American theologian and author (1835-1922)
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
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The Theology of an Evolutionist
When I went to college we studied chemistry sitting in our seats, while the professor of chemistry revealed certain chemical truths to us, performing the operations in the laboratory for us while we looked on. We saw them, went away, — and forgot what we had learned. To-day the student of chemistry goes into the laboratory himself. The teacher does not directly reveal the truth to him, but patiently inspires him to study for himself; encourages him, guides him, directs him, shows him how to make his own investigations. Under the influence of that guidance, that direction, that counsel, that inspiration, the student works out the chemical laws for himself as though he were a new investigator. He also gets a revelation. But it is a gradual revelation, under the inspiring influence of a teacher. The modern Christian evolutionist believes that revelation has been made in this manner to the world; that God has inspired men in their quest for truth, and that under that inspiration, studying, meditating, laboring, they find their way to the truth.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
The true coronation of character is love. The true test of love is self-sacrifice. He knows not how to love who knows not how to suffer for love's sake. The love that costs nothing is worth—what it costs.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Old Testament Shadows of New Testament Truths
Among the names which redeem human nature from the dark pall of sin and shame which envelops the race, and give a true interpretation to the divine declaration that God made man in his own image, none is more illustrious than that of Moses. His name is brightest of all the stars that illumine the dark night which, from the days of the Garden of Eden to those of the Garden of Gethsemane, settled over the earth. Notwithstanding the lapse of three thousand years, it is still undimmed by time, which effaces so much that seems to its own age to be glorious, and buries in oblivion so much that is really ignominious. The founder of a great nation, his name will be held in lasting remembrance so long as the promise of God holds good, and the Hebrew race preserves, though scattered to the four quarters of the earth, its sacred records and its national identity. The founder, under God, of those principles of political economy which underlie every free state, his name will be more and more honored as those principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity, which were the foundation of the Hebrew commonwealth, are more generally recognized and adopted by the voice of mankind. More resplendent even than his inspired genius are that moral courage, that indomitable and unselfish purpose, and that manly yet humble piety, which are far too seldom united to a tenacious ambition and a powerful intellect. Deservedly honored as the greatest of all statesmen, he is yet more to be honored for those sentiments of commingled patriotism and piety, which lead him to reject a life of apparent glory, though real disgrace, for one of seeming ignominy, but real and undying glory.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Old Testament Shadows of New Testament Truths
The story of Sodom and Gomorrah epitomizes the Gospel. Every act in the great, the awful drama of life is here foreshadowed. The analogy is so perfect that we might almost be tempted to believe that this story is a prophetic allegory, did not nature itself witness its historic truthfulness.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Old Testament Shadows of New Testament Truths
The story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is one of the most extraordinary in the Old Testament. It is singularly attested by the imperishable witness of the mountains and the sea. Skepticism may scout at the plagues of Egypt; may smile incredulously at the marvelous deliverance of Israel through the Red Sea; may look with ill-concealed pity upon those who, fed daily by God's bounty, believe that God fed the hungry Israelites in the wilderness; may account the stories of the marvels which he wrought in answer to the prayers of Elijah the legends of a romantic age, and reject with ridicule the assertion of the apostle that the effectual fervent prayer of the righteous man availeth much; it will find nowhere in the Bible a story more extraordinary and intrinsically incredible than that of the destruction of the cities of the plain. Yet to deny this, it must not only impugn the sacred writers, but must also repudiate the traditions of heathen nations reported by secular historians, and refuse to listen to the silent testimony of nature itself. For, until the vision of Ezekiel is fulfilled, and the sacred waters, flowing from God's holy hill, heal the waters of the Salt Sea and give life again to this valley of death—until mercy shall conquer justice in nature as it already has in human experience, this scene of desolation will remain, a terrible witness to the reality of God's justice, and the fearfulness of his judgments.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Old Testament Shadows of New Testament Truths
I hear men talk as though prayer were of no avail unless we believe beforehand with assurance that we were going to receive all for which we asked. It is not true. We are not heard for our much asking, nor for much our believing, but for God's great mercy's sake.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
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
Brevity is the soul of the prayer-meeting.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
The sermon was on the words—"Do this in remembrance of me." It was a doctrinal sermon. I am not sure that it might not have been a useful one—in the sixteenth century. It was a sermon against Romanism and Lutheranism and High Church episcopacy. The minister told us what were the various doctrines of the communion. He analyzed them and dismissed them one after another. He showed very conclusively, to us Protestants, that the Romanists are wrong, to us Presbyterians that the Episcopalians are wrong, to us who are open Communionists that the close Communionists are wrong. As there does not happen to be either Romanist, Episcopalian, or close Communionist in our congregation, I cannot say how efficacious his arguments would have been if addressed to any one who was in previous doubt as to his conclusions. Then he proceeded to expound what he termed the rational and Scriptural doctrine of communion. It is, he told us, simply a memorial service. It simply commemorates the past. "As," said he, "every year, the nation gathers to strew flowers upon the graves of its patriot soldiers, so this day the Christian Church gathers to strew with flowers of love and praise the grave of the Captain of our salvation. As in the one act all differences are forgotten, and the nation is one in the sacred presence of death, so in the other, creeds and doctrines vanish, and the Church of Christ appears at the foot of Calvary as one in Christ Jesus."
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
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
The Bible is the casket which contains the image of my Master.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Letters to Unknown Friends
If I am to tell you how to grow old gracefully, I must tell you at the beginning of life; for no man can grow old gracefully unless he begins early.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Problems of Life: Selections from the Writings of Rev. Lyman Abbott
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
God is revealing Himself to humanity. He is a Word, always speaking. He speaks through His works; all nature interprets Him to us. He speaks through His prophets; all men who have felt the inspiration of His presence interpret Him to us.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
The question has been and will be asked whether he who believes in the evolution of revelation must not believe that spiritual development will not give the Church greater prophets than Israel, and greater apostles than Paul; whether, in short, it is not time to construct a new Bible out of modern literature, which will take the place of the older Bible, composed wholly of Hebrew literature. It might, perhaps, be a sufficient reply, for one in a polemical mood, that there is no objection to the construction of such a Bible, which, when constructed, would have to take its place with the Hebrew Bible in a struggle for existence with a resultant survival of the fittest. Certainly no one who believes in the Bible as a supreme book would fear the challenge. It might be further added that most devout souls do supplement the Bible by other and more modern devotional literature. We nourish our spiritual life, not only on the lyrics of the Hebrew Psalter, but also on those of Faber and Whittier; not only on the stories of Ruth and Esther, but also on that of the Pilgrim's Progress; not only on the Gospel of John and the Epistles of Paul, but also on the Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis and the Holy Living and the Holy Dying by Jeremy Taylor. The spirit of the Bible has run far beyond the confines of that ancient literature; and wherever one finds in spoken or in written word that which clarifies faith, strengthens hope, and enriches love, he is finding a Bible message, whoever interprets it to him.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
Conscience is the factor which recognizes the inherent and essential distinction between right and wrong, and which impels to the right and dissuades from the wrong. It does not come within the province of this book to discuss either the basis of ethics or its laws; to consider either why some things are wrong and others are right, nor to point out what is wrong and what is right. That belongs to moral science, not to mental science. It must suffice here to say that the distinction between right and wrong is recognized in all peoples, and is one of the first objects of perception in childhood. Standards differ in different races and in different ages. The power of moral discrimination is subject to education both for good and for evil. But the sense of ought is as universal as the sense of beauty. That there is a right and a wrong is as evident to every mind as that there is a wise and a foolish, a beautiful and an ugly, a pleasant and a disagreeable.
LYMAN ABBOTT
A Study in Human Nature
Vanity of vanities, all is vanity, saith the preacher. To which I add, especially husbands. No man is proof against the flatteries of love. At least I am not, and I am glad of it.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
What most impressed me about Gibraltar was not Gibraltar but the snow-capped mountains opposite. Africa and mountains! Africa and snow-capped mountains! Of course I had read of the Pillars of Hercules, and knew that Gibraltar had his twin opposite. Of course I knew that all northern Africa was not sandy desert. And yet I could not believe my eyes. No! These are not clouds resting on the top of the hills; they are snow-caps on the mountains. What is it, I wonder, that always so stirs me in the view of mountains? Other landscapes I forget, or carry in my memory only as a blurred photograph. But the mountains—the Camden hills seen from Penobscot Bay, the Mount Desert range seen from the ocean, the White Mountain range seen from Fryeburg, Pike's Peak from Colorado Springs, Mont Blanc from Chamounix, the Langdale Pikes in Westmoreland—shall I ever forget them? Coming to this range of African mountains from the sea, it greets me like an apparition of an old friend in an unexpected place. While the rest of the passengers are crowding the larboard side to watch Gibraltar, I come back again and again to the view of the African mountains on the opposite side.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Impressions of a Careless Traveler
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