American theologian and author (1835-1922)
I always went to church. Of my religious experience I shall speak hereafter, tracing it through the various stages of its growth from boyhood to old age. Enough to say here that I cannot share the belief of those who think, or perhaps I should say feel, that the church has degenerated in the last half-century. During a part of that time I attended the Mercer Street Presbyterian Church. Some forty or fifty boys and girls from an orphan asylum made what seemed to me an important part of the congregation. The boys sat in one gallery, the girls in the gallery opposite. I do not recall that I ever heard the minister tell a story, use an illustration, or point a moral lesson which by any possibility could appeal to these children. There may have been connected with this church some mission chapel, but I do not think so. If so, it was not in evidence. I do not think I ever heard of one. The attitude of the churches in New York City was then much what the attitude of the village church is to-day: its duty was to care for the individuals and the families in its own congregation. For these attendants there were plenty of services — not to say a surplus; but going out into the world preaching the Gospel to every creature was left to be done by the missionary societies, which were supported by the churches with more or less liberality. Henry Ward Beecher in Brooklyn, and some time later Dr. W. S. Rainsford in New York, were pioneers in church missionary work. It hardly need be said that there was no social settlement work and no Young Women's Christian Association; the Young Men's Christian Association was just coming into existence.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Reminiscences
Let us look at this man a little more closely. He begins in a single cell, and passes through the successive stages of different animals. He is successively reptile, bird, fish, vertebrate mammal, and at last becomes man. I do not speak of the race, but of the individual; he comes into what we call life through these successive stages of previous lives. He is born, dwelling in a body; and we do not need the scientist to tell us his subsequent history. That process we easily trace in three successive stages. First, this body is the necessary means for his development. He is developed by the body. He learns through the eye and the ear, the hand and the foot, the activities of the physical organization. Is he blind, one element of his development is cut off; is he deaf, another element; is he deprived of the sense of touch, a third element. With these all gone some development may be carried on, but, speaking generally, it may be said that the body is necessary to his development. By the very discipline he receives through his body his soul is moulded and shaped. He is educated through the physical organization. Then he comes into the second stage, in which this body becomes the necessary instrument of his activity. It is the power by which he operates on the world without. His lungs, his heart, his stomach, keep the machine in order, while the machine is being used to impart to other lives. Because he has hands which are themselves tools, he makes tools, as no handless animal can. Because he has eyes, he can produce color, which otherwise he could not produce. With his tongue he speaks, and communicates his thoughts to others. With his pen he writes, and communicates his life to other lives. His body is the necessary instrument of his activity, — this is the second stage. Finally, in old age, he comes into the third stage, in which the body becomes a hindrance to his development. He still has the same power to perceive truth that he always had, but he has become deaf and cannot hear. He has the same artistic sense that he always had, but he has become blind and cannot see. He has the same burning thoughts with which he was wont to inspire audiences, but his voice has lost its music and its power; he cannot reach the audience. He is still a musician, and the music is in his soul, but the voice is gone; we want to hear him sing no more. His very brain ceases to formulate thought. His soul has outgrown the body. First it was the instrument for development; second, an instrument for usefulness; now it is neither. He has not grown old, but the organ that he used has grown old. Gladstone is not old. Put him in a new body, — what a magnificent statesman he would be! Henry Ward Beecher was not old. Bring him back and put him in a body forty years old, — how his eloquence would again stir the heart of the nation! Men do not grow old; it is the body which grows old, unable to fulfill its function as the servant of the spirit.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
But there is, nevertheless, an invisible world, which they only see whose eyes the Lord has opened. Science tells us a great deal; but there is a sphere which it is absolutely incompetent to enter; about which, question it as you may, it is absolutely dumb. It can analyze the flower, and tell you all its parts, and describe its wonderful mechanisms and their yet more wonderful operations; but it has neither the eye to discern nor the heart to feel the subtle influence of its divine beauty. It dissects with its keen scalpel the human frame, and tells you the nature and function of every part—what the heart supplies, what the nerves do, how the muscles act. But there is no anatomy possible of the soul; no microscope discloses the nature and the office of reason, imagination, love. The inner life hides itself from the baffled scientist. It needs the prophetic eye to discern the true man within. There are truths which can not be deduced; which are not wrought out with much thought and from much observation; which are incapable of logical demonstration. They are to be known, to be instantly apprehended by the soul upon the mere presentation of them. The musician can not prove that the harmonies of Mendelssohn or Beethoven are grand to one whose soul is not thrilled by them. The practical mill-man, who saw in Niagara nothing but a great waterpower, was simply incapable of appreciating that "grandeur of the Creator's power" which led Audubon to bow before it trembling in silent adoration. Love can not be proved to a mother. The babe on her breast is the only demonstration. Disbelief in love is the evidence of an indurated heart. The man who misanthropically scouts at affection, only witnesses, by his skepticism, his own moral degradation.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Old Testament Shadows of New Testament Truths
This is what Jesus Christ came to do. Not to show how we can escape hell and get into heaven, but to show how we can escape from ourselves and become other selves; to show how we may cease to be what we are and become what we desire to be. He came that he might teach us and empower us to be the men we want to be, the men we ought to be.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God
Let us get rid of this notion that we must always associate the thoughts of God with a spirit of great solemnity. Gayety and God are not mutually exclusive.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God
I acknowledge myself, then, a radical evolutionist, — it is hardly necessary to say a theistic evolutionist. I reverently and heartily accept the axiom of theology that a personal God is the foundation of all life; but I also believe that God has but one way of doing things ; that His way may be described in one word as the way of growth, or development, or evolution, terms which are substantially synonymous; that He resides in the world of nature and in the world of men; that there are no laws of nature which are not the laws of God's own being ; that there are no forces of nature, that there is only one divine, infinite force, always proceeding from, always subject to the will of God; that there are not occasional or exceptional theophanies, but that all nature and all life is one great theophany; that there are not occasional interventions in the order of life which bear witness to the presence of God, but that life is itself a perpetual witness to His presence; that He transcends all phenomena, and yet is the creative, controlling, directing force in all phenomena. In so far as the theologian and the evolutionist differ in their interpretation of the history of life — that is, upon the question whether God's way of doing things is a way of successive interventions or a continuous and unbroken progress — I agree with the evolutionist, not with the theologian. My object in this volume is to show that religion — that is, the life of God in the soul of man — is better comprehended, and will better be promoted, by the philosophy which regards all life as divine, and God's way of doing things as the way of a continuous, progressive change, according to certain laws and by means of one resident force, than by the philosophy which supposes that some things are done by natural forces and according to natural laws, and others by special interventions of a Divine Will, acting from without, for the purpose of correcting errors or filling gaps.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
"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
My wife is a diplomate. If ever I am president of the United States—which may Heaven forbid,—she shall be secretary of State. She never argues; but she always carries her point.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
Evolution is described by John Fiske as "God's way of doing things." Theology also may be described as an attempt to explain God's way of doing things. Thus, to a certain extent the science of evolution and the science of theology have the same ultimate end. Both attempt to furnish an orderly, rational, and self-consistent account of phenomena. The supposed inconsistency between science and religion is really an inconsistency between two sciences. The theologian and the scientist have given different, and to some extent inconsistent, accounts of God's way of doing things. It is important for us to know which account is correct. It is even religiously desirable that we should know, since our understanding of God's influence upon the human soul affects that influence.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
Mrs. Gear who comes to the door in answer to my knock and who is a cheerful little body with yet a tinge of sadness in her countenance, as one who knows some secret sorrow which her blithe heart cannot wholly sing away, is very glad to see me. She calls me by my name and introduces herself with a grace that is as much more graceful as it is more natural than the polished and stately manners which Mrs. Wheaton has brought with her from fashionable society to Wheathedge. Mr. Gear is out, he has gone down to the shop,—will I walk in,—he will be back directly. I am very happy to walk in, and Mrs. Gear introducing me to a cozy little sitting-room with a library table in the centre, and a book-case on one side, well filled too, takes Harry by the hand, and leads him out to introduce him to the great Newfoundland dog whom we saw basking in the sunshine on the steps of the side door, as we came up the road.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
If there is to be no satisfaction in pleasure, none in wisdom, none in ambition, none in the golden mean, what then? Ah, where then? In duty. In doing right because it is right.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Problems of Life: Selections from the Writings of Rev. Lyman Abbott
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
We never appreciated our dominie aright till now. But now no one can praise him too highly. The cause of this his sudden rise in public estimation is a very simple one. He has been called to a New York City parish. And he has accepted the call. This is a curious world, and the most curious part of it is the Church. While he stayed we grumbled at him. Now he leaves we grumble because he is going.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
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
It is said of Jesus that He grew in wisdom and in stature. He did not know everything in the beginning. His wisdom was a growth. This is the universal law of the individual, who always grows in his knowledge of what we call religious truth, no less than in his knowledge of what we call secular truth. He is no more born with an accurate knowledge of God, truth, purity, righteousness, than with an accurate knowledge of geology, geography, astronomy, history, or language. The simplest intellectual declarations respecting God are unmeaning to a little child, — as, God is a Person. The simplest spiritual declarations respecting God mean but little — as, God is love. To the child in the infant class this does not and cannot mean what it means to the grandmother, who has passed through all the phases of love, and learned in the school of experience all the meaning of love. Does one ask, What does Christ mean by saying that we must become as little children if we would enter the kingdom of heaven? He means that, however much we know, we must be eager to learn more. Does any one ask, What does He mean by the saying, Of such is the kingdom of heaven? He means, out of such eagerness to learn more, the kingdom of heaven is developed in the soul. We all practically recognize the truth that the child must grow into the knowledge of God, truth, duty.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
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
In all ages of the world the use of physical organs by the mind and spirit has been recognized, not only by the philosophers, but also by the common people. The ancient Hebrews put the seat of the emotions in the bowels; hence the phrase, " bowels of mercies," as used in Scripture. This was probably because strong emotion affects the bowels. Later, for an analogous reason, because of the effect of strong feeling on the heart and circulating system, common language fixed upon the heart as the seat of the emotions. This notion still lingers in such phrases as " a warm-hearted friend," "a good-hearted fellow." But it is now well established that the real seat of both the affections and the intellect is in the brain. By this is not meant that they are located in the brain. They have no location; they are omnipresent in the body, as God is omnipresent in the universe, equally controlling all its parts. It is more accurate, therefore, to say that it is now well established that the material or physical organ of all thought and feeling is in the brain; that every mental and emotional activity employs some part of the brain; that every such activity uses up some brain tissue, requiring, therefore, a new supply; and that, therefore, the healthful action of the mind requires a good brain, and the best action of the mind requires good digestion and good circulation, since on these depend the renewal and replenishing of the brain.
LYMAN ABBOTT
A Study in Human Nature
Was it not at Bunker Hill that the soldiers were directed to reserve their fire till the attacking party had exhausted theirs? That is the way Jennie conducts an argument—when she argues at all, which is very seldom. She accepted every consideration I had offered against uniting with the Wheathedge church, and yet I knew her opinion was not changed; and somehow my own began to waver. I wonder how that method of arguing would work in the court-room. I mean to try it some time.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
Before Christ brought life and immortality to light, death was the slayer of man's hopes. It left love alive, but love without hope is poignant sorrow.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Other Room
What is the word of history? The historian tells us there is a progress in human development, and that history illustrates that progress, and that not only the individual man grows from babyhood to manhood, but the whole race of men grow from infantile beginnings to a future, we know not what. Is there any meaning in this? Is there any power behind it? And what does this power mean? And, again, we turn to a historian, not a theologian, — not even an orthodox historian, — to Matthew Arnold. He tells that the one thing history makes sure is that there is a power not ourselves that makes for righteousness; a power to-day at work in the world as truly and as efficaciously as ever in the past; that the evolutionary processes that are going on are making for righteousness.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God