American theologian and author (1835-1922)
Men fail to find God because they curiously reverse the position — the natural, legitimate, rightful position — between the soul and God. There is a word common in theology, though not very familiar in ordinary intercourse, — theodicy, which means justifying the ways of God to man. When a man begins to justify the ways of God to man, he has entered on a very dangerous process. For example, it is said, " If there is a God, he must be omnipotent and omniscient; and an omnipotent and omniscient God could and would make a world without sin and without suffering; but the world is not without sin nor without suffering, therefore there is no God." Such a man frames in his own mind his notion of what a God must be, and then brings God himself to that standard, and measures him by it. Theodicy! Justifying the ways of God to man! Sit, my soul, on the judgment throne, and summon God to stand before thee. "Now, Almighty One, I will see whether thou art righteous. Why didst thou allow famine in India? What right hast thou to allow a deluge in Japan? What right hast thou to allow man to go to war with his fellow-man in Europe? Justify thyself; explain thyself; answer for thyself." No man will ever find his way to the heart of God in that spirit.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God
The minister entered solemnly at the appointed hour, walked straight to his desk, without a word, a bow, a smile of recognition; read a long hymn, offered a very respectable imitation of the "long prayer," gave out a second hymn, and called on an elder to pray, who always imitated the imitation, and included in his broad sympathies all that his pastor had just prayed for-the Church, the Sabbath-school, the unconverted, backsliders, those in affliction, the President and all those in authority, the (Presbyterian) bishops and other clergy, not forgetting the heathen and the Jews. Then followed a passage of Scripture for a text from the pastor, with a short sermon thereafter. Nor was it always short. I fancied he felt the necessity of occupying the time. It was not unfrequently long enough for a very respectable discourse, if length gives the discourse its respectability. Then we had another prayer from another layman, and then the invariable announcement, "the meeting is now open," and the invariable result, a long, dead pause. In fact, the meeting would not open. Like an oyster, it remained pertinaciously shut. Occasionally some good elder would rise to break the painful silence, by repeating some thought from the previous Sunday's sermon, or by telling some incident or some idea which he had seen in a previous number of "The Christian Union." But as we had all been to church, and as most of us take "The Christian Union," this did not add much to the interest of the meeting. Generally another prayer and hymn, sometimes two, sufficed to fill the hour. The pastor kept his eye on the clock. When the hand pointed to nine he rose for the benediction. And never did a crowd of imprisoned schoolboys show more glad exultation at their release than was generally indicated by these brethren and sisters when the words of benediction dismissed them from their period of irksome restraint. Every man, and every woman, too, found a tongue. We broke up into little knots. A busy hum of many voices replaced the dead silence. The "social meeting" commenced when the "prayer-meeting" ended. This, I think, is a fair portraiture of our prayer-meetings at Wheathedge as they were during our late pastor's presence with us.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
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
The Theology of an Evolutionist
It is only by human experiences that we can interpret the Divine.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
You, mother, are not responsible to set the whole world right; you are responsible only to make one pure, sacred, and divine household.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Problems of Life: Selections from the Writings of Rev. Lyman Abbott
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
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
For evolution does not teach that the processes of what we call nature cannot be brought under spiritual control. On the contrary, it shows their operation under the spiritual control of man, guided and directed to a definite purpose by human intelligence and human will. Evolution is carried on by what we call natural selection up to the point when man appears upon the scene; then man himself begins to direct, control, modify, regulate, evolution. He shapes it as he will; his intelligence masters it and directs it. He determines whether the soil shall produce a rose or a lily, an oak or an elm. He finds a prairie strewed with grass and wild flowers, and out of that same prairie he evolves this year a cornfield, next year a wheatfield. Early travelers tell us of a great American desert, apparently useless to man, which extended from the Missouri River to the Rocky Mountains. It has now become a fertile and prosperous region. Man has made this former wilderness to bud and blossom as a rose. He has used the forces of nature, has conformed to the laws of nature, and thus has regulated the evolutionary processes of nature. In thus directing them to a predetermined end, he follows in the footsteps of One greater than he is. The charcoal-burners in the mountains, who fell the trees and burn them in a furnace in which very little oxygen is admitted, are simply imitating on a small scale what in the far-off centuries God did when He turned the great trees of the carboniferous era into coal. Out of this coal formerly men distilled the illuminating oil. They did but repeat what God had done in the former ages when He filled the subterranean reservoirs with a like material by a similar process. Our dynamo — a magnetic wheel revolving with great rapidity in a magnetic field — imitates God's dynamo; for now we know that this globe on which we live is itself a great magnet, and is itself revolving in a magnetic field. The growths of the past have been under the supervision of a controlling will, directed by intelligence to benevolent ends. The processes of nature and of civilization combine to demonstrate beyond all question that matter is subordinate to spirit. If by nature is meant the physical realm, then the supernatural is not only about us, but within us. The whole fabric of modern civilization is based upon this: that matter is controlled by that which is superior to matter; that spirit can direct, control, manipulate, physical forces.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
God is constantly better than his promise. He does not limit Himself by our expectations.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
There can be no virtue without temptation; for virtue is victory over temptation.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
"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
Faith has not lost its power. The soul still enjoys this privilege of receiving inspiration from above. It is not the special prerogative of a few saints. It is the common right of all. It is not an occasional, exceptional gift. It is constant, continuous, the law of our being. It is not a miracle, interfering with the operations of the human soul. It is the condition of our soul's true life.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Old Testament Shadows of New Testament Truths
Faith in Christ is, first of all, this: Such as he was I want to be; his is the kind of life I want to live; his is the kind of character I want to possess; his is the kind of blessedness I desire for myself and for my children. A man may believe what creed he will, and if this is not in his heart, he has not faith in Christ He may be baptized with holy water taken from the Jordan, blessed by the priest, bishop, archbishop, and Pope; and if this desire is not in his heart, he has no faith in Christ. He may have joined in succession all the churches in Christendom, from the Quaker meeting to the Roman Catholic hierarchy, and if in his heart there is not the faith that desires the lowliness of spirit which suffers long and is kind, the meekness which inherits the earth as a gift, the purity of heart which sees God, he has no faith in Christ. Faith in Christ cannot find its interpretation in any creed, however orthodox; it finds its interpretation in some hearts that do not understand nor accept any recognized orthodox creed.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God
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
Little leading makes much following.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
Reader, if you are out of Christ you are living in the city of Destruction. There is but a hand's-breadth between you and death. But there is deliverance. The mountain of refuge is not far off. A voice, sweeter than that of angels, and far mightier to save, cries out to you, Escape for thy life; look not behind thee; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed. It is the voice of the Son of God. The irreparable past he effaces with his blood. The wasted life he makes to bloom again. "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners"—not to teach, not to govern, but to save. For he comes not as a pilot to give safe voyage to vessels yet whole and strong; but to those already lying on the rocks and beaten in the angry surf, threatened every moment with engulfment, he conies, to succor, to rescue, to save. There is death in delay. There is safety only in the Savior's arms. "Haste thee; escape thither."
LYMAN ABBOTT
Old Testament Shadows of New Testament Truths
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
The first minister was too old; he would not suit the young folks. The second, just out of the seminary, was too young; the old folks said he had not experience. The third had experience. He had been in a parish three years. He was still young, with the elastic hopes and strong enthusiasm of youth. But he was a bachelor. The people pretty universally declared that the minister should have a wife and a house. The women all said there must be somebody to organize the sewing circles, and to lead the female prayer-meetings. The fourth was married, but he had three or four children. We could not support him. The fifth was a most learned man, who told us the original Greek or Hebrew of his texts, and, morning or evening, never came nearer to America than Rome under Augustus Csar. He was dull. The sixth afforded us a most brilliant pyrotechnic display. He spluttered, and fizzed, and banged, as though Fourth of July himself had taken orders and gone to preaching. The young people were carried away. But the old folks all said he was sensational.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
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
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