American theologian and author (1835-1922)
When we got back to the Church we found it warm with a blazing fire in the great stove, and bright with a bevy of laughing girls, who emptied our sleigh of its contents almost before we were aware what had happened, and were impatiently demanding more. Miss Moore had proposed just to trim the pulpit-oh! but she is a shrewd manager-and we had brought evergreens enough to make two or three. But the plans had grown faster by far than we could work. One young lady had remarked how beautiful the chandelier would look with an evergreen wreath; a second had pointed out that there ought to be large festoons draping the windows; a third, the soprano, had declared that the choir had as good a right to trimming as the pulpit; a fourth, a graduate of Mount Holyoke, had proposed some mottoes, and had agreed to cut the letters, and Mr. Leacock, the store keeper, had been foraged on for pasteboard, and an extemporized table contrived on which to cut and trim them. So off we were driven again, with barely time to thaw out our half-frozen toes; and, in short, my half morning's job lengthened out to a long days hard but joyous work, before the pile of evergreens in the hall was large enough to supply the energies of the Christmas workers.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
Warm hearts are better than great thoughts.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
The combination of old and new makes Genoa a city of curious contrasts. Driving through the city, we passed along broad avenues cut through old portions of the city, the hills cut down—for Genoa is built on hills—the valleys filled up, old houses being demolished, new houses going up. We drove in five minutes from new Genoa to old Genoa, and were in streets so narrow that the residents of the upper stories might almost shake hands across the street, and easily can, and I suspect do, carry on gossip with one another; streets bounded by tenements six, eight, or even ten stories in height, the walls ornamented with ancient frescoes, peeping at us from between the articles of the week's wash hung in graceful festoons from the windows like decorations for a festal day. Now we were in a lane so narrow that there was scarce room for our carriage, which must drive on a walk lest it run over some of the children that swarm out of the crowded tenement; now in an avenue so broad as to give abundant room to the trolley line in the center of the avenue without discommoding the carriages; now we were looking up between the tenements at a narrow strip of blue sky overhead, as we might look up from the bottom of a sunless canon in Colorado; now we were looking off from a plaza on the brow of one of the encircling hills upon the city below and the harbor around which the city clusters; now we had as street companions half - dressed children and hard, weary - faced women, with colored kerchiefs for head-gear, and short skirts and sometimes ragged and dirty ones; now we had fine ladies reclining at ease in luxurious carriages as they who had never known either work or care, and theatrically appareled nurses with babies as much overdressed in their fluffy garments as their infantile brothers in the poorer quarters were underdressed in their rags and tatters. And yet in it all a certain picturesqueness of color, and, to the stranger, oddity of fashion, which went far to redeem the one aspect from mere ostentation and the other from mere squalor.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Impressions of a Careless Traveler
Revelation is unveiling. It is the disclosure of some truth not known before. There may be inspiration without revelation; there may be revelation without inspiration. One may be inspired and yet get no new view of truth; one may get a new view of truth and not be inspired. For the truth may not be inspiring. It may be, indeed, the reverse, — it may be depressing. Inspiration, then, is the influence of one spirit — and especially of the Divine Spirit — upon other spirits. Revelation is the unveiling of truth before not disclosed. To a considerable extent, the Church formerly believed in revelation other than through inspiration. The Christian evolutionist believes in revelation only through inspiration. A simple illustration will perhaps make this clear.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
The spiritual vision may be lost by non-use, as any other faculty may be lost.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God
A murder had been committed in New Jersey. A man was arrested, tried, convicted, and executed for the murder. In his dying speech he professed his innocence and charged the murder upon another man. This speech the "Times" reported. For publishing that report the man so accused brought a libel suit against the "Times." It was referred to me to ascertain what were the facts in the case and what probability there was in the charge. The result of my amateur detective work was my own conviction that, on the one hand, the charge could not be proved true, and, on the other hand, it was not wholly improbable. When the case came on for trial, the results of my inquiries were given to the jury, for the double purpose of proving that there was no malice in the publication, and that the plaintiff was so under a shadow from other circumstances that this publication could not have been a great injury to his already damaged reputation. My brother then moved to dismiss the complaint, on the ground that long-continued tradition as well as public policy justified the practice of allowing the condemned to make a speech upon the scaffold, and now that the public were no longer admitted to witness the execution, the same policy justified the press in giving that speech to the public. The question was new. The Judge reserved its determination for the opinion of the three judges at the General Term, and directed the jury to render a verdict subject to that opinion. The jury assessed the damage at six cents, and the plaintiff pursued the case no further.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Reminiscences
I firmly believe that the method which sets theological theories against scientifically ascertained facts, is fatal to the current theology and injurious to the spirit of religion; and that the method which frankly recognizes the facts of life, and appreciates the spirit of the scientists whose patient and assiduous endeavor has brought those facts to light, will commend the spirit of religion to the new generation, and will benefit--not impair--theology as a science, by compelling its reconstruction.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Problems of Life: Selections from the Writings of Rev. Lyman Abbott
Of self-sacrifice the Cross is the sublimest of all illustrations. It has cost God something to love.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Old Testament Shadows of New Testament Truths
Perhaps we expect time to work for us, when time is only given us that we may work.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
My God is in the hearts of those that seek Him ... And in my heart I carry an assurance of His love that life cannot disturb. I know His love as the babe knows its mother's love, lying upon her breast. It knows her love though it neither understands her nature nor her ways.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
It has been made the subject of some comment lately that Deacon Goodsole habitually absents himself from our Sabbath evening service. The pastor called the other day to confer with me on the subject; for he has somehow come to regard me as a convenient adviser, perhaps because I hold no office and take no very active part in the management of the Church, and so am quite free from what may be called its politics. He said he thought it quite unfortunate; not that the Deacon needed the second service himself, but that, by absenting himself from the house of God, he set a very bad example to the young people of the flock. "We cannot expect," said he, somewhat mournfully, "that the young people will come to Church, when the elders themselves stay away." At the same time he said he felt some delicacy about talking with the Deacon himself on the subject. "Of course," said he, "if he does not derive profit from my discourses I do not want to dragoon him into hearing them."
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
It is late in the fall. The summer birds have fled southward. The summer residents have fled to their city homes. The mountains have blossomed out in all the brilliance of their autumnal colors; but the transitory glory has gone and they are brown and bare. One little flurry of snow has given us warning of what is coming. The furnace has been put in order; the double windows have been put on; a storm-house has enclosed our porch; a great pile of wood lies up against the stable, giving my boy promise of plenty of exercise during the long winter. And still the summer lingers in these bright and glorious autumnal days. And of them the carpenters and the painters are making much in their work on the new library-hall.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
The first step out of this condition of indifference to sin is the state of wrath and indignation against it. This indignation is almost always aroused, in the first instance, by sins which impinge upon the individual himself. False witness may slander my neighbor, and I bear it with unexemplary patience; but if he slanders me, I am wrathful. For in the beginning nothing awakens conscience but self-love. A man may rob my neighbor, and I shall not be greatly troubled; but let him rob me, and I am full of indignation, because at first the moral nature is stirred only by selfishness. Recent history has afforded a striking illustration of this truth. The Armenians have been massacred by the Turks, the Greeks have risen in a futile revolt against the Turks. The Anglo-Saxon race has looked on with some impatience, but with unexemplary equability of temper. Had the victims of Turkish malevolence been an Anglo-Saxon people, England would have been aflame with uncontrollable indignation.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
Self-esteem is sometimes popularly confounded with approbativeness; it is in actual experience more commonly the antidote thereto. Approbativeness leads us to desire the approbation of others; self-esteem leads us to desire our own. Approbativeness asks what will others think of us; self-esteem, what shall we think of ourselves. Self-esteem tends to give its possessor independence of thought, individuality of action; to make him forceful and vigorous. It is to be found in nearly all born leaders, whether of thought or of action. Its normal and natural exercise produces self-reliance and enforces courage. If it is not excessive, it is a consciousness of power and adds to real strength of character. If it is excessive, it is an imaginary consciousness of power which has no real existence, and is a fatal weakness.
LYMAN ABBOTT
A Study in Human Nature
Oh! fools and blind, not to know the Master whose servant nature is.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Old Testament Shadows of New Testament Truths
In a religious point of view, the history of the world prior to the appearance of Christ may be briefly described as a struggle between the sensuous and the super-sensuous. That struggle was not confined to the Jewish people, nor were the educative influences, which gradually prepared the way for the life of faith on the earth, limited to Palestine. In India, Buddha protested, though in vain, against the gross idolatries of Brahminism. In China, Confucius made a similar, though no more successful attempt to supplant, with a cold but pure morality, the same imaginative but degrading worship. In Greece and Rome there were not a few pure spirits who dimly discerned and mystically interpreted the life of God in the soul. Yet, while the world has never been without some such witnesses, even in its darkest hours, on the whole the strong tendency of the human race has been to ignore the unseen world altogether. Probably to the vast majority of Christendom, and even to many Christians, Paul's expression," We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen," is a mystical expression, which they attribute to a poetical frame of mind, and interpret accordingly.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Old Testament Shadows of New Testament Truths
As I write there lies before me a letter from my late pastor. He wants to borrow $300 for a few weeks. His Board of Trustees are thus much behind-hand in the first quarter's payment. He has not the means to pay his rent. The duty of the Board in such a case is very evident. The very least they can do is to share in providing temporarily for the exigency. The very most which a mean Board could do would be to ask the minister to unite with them in paying up the deficiency. In fact, he who is least able to do it has to carry it all. Nobody else will trust the church. He has to trust it for hundreds of dollars. And then when his grocer and his landlord and his tailor go unpaid, men shrug their shoulders and say, pityingly, "Oh! he's a minister, he is not trained to business habits." And the world looks on in wonder and in silent contempt to see the Christian Church carrying on its business in a manner the flagrant dishonesty of which would close the doors of any bank, deprive any insurance company of its charter, and drive any broker in Wall street from the Brokers' Board.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
When we got back to Wheathedge, Tuesday afternoon, we found the parsonage undergoing transformations so great that you would hardly know it. Miss Moore had got Mr. Hardcap, sure enough, to repair it. She had agreed to pay for the material, and he was to furnish the labor. The fence was straightened, and the gate re-hung, and the blinds mended up, and Mr. Hardcap was on the roof patching it where it leaked or threatened to. Deacon Goodsole had a bevy of boys from the Sabbath-school at work in the garden under his direction. If there is anything the Deacon takes a pride in, next to his horse, it is his garden, and he said that the parson should have a chance for the best garden in town. Great piles of weeds stood in the walk. Two boys were spading up; another was planting; a fourth was wheeling away the weeds; and still another was bringing manure from the Deacon's stable. Miss Moore was setting out some rose-bushes before the door; and the Deacon himself, with his coat off, was trimming and tying up a rather dilapidated looking grape-vine over a still more dilapidated grape arbor.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
Jesus Christ did not come into the world merely to be a spectacle, merely to show us who and what God is, and then depart and leave us where we were before. "I am the door," He says. A door is to push open and go through. He is the door; through Him God enters into humanity. He is the door; through Him humanity enters into God. He has come into the world in order that we, coming to some knowledge and apprehension of the divine nature, coming to understand what divine justice, divine truth, divine life, divine purity, divine love are, may the better enter into that life and be ourselves filled with all the fullness of God.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
There were no such bachelor apartments in New York City in 1850 as now encourage bachelordom and discourage marriage. There were few clubs. We three brothers generally lived in hired rooms and took our meals at restaurants. Once we tried breakfasting in our own rooms, but that was expensively luxurious. Once we tried to economize by boarding in Brooklyn. Going home one late afternoon, I found a sheriff in charge, the landlady having failed and her property having been taken in execution. We had some difficulty in persuading the sheriff to let us take our property, which consisted of clothing and some books. Perhaps the fact that my brother Vaughan had at that time been admitted to the bar and had some knowledge of the law helped to overcome the reluctance of the sheriff. We camped out that night in my brother's office. I slept, I remember, on the floor, with a Webster's Dictionary for a pillow. That was our last attempt at boarding. After my brother Vaughan graduated and went to Harvard Law School and before he came back and was admitted to the bar, my brother Austin and I occupied together a room so small that when our turn-up bedstead was opened out on the floor the entrance to the room was completely blocked. One night about Christmas, my brother Vaughan arriving unexpectedly late at night, we had to make up the bed in order to let him in.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Reminiscences