American theologian and author (1835-1922)
Temperance is not one of the virtues for which Wheathedge is, or ought to be, famous. I know not where you will find cooler springs of more delicious water, than gush from its mountain sides. I know not where you will find grapes for home wine-that modern recipe for drunkenness-more abundant or more admirably adapted to the vintner's purpose. But the springs have few customers, and one man easily makes all the domestic wine which the inhabitants of Wheathedge consume. But at the landing there are at least four grog-shops which give every indication of doing a thriving business, beside Poole's, half-way to the Mill village; to say nothing of the bar the busiest room by all odds, at Guzzem's hotel, busiest, alas! on the Sabbath day.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
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
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
A Miracle — that is, an extraordinary event arresting attention and awakening wonder, accomplishing some beneficent work, and by its manifestation of a superhuman power serving as a sign of a divine message or messenger — may either be in accordance with human experience or may transcend human experience. The first is as truly a miracle as the second; what constitutes it a miracle is not that it is an event out of the ordinary course of nature, but that it serves effectually as a sign of superhuman power in the accomplishment of a moral end. The two greatest miracles of the Old Testament are not events transcending human experience; they were wrought by what we customarily call natural forces, and in accordance with what we call natural laws. What made them miracles was such an evident connection with a moral end that they served as signs of the directing presence of a moral Person, possessing superhuman power. The first of these miracles was the destruction of the Cities of the Plain, the second the passage of the Red Sea by the children of Israel.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
Jesus Christ is not a manifestation of certain attributes or qualities of God; he is God manifest in the flesh. He is not a temporary manifestation of God's mercy or pity, leaving his justice and his anger to be revealed in the future. There is no justice and no wrath in God which is not manifested in Jesus Christ; and there is no pity and no mercy in Jesus Christ which is not a reflection of the eternal pity and mercy of God. "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." To understand Jesus Christ is to understand God.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God
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
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
A graceful and blessed old age must have three elements in it: a happy retrospect, a peaceful present, and an inspiring future. And old age cannot have either one of these three if the youth has been wasted and manhood has been misspent.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Problems of Life: Selections from the Writings of Rev. Lyman Abbott
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
If I had only life's book to read ... I should not believe in a God of love. I should turn Persian, and believe in two gods, one of love and good-will, one of hate and malice.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
Jesus Christ did not manifest all the qualities of God. There is greater manifestation of power in the earthquake and the tornado than was manifested in the stilling of the tempest; greater mechanical skill manifested in the flower than in anything that Christ wrought; greater affluence of beneficence in every annual harvest than in the feeding of five thousand. But the love, the patience, the fidelity, the truth, the long-suffering, the heart of the Infinite and Eternal Energy, comes to its fruition and its manifestation in this one incomparable life.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
God is always manifesting Himself, and He is manifesting Himself by successive manifestations: first in nature; then in the prophets; then in an inspired race; last of all, in one man whom He fills full of Himself.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
Man is not only the supreme result of evolution thus far, — he is the final result of evolution; there is nothing beyond him. If one asks, How do we know that there may not be something inconceivable to us beyond? the answer is, We cannot know; but in our attempt to unriddle the enigma of the universe we must think with our faculties and be governed by our limitations, and we can conceive nothing higher than man. We can conceive of man infinitely improved; we can conceive of him cultivated, developed, enlarged, enriched, purified; but of anything essentially higher than man — no. Nothing can be conceived higher than to think, to will, to love. If we look back along the pages of history, these two truths we have learned from the universe: first, that all its processes have been for the purpose of manifesting One who thinks, who wills, who loves; second, that the purpose in the manifestation of this One is the creation of a race of free moral agents, who can themselves think and will and love. The inorganic world existed before the vegetable, and the vegetable world existed before the animal, and the lower animal existed before man, but man exists for nothing beyond. The very topmost round of the ladder has been reached: to know right from wrong, to do the right and eschew the wrong, to understand invisible distinctions, to perceive the invisible world, to struggle toward something higher and yet higher, and yet always to know, to resolve, to love, — this is supreme.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
But order is not itself a virtue: it is only a means to an end. The end is general comfort and general convenience, and she never sacrifices the end to the means.
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
Real human nature is made up of curious contradictions. Strangely conflicting master-passions struggle for the victory.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Old Testament Shadows of New Testament Truths
Whatever may be thought of "woman's sphere," it is certain that its boundaries have been steadily enlarged; that an increased liberty, not only of secular employments and civil rights, but also of social intercourse, has been accorded to her with increasing civilization; and that, so far from losing, either in the delicacy and refinement of her own character, or in the chivalric homage paid to her by man, she has gained in both respects in the same ratio in which she has been freed from the trammels of an unnatural conventionalism, and elevated to a position of real equality with the dominant sex.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Old Testament Shadows of New Testament Truths
The sexual passion is essential to the perfection of the race. It repeats and emphasizes the divine command given by God to our first parents: "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth." Without it the family would be impossible.
LYMAN ABBOTT
A Study in Human Nature
Religion is the life of God in the soul of man. Belief in the reality of religion involves belief that God is, and that He stands in some personal relation to man. But it is not an opinion respecting God, nor an opinion respecting His influence in the world of men. It is a personal consciousness of God. It is a human experience, but an experience of relationship with One who transcends humanity. The creed is not religion; the creed is a statement of what certain men think about religion. Worship is not religion; worship is a method of expressing religion. The church is not religion; the church is an organization of men and women, formed for the purpose of promoting religion. Religion precedes creeds, worship, church; that is, the life precedes men's thoughts about the life, men's expression of the life, men's organizations formed to promote the life. Religion may be personal or social; that is, it may be the consciousness of God in the individual soul, or it may be the concurrent consciousness of God in a great number of individuals, producing a social or communal life. In either case it is a life, not an opinion about life. It is not a definition of God, it is fellowship with Him; not a definition of sin, but sorrow because of sin; not a definition of forgiveness, but relief from remorse; not a definition of redemption, but a new and divine life.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
The artist does not really create; he discovers.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Great Companion