LYMAN ABBOTT QUOTES III
American theologian and author (1835-1922)
There are many in the Church of Christ who think of God as a just and punitive God, who must be satisfied either by penalty laid on the guilty, or by an equivalent for the penalty. That is one form of paganism. There are many who, reacting against that conception, think of God as an indifferent, careless God, who does not care much about iniquity, does not trouble Himself about it, is not disturbed by it! That is another form of paganism. And there are many who try to solve the problem by thinking of two Gods, a just God and a merciful God, and imagining that the merciful God by the sacrifice of Himself appeases the wrath of the just God. That also is a modified form of paganism. The one transcendent truth which distinguishes Christianity from all forms of paganism is that it represents God as appeasing His own wrath or satisfying His own justice by the forthputting of His own love. But He saves men from their sins by an experience which we can interpret to ourselves only by calling it a struggle between the sentiments of justice and pity.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
About sixty miles north of New York city--not as the crow flies, for of the course of that bird I have no knowledge or information sufficient to form a belief, but as the Mary Powell ploughs her way up the tortuous channel of the Hudson river--lies the little village of Wheathedge. A more beautiful site even this most beautiful of rivers does not possess. As I sit now in my library, I raise my eyes from my writing and look east to see the morning sun just rising in the gap and pouring a long golden flood of light upon the awaking village below and about me, and gilding the spires of the not far distant city of Newtown, and making even its smoke ethereal, as though throngs of angels hung over the city unrecognized by its too busy inhabitants. Before me the majestic river broadens out into a bay where now the ice-boats play back and forth, and day after day is repeated the merry dance of many skaters--about the only kind of dance I thoroughly believe in. If I stand on the porch upon which one of my library windows opens, and look to the east, I see the mountain clad with its primeval forest, crowding down to the water's edge. It looks as though one might naturally expect to come upon a camp of Indian wigwams there. Two years ago a wild-cat was shot in those same woods and stuffed by the hunters, and it still stands in the ante-room of the public school, the first, and last, and only contribution to an incipient museum of natural history which the sole scientific enthusiast of Wheathedge has founded--in imagination. Last year Harry stumbled on a whole nest of rattlesnakes, to his and their infinite alarm--and to ours too when afterwards he told us the story of his adventure. If I turn and look to the other side of the river, I see a broad and laughing valley--grim in the beautiful death of winter now however--through which the Newtown railroad, like the Star of Empire, westward takes its way. For the village of Wheathedge, scattered along the mountain side, looks down from its elevated situation on a wide expanse of country. Like Jerusalem of old--only, if I can judge anything from the accounts of Palestinian travelers, a good deal more so--it is beautiful for situation, and deserves to be the joy of the whole earth.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
Man is equipped with various senses, each of which has its own peculiar function. It can perform that function, and no other. The ear can hear, but it cannot see; the eye can see, but it cannot taste; the palate can taste, but it cannot smell. The body is composite. It is made up of different organs or faculties. The whole man is an orchestra; each organ is a single instrument. If that is broken, or gets out of tune, no other can take its place. Now some persons suppose that the mind is similarly a composite; that it is made up of a variety of faculties and powers; that there is one power or faculty which reasons, another which compares, a third which remembers or recalls, a fourth which imagines, etc. Those who hold this opinion, however, are not agreed as to how many mental faculties or powers there are. Some suppose there are very few, others that there are very many. A very common classification or division of the mind is into three powers or classes of powers: the reason, the sensibilities or feelings, and the will. Others divide these generic classes again into a great variety of reasoning and feeling powers, each confined to its own exercise or function, as the ear to hearing and the eye to seeing.
LYMAN ABBOTT
A Study in Human Nature
Vengeance does not satisfy. It sometimes gluts, but it does not satisfy. The duelist, angered by insult or wrong, challenges his enemy to a duel, runs his sword through the body of his opponent, leaves the life-blood oozing out of his arteries, wipes his sword, and walks off in the brightness of the morning. Satisfied? Never! Nemesis follows him; the vision is ever before his eyes; he has taken his vengeance, and the vengeance itself nestles in his heart and breeds future penalty.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
The period of which I am writing, 1850-60, is perhaps the most dramatic politically in the history of the country. The Compromise of 1850 was introduced by Henry Clay and supported by Daniel Webster for the purpose of settling the slavery question for all time and taking it out of politics. It had the opposite effect. It fanned the smoldering emblems of popular discontent into a fierce flame of mutual animosity, and proved the precursor of a prolonged and bloody war. The repeal of the Missouri Compromise opened to slavery territory which that Compromise had pledged to freedom, and this repeal intensified in the North a distrust of Southern politicians and their Northern allies. The refusal of the Northern reformer to accept the new agreement was taken in the South as a new declaration of war against slavery, and a new argument for a dissolution of the Union. The Fugitive Slave Law brought the slaveholder into the North in pursuit of his escaping slave, and made vivid and real to the North the slave system which had before been remote and dim. The underground railway, organized for the escape of fugitive slaves to Canada, and the resistance offered to the law, sometimes by protracted legal proceedings, sometimes by mobs led by men of national reputation, intensified the indignation of the South against the North.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Reminiscences
A miracle no longer seems to me a manifestation of extraordinary power, but an extraordinary manifestation of ordinary power. God is always showing himself. Perhaps some of you may think this is a new theology; but this particular bit of theology is as old as Augustine, and as orthodox. It is Augustine who said, a birth — I am not quoting his exact words, but I am giving the spirit of them — a birth is more miraculous than a resurrection, because it is more wonderful that something that never was should begin to be, than that something which was and ceased to be should begin again. The difference between the birth and the resurrection is that one is made palpable to our senses every day, and the other in the one great event of human history was made palpable to the senses of a few witnesses in years long gone by. The mere fact that a miracle is an extraordinary event seems to me to constitute no reason for discrediting it. For the credibility of an event does not depend upon the nature of the event, but upon the nature of the testimony which attests it. If the Old Testament told the story of a naval engagement between the Jewish people and a pagan people, in which all the ships of the pagan people were absolutely destroyed, and not a single man killed among the Jews, all the skeptics would have scorned the narrative. Every one now believes it — except those who live in Spain.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God
The ideal of character always runs beyond the attainment.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Problems of Life: Selections from the Writings of Rev. Lyman Abbott
This is what evolution means--ordered progress; development from poorer to richer, from lower to higher, from less to greater--progress. In the material universe, progress to higher forms; in the moral universe, progress to higher life.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Problems of Life: Selections from the Writings of Rev. Lyman Abbott
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
We lawyers learn to study the faces of our witnesses, to form quick judgments, and to act upon them.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
I am convinced that no mere intellectual opinion is a sin. If Mr. Gear is in darkness it is because he neglects some known if not some recognized duty. My work is not to convince him of the error of his opinions. I probably never could do that. And his opinions are not of much consequence. My work is to find out what known duty he is neglecting, and press it home upon his conscience. And so far I have not discovered what it is. He is one of the most conscientious men I ever knew. Yet something is wanting in Mr. Gear. I believe he half thinks so himself. He is mentally restless and uneasy. He seems to doubt his own doubts, and to want discussion that he may strengthen himself in his own unbelief. But still I make no progress. Since that first night I have got no farther into his heart.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
Mere philanthropy and humanity ... are not religion. There must also be piety. The soul must live in the divine presence; must inhale the Spirit of God; must utter its contrition, its weaknesses, its wants, and its thanks-givings to its Heavenly Father.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
And the first thing that Christ says to us is this: Is that the kind of life you want to live? Is that the kind of person you want to be? Do you want to live in this world to see what you can get out of it, or do you want to live in this world to see what you can put into it?
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God
Do not think that you can fight corruption without while you let corruption fester within.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Problems of Life: Selections from the Writings of Rev. Lyman Abbott
The spirit which in the modern Church has sometimes sought to found Christian faith on signs and wonders appears to me to be almost as much one of unbelief as the spirit which outside the Church denies the miraculous altogether.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Letters to Unknown Friends
You orthodox people ... say that no man can come to God with an unregenerate heart; and mine is an unregenerate heart. At least I suppose so. I have been told so often enough. You tell us that no man can come that has not been convicted and converted. I have never suffered conviction or experienced conversion. I cannot cry out to God, "God be merciful to me a sinner." For I don't believe I am a sinner. I don't pretend to be perfect. I get out of temper now and then. I am hard on my children sometimes, was on Willie to-night, poorly fellow. I even rip out an oath occasionally. I am sorry for that habit and mean to get the better of it yet. But I can't make a great pretence of sorrow that I do not experience.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
Perhaps the lack of the parish is quite as painfully felt in other departments as in the pulpit. The Church is without a head. It flounders about like a headless chicken; excuse the homely simile, which has nothing but truth to commend it. When Mrs. Beale died last week, we had to send to Wheatensville to get a minister to attend the funeral. When Sallie D. was married she sent there, too, for a minister. He was out of town, and the ceremony came near being delayed a week for want of him. The prayer-meeting lags. Little coldnesses between church members break out into open quarrels. There is no one to weld the dissevered members. Poor old Mother Lang, who has not left her bed for five years, laments bitterly her loss, and asks me every time I call to see her, "When will you get a pastor?" The Young People's Association begins to droop. Even the Sunday-school shows signs of friction, though Deacon Goodsole succeeds in keeping it in tolerably good running order by his imperturbable good humor. One advantage we have gained by this interregnum-only one. Even Mr. Hardcap is convinced that pastoral labors are not so unimportant as he had imagined.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
Solemn faces do not make sacred hours.
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
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