American theologian and author (1835-1922)
The most beautiful statue that Powers ever chiseled does not compare for grace and beauty with the Divine model. The same mystic element of life is wanting.
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
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
There are some metaphysical and abstract arguments for the opinion that the mind, the I within, that controls the body, what the Germans call the ego—which is Latin for I—is simple, not complex; that is, one power operating in different ways and doing different things. I am myself inclined to think that the better opinion; but it is not necessary here to go into this question at all, for what we are going to study is not the mind itself, but human nature, that is, the operations of the mind. And there is no doubt that the operations of the mind are complex. There may be, I am inclined to think there is, but one power, which perceives and thinks and feels and wills; but perceiving and thinking and feeling and willing are very different actions, and it is only with the actions that we have to do.
LYMAN ABBOTT
A Study in Human Nature
The Bible is not one homogeneous book, but a collection of literature, gathered out of a much larger range of literature, and embodying the history of the growth of the consciousness of God in one people, preeminent among the peoples of their time for the perception of God. It is the sifted utterances of the chosen prophets of a peculiar people, peculiar in their spiritual genius. It is inspired, because the lives of the men and the hearts of the writers were lifted above the common errors and prejudices of their time; not because they were wholly freed from human prejudice and misconception. It contains a revelation of God; but the revelation is one in human experience, and subject to the adumbrations of human experience.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
She cannot understand how any woman should not want children, to be her companions and to trust in her, love her, reverence her; children whom she may nurse, protect, teach, guide, govern, mold into manhood and womanhood. To have this possession has been her dream ever since with alternate tenderness and severity she ruled her dolls. The hoped-for hour has come. She welcomes it with a gladsome awe. As she prepares to enter the unknown experience of motherhood, her heart is stirred, but more deeply, with all the glad apprehension with which she entered married life as bride. She goes to that mystic gateway which opens into the infinite beyond, and receives into her keeping God's gift of a little child. She wonders at the Father's confidence in her, wonders that He dares to trust so sacred a task to her care. But one child is not enough. She wishes a brood. The Oriental passion of motherhood possesses her. Another child is given to her, a third, a fourth. They cluster about her, sharing with each other and with her their songs and their sorrows, their toils and their sports. The Holy Family has reappeared again. No old master ever painted such a group; no Raphael ever interpreted, no painter could interpret, her holy gladness.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Home Builder
Among the various types of woman's character which the Bible affords us—and nearly every type of womanly excellence is to be found within its pages, the singer, the preacher, the warrior, the ruler, and, highest and most excellent of all, the faithful wife and mother—two possess peculiar pre-eminence, because they have christened with their names the books which narrate the story of their lives. One of these books—an idyl, a poem in prose—is the story of a peasant-girl who became mother of kings. It is full of a quiet, rural charm which has invested the very name of Ruth with a peculiar tenderness. The other carries us among courts and court intrigues, in times of direst peril, and narrates plots and counter-plots as marvelous and exciting as imagination ever conceived. It is the story of a nation saved by the brave fidelity of a single faithful woman, who, by her queenly courage, has made the name of Esther truly regal through all time.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Old Testament Shadows of New Testament Truths
Besides looking at the house we asked the usual house-hunting questions. Mr. Sinclair was in the city. He wanted to sell because he was going to Europe in the spring to educate his children. He would sell his place for $10,000 or rent it for $800. For the summer? No! for the year. He did not care to rent it for the summer, nor to give possession before fall. Would he rent the furniture? Yes, if one wanted it. But that would be extra. How much land was there? About two acres. Any fruit? Pears, peaches, and the smaller fruits—strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries. Whereupon Jennie and I bowed ourselves out and went away.
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
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
Oh! fools and blind, not to know the Master whose servant nature is.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Old Testament Shadows of New Testament Truths
Christ is the manifestation of God, not of certain attributes of God or certain phases of his administration. There is no justice to be feared in God that was not manifested in Christ; there is no mercy to attract in Christ that is not eternally in God.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Letters to Unknown Friends
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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