American theologian and author (1835-1922)
We rode along in silence. Willie Gear was his father's pride and pet. He was a noble boy. He inherited his mother's tenderness and patience, and with them his father's acute and questioning intellect. He was a curious combination of a natural skeptic and a natural believer. He had welcomed the first step toward converting our Bible-class into a mission Sabbath-school, and had done more than any one else to fill it up with boys from the Mill village. He was a great favorite with them all and their natural leader in village sports and games. There was no such skater or swimmer for his age as Willie Gear, and he was the champion ball-player of the village. But I remember him best as a Sabbath-school scholar. I can see even now his earnest upturned face and his large blue eyes, looking strait into his mother's answering gaze, and drinking in every word she uttered to that mission-class which he had gathered and which she every Sabbath taught. He was not very fortunate in his teacher in our own church Sabbath-school. For he took nothing on trust and his teacher doubted nothing. I can easily imagine how his soul filled with indignation at the thought of Abraham's offering up his only son as a burnt sacrifice, and how with eager questioning he plied his father, unsatisfied himself with the assurances of one who had never experienced a like perplexity, and therefore did not know how to cure it.
LYMAN ABBOTT
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Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
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
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
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
"The words of Jesus," I continued more slowly than before "have changed the life and character of more than half the world, that half which alone possesses modern civilization, that half with which you and I, Mr. Gear, are most concerned. There was wonderful power in the doctrines of Buddha. But Buddhism has relapsed everywhere into the grossest of idolatries. There is a wonderful wealth of moral truth in the ethics of Confucius. But the ethics of Confucius have not saved the Chinese nation from stagnation and death. There is wonderful life-awaking power in the writings of Plato. But they are hid from the common people in a dead language, and when a Prof. Jowett gives them glorious resurrection in our vernacular, they are still hid from the common people by their subtlety. Every philosopher ought to study Plato. Every scholar may profitably study Buddha and Confucius. But every intelligent American ought to study the life and words of Jesus of Nazareth."
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
Little leading makes much following.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
It is not a bad method, by the way, of judging a sermon to try it and see how it works in actual experiment.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
It is a poor sort of fatalism which makes men fold their hands and wait for fortune.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Old Testament Shadows of New Testament Truths
"God is love," says the apostle. We might almost transpose the apothegm, and say "Love is God." That is, it is love which renders him worthy of our worship. It is not the power which made the worlds and allotted them their courses; it is not the wisdom which orders all of life, and suffers not even the minutest detail to escape his notice; it is not even those aesthetic qualities, which have produced in divinely-created forms of beauty the types of all art and all architecture, that render God worthy " to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing." It is that his love is such that nothing seems to him too sacred to be sacrificed to the welfare of others.
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
No equipment was thought necessary for the lower ranks in journalism, and no equipment was thought adequate for the higher ranks. Journalists, like poets, were born, not made.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Reminiscences
I believe that God is the Great Companion, that we are not left orphans, that we may have comradeship with him.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Great Companion
A miracle no longer seems to me a manifestation of extraordinary power, but an extraordinary manifestation of ordinary power. God is always showing himself.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Problems of Life: Selections from the Writings of Rev. Lyman Abbott
No man will find God unless he seeks after God for God's own sake, loves him for himself, and not for the gifts which he may bestow.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God
"I don't believe the Bible is the Word of God. I can't believe it. I don't believe the laws of Moses are any more inspired than the laws of Solon, or the books of Samuel and Kings than the history of Tacitus, or the Psalms of David than the Paradise Lost of Milton, or—you'll think me bold indeed to say so Mr. Laicus," (he was cooler now and spoke more slowly), "the words of Jesus, than the precepts of Confucius or the dialogues of Plato."
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
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 forgiveness of sins is, in my thinking of it, no longer an exceptional, episodical manifestation of a supernatural grace; it is the revelation and effect of the habit of mind of the Eternal Father toward all his children. The laws of forgiveness are a part of the laws of the Almighty and the All-gracious. It is said that the violation of natural law is never forgiven. It is said that if you put your finger in the candle, it will burn, pray as you will, and if you fall from your horse, you will break a bone, however pious you may be; whether the bone breaks or not depends, not upon your piety, but upon your age. Is it indeed true that there is no forgiveness in natural law? What a strange-looking audience this would be if there were none. The boy cuts his finger and nature begins to heal it; he breaks his arm — nature begins to knit the bone; he burns his finger — nature provides a new skin. Nature, that is, God, implants in man himself the help-giving powers that remove disease; and, in addition, stores the world full of remedies also, so that specifics may be found for almost every disease to which flesh is heir. The laws of healing are wrought into the physical realm; they are a part of the divine economy; and shall we think that He who helps the man to a new skin and to a new bone cares nothing for his moral nature, and will not help him when he has fallen into sin?
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God
Stop a minute. I may as well say here that this book is written in confidence. It is personal. It deals with the interior history of a very respectable church and some most respectable families. It contains a great deal that is not proper to be communicated to the public. The reader will please bear this in mind. Whatever I say, particularly what I am going to say now, is confidential. Don't mention it.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
I never fancied the country. Its numerous attractions were no attractions to me. I cannot harness a horse. I am afraid of a cow. I have no fondness for chickens—unless they are tender and well-cooked. Like the man in parable, I cannot dig. I abhor a hoe. I am fond of flowers but not of dirt, and had rather buy them than cultivate them. Of all ambition to get the earliest crop of green peas and half ripe strawberries I am innocent. I like to walk in my neighbor's garden better than to work in my own. I do not drink milk, and I do drink coffee; and I had rather run my risk with the average of city milk than with the average of country coffee. Fresh air is very desirable; but the air on the bleak hills of the Hudson in March is at times a trifle too fresh. The pure snow as it lies on field, and fence, and tree, is beautiful, I confess. But when one goes out to walk, it is convenient to have the sidewalks shoveled.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
I had just arrived at this conclusion when Mr. Gear entered. A tall, thin, nervous man, with a high forehead, piercing black eyes, and a restless uneasiness that forbids him from ever being for a moment still. Now he runs his hand through his hair pushing it still further back from his dome of a head, now he drums the table with his uneasy fingers, now he crosses and uncrosses his long legs, and once, as our conversation grows animated, he rises from his seat in the vehemence of his earnestness, and leans against the mantel piece. A clear-eyed, frank faced, fine looking man, who would compel your heed if you met him anywhere, unknown, by chance, on the public street. "An infidel you may be," I say to myself, "but not a bad man; on the contrary a man with much that is true and noble, or I am no physiognomist or phrenologist either." And I rather pride myself on being both.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish