some sinners with hopeless penitence, and he is not distraught. He hears all voices, shares all experiences, ministers to all needs.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God
We think that we have gotten rid of idolatry because we no longer worship painted or carved images, as though these where the only idols.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God
No man will find God unless he seeks after God for God's own sake, loves him for himself, and not for the gifts which he may bestow.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God
A village I have called it. It certainly is neither town nor city. There is a little centre where there is a livery stable, and a country store with the Post Office attached, and a blacksmith shop, and two churches, a Methodist and a Presbyterian, with the promise of a Baptist church in a lecture-room as yet unfinished. This is the old centre; there is another down under the hill where there is a dock, and a railroad station, and a great hotel with a big bar and generally a knot of loungers who evidently do not believe in the water-cure. And between the two there is a constant battle as to which shall be the town. For the rest, there is a road wandering in an aimless way along the hill-side, like a child at play who is going nowhere, and all along this road are scattered every variety of dwelling, big and little, sombre and gay, humble and pretentious, which the mind of man ever conceived of,—and some of which I devoutly trust the mind of man will never again conceive. There are solid substantial Dutch farm-houses, built of unhewn stone, that look as though they were outgrowths of the mountain, which nothing short of an earthquake could disturb; and there are fragile little boxes that look as though they would be swept away, to be seen no more forever, by the first winter's blast that comes tearing up the gap as though the bag of Eolus had just been opened at West Point and the imprisoned winds were off with a whoop for a lark. There are houses in sombre grays with trimmings of the same; and there are houses in every variety of color, including one that is of a light pea-green, with pink trimmings and blue blinds. There are old and venerable houses, that look as though they might have come over with Peter Stuyvesant and been living at Wheathedge ever since; and there are spruce little sprigs of houses that look as though they had just come up from New York to spend a holiday, and did not rightly know what to do with themselves in the country. There are staid and respectable mansions that never move from the even tenor of their ways; and there are houses that change their fashions every season, putting on a new coat of paint every spring; and there is one that dresses itself out in summer with so many flags and streamers that one might imagine Fourth of July lived there.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
Last Sabbath evening, on my way to church, I stopped, according to promise, to see the Deacon. As I went up the steps I heard the sound of music, and waited a moment lest I should disturb the family's evening devotions. But as the music continued, and presently the tune changed, I concluded to knock. Nettie, the Deacon's youngest daughter, who by the way is a great favorite with me, answered the knock almost instantly. The open hymn-book was in her hand, and before I could get time to ask for the Deacon, she had, in her charmingly impulsive way, dragged me in, snatched my hat from my hand, deposited it on the table, and pushed me into the parlor. In fact, before I well knew what I was about, I found myself in the big arm-chair with Nettie in my lap, taking part in the Deacon's second service.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish