American theologian and author (1835-1922)
If the brain is impaired the mind is invariably affected; if, on the other hand, the brain is uninjured, the mental and moral powers will remain unaffected, though the rest of the body may be to all intents and purposes well-nigh dead. It is true that the brain is so closely connected with the nervous system, which pervades the whole body, that any thing which impairs the nerves of the body impairs the brain, and therefore affects the mind; but the general principle, that every other part of the body may be weakened and the mind be left comparatively unimpaired, provided the brain is uninjured, has had many striking illustrations in the history of great mental work achieved by chronic invalids. A very striking illustration of this is afforded by the extraordinary story of John Carter. At the age of twenty-one he fell from the branch of a tree, forty feet in height, and was taken up unconscious. Examination showed a severe injury to the spinal column, effectually disconnecting the brain from the rest of the nervous system, and depriving the body of all power of motion from the neck downward. He soon recovered consciousness, but never moved a limb again. But his brain, and with it the powers of his mind and spirit, were unimpaired. From being ungodly and ignorant, he became both devout and intelligent, a great reader, and soon learned to write, to draw, and even to paint, holding the pencil or the camel's hair brush between his teeth, enlarging or reducing the copies before him with great artistic skill and perfect success. He lived in this condition for fourteen years, his whole body from the neck downward being paralyzed and helpless, while his mind and spirit were not only uninjured but grew brighter and clearer to the end. It was evident that the accident which had left only the head uninjured had left all the organs of thought and feeling uninjured.
LYMAN ABBOTT
A Study in Human Nature
Carry your daily affairs to God. Ask his guidance in every emergency. Expect discoveries of his will. Let the promise of his help quicken all your faculties. Act for yourself energetically. Judge for yourself thoughtfully. Look unto God trustingly. Then will God both act and judge for you.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Old Testament Shadows of New Testament Truths
Man, then, is an animal, and has ascended from a lower animal; but he is something immeasurably more than an animal. How did he get this something more? At what stage in his existence was it implanted in him? In what way? On this point the Church has never agreed. Theologians have been divided in opinion into four schools, giving four separate answers to this question. The first is creationism, — the doctrine that into every man, at some stage of his existence, presumptively at the time of his birth, God, by a miraculous or supernatural act, implants the divine spirit. The second is traducianism, — the doctrine that at some period in the history of the human race God breathed the breath of divine life into some remote ancestor, and that the race has inherited that breath of life throughout all subsequent ages. The third is evolutionism, — the doctrine that this higher life of man, this moral, this ethical, this spiritual nature, has been developed by natural processes as the higher physical phases of life have been developed by natural processes. The fourth is conditional immortality, — the doctrine that the spiritual nature is developed and made dominant in men only as by faith they lay hold on God, and that there are men upon the earth who to all intents and purposes are but little higher than the animals, and will sink back into the animal and finally become extinct. Whichever of these views one holds, he may still hold that man is two men. He may think that the divine element is implanted in each individual at birth; or he may think that it was implanted in some individual at a certain point in the race development and has since been inherited by all his posterity; or he may think that it is implanted by a special act of divine grace, not in all individuals, but only in a certain elect circle, — those whom God chooses, or those who choose to accept it; or he may believe that it comes through evolutionary process eventually to all men, growing gradually out of that which is not spiritual; but, whichever theory of its origin he entertains, he may be sure that this spiritual life exists to-day. We have the spiritual life, — the life of conscience, faith, hope, love. On this fact religion is based; it does not depend on the question where this spiritual life came from, or at what point in the development of the race or the individual it began to appear. For religion has to do with what is and what is to be. It leaves science to deal with the past.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
So the end draws daily nearer, and no one guesses it except herself. Her life is not ebbing away, it is at its flood. She has trained herself in the habit of immortality, the habit of looking, not at the things which are seen and are transitory, but at the things which are not seen and are eternal. Her anticipatory ambitions for her children and her grandchildren are boundless, and the hopes for herself which made radiant the dawn of her life seem dim beside the higher hopes for her loved ones which fill life's eventide with sunshine. Her husband and herself are lovers still; the honeymoon has never set, never even waned; and to his love is added that of those whom God has given to her. She thinks to live naturally is the best preparation for dying peacefully; rarely, therefore, does she allow herself to forecast the coming day. When she does, not with dread but with a solemn gladness she looks forward to emancipation from the irksome bonds of the fettering body and to embarkation for that unknown continent where many colonists are already gathered to give her greeting. Faith, hope, love — these are life. And her faith was never so clear, for her heart was never so pure; her hopes were never so great, for experience has enlarged them; and her love was never so rich, for God, who is love, has been her life Companion.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Home Builder
Which is worthier, the music or the libretto? It is hard to say. But this is certain, that perfect music often redeems a prosaic libretto.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Home Builder
He who looks for the worst in men will not be without belief in a personal devil; he who looks for the best in men will not be without faith in a personal God.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God
God is infinite and we are finite; and, at the best, we can only know him a very little.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God
Devout seekers after God are not infrequently separated from him by sorrow. It is said that sorrow brings one to God. So it sometimes does. But it sometimes estranges from God. Great sorrow often makes it seem for the time as though life were unjust, and there were no God ruling in the universe. This is a very common experience. It was the experience of Job in his distress, of the Psalmist in his exile, of Paul in his struggle with life and death, and principalities and powers, and things present and things to come. It was in the experience of the Master himself when he cried, " My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" If when we look out upon life and see its travail of pain, or when the anguish of life enters our own soul and embitters it, the sun sometimes seems blotted out of the heavens, and God seems gone, we are not to chide ourselves; we are to remember that our experience of temporary oblivion of the Almighty is an experience which the devout in all ages have known. Wait thou his time. Blessed is he who in such an hour of sorrow, when it seems as though God were departing, still holds to him, and cries, "My God! my God!"
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God
Behind all forms of beauty there is an infinite unity, and this unity, this intrinsic and eternal beauty, the artist is seeking to discern and to make others discern.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Great Companion
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
The spiritual vision may be lost by non-use, as any other faculty may be lost.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God
When a man begins to justify the ways of God to man, he has entered on a very dangerous process.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God
That God is in nature, filling it with himself, as the spirit fills the body with its presence, so that all nature forces are but expressions of the divine will, and all nature laws but habits of divine action -- this is the doctrine of Fatherhood.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Letters to Unknown Friends
There are modern writers on law that may be as valuable as Moses; there are poems of Browning and Tennyson and our own Whittier that are far more pervaded with the Christlike spirit than some on the Hebrew Psalmody. But there is no life like the life of Christ.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Letters to Unknown Friends
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
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
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
Theology is the science of religion. It is the result of an attempt made by men to state in an orderly and systematic manner the facts respecting the life of God in the soul of man. It involves intellectual definition of the various forms of consciousness which constitute the religious life. Its relation to religion is the relation of other sciences to the vital phenomena which they endeavor to explain. With the growth of the human intellect there comes a wiser study of life, a better understanding of it, a new definition of its terms, and a new classification of its phenomena. The life does not change, but man's understanding of it changes. There is a new astronomy, though the stars are old; a new botany, though vegetable life is unchanged; a new chemistry, though the constituent elements of the universe are the same. So there is a new theology, though not a new religion. God, sin, repentance, forgiveness, love, remain essentially unchanged, but the definitions of God, sin, repentance, forgiveness, and love are changed from generation to generation. There is as little danger of undermining religion by new definitions of theology as there is of blotting out the stars from the heavens by a new astronomy. But as religion is the life of God in the soul of man, definitions which give to man a clearer and a more intelligible understanding of that life will promote it, and definitions which are, or seem to be, irrational, will tend to impede or impair it. To this extent theology affects the religious life as other sciences do not affect the life with which they have to deal.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
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