American theologian and author (1835-1922)
It is not youth we want at Wheathedge, but spiritual life and earnestness. At least it is to be thought of. But as to salary-how we are to get a first class man at a third class salary puzzles me. I shall have to refer that to Mr. Wheaton. He is the financier of our church I believe.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
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
Nor has the day of God's counsel and guidance passed away. It is true the world has emerged from its childhood. It walks no longer in leading-strings. Humanity is thrown more, so to speak, on its own resources. But it is not orphaned. The oracles are not silent. Urim and Thummim are not departed from the temple; only now every heart is a temple to God. In every soul the oracle of God witnesseth. God did not cease to guide Israel when Moses died. Dreams, visions, heavenly voices, angel visitations have ceased. But God is not therefore silent. Eliezer neither heard an audible voice, nor saw a celestial vision. He expected no miracle. But God guided him no less than Moses, or Joshua, or Gideon. He who desires only to do God's will need never be long at a loss to know it. Events are his ministers, our teachers. Only for the most part we are like Balaam, bent on our plans, determined he shall guide us where we want to go. If we blunder, it is generally because, whatever we say with our lips, in our hearts we reverse Christ's prayer. Our real petition is, "Not as thou wilt, but as I will."
LYMAN ABBOTT
Old Testament Shadows of New Testament Truths
Of course, we must trim the Sunday school-room as well as the Church, for the children must have their Christmas; and trimmed it was, so luxuriantly that it seemed as though the woods had laid siege to and taken possession of the sanctuary, and that nature was preparing to join on this glad day her voice with that of man in singing praise to Him who brings life to a winter-wrapped earth, and whose fittest symbol, therefore, is the tree whose greenness not even the frosts of the coldest winter have power to diminish.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
She has not fallen in love. Love has been a flight, not a fall. She has risen into a new life; in her is born a new experience. Perhaps it has come suddenly, with a rush which has overwhelmed her with its tumultuous surprise. Perhaps it has grown gradually, so gradually that she has been quite unconscious of its advent until it has taken complete possession of her. As the water lily bursts open the moment the sun strikes upon it, and the rose turns from bud to blossom so gradually that the closest observation discerns no movement in the petals, so some souls bloom instantly when love touches them with its sunbeam, and others, unconscious and unobserved, pass from girlhood to womanhood. In either case it is love that works the miracle. She has not known the secret of her own heart. Or if she has known it, she cannot tell it to any one else —no, not even to herself! She only knows that within her is a secret room, wherein is a sacred shrine. But she has not the key; and what is enshrined there she will not permit even herself to know. She is a strange contradiction to herself. She is restless away from him and strangely silent in his presence, or breaks the silence only to be still more strangely voluble. She chides herself for not being herself, and has in truth become or is becoming another self. So one could imagine a green shoot beckoned imperiously by the sunlight, and neither daring to emerge from its familiar life beneath the ground nor able to resist the impulse; or a bird irresistibly called by life, and neither daring to break the egg nor able to remain longer in the prison-house of its infancy.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Home Builder
So the end draws daily nearer, and no one guesses it except herself. Her life is not ebbing away, it is at its flood. She has trained herself in the habit of immortality, the habit of looking, not at the things which are seen and are transitory, but at the things which are not seen and are eternal. Her anticipatory ambitions for her children and her grandchildren are boundless, and the hopes for herself which made radiant the dawn of her life seem dim beside the higher hopes for her loved ones which fill life's eventide with sunshine. Her husband and herself are lovers still; the honeymoon has never set, never even waned; and to his love is added that of those whom God has given to her. She thinks to live naturally is the best preparation for dying peacefully; rarely, therefore, does she allow herself to forecast the coming day. When she does, not with dread but with a solemn gladness she looks forward to emancipation from the irksome bonds of the fettering body and to embarkation for that unknown continent where many colonists are already gathered to give her greeting. Faith, hope, love — these are life. And her faith was never so clear, for her heart was never so pure; her hopes were never so great, for experience has enlarged them; and her love was never so rich, for God, who is love, has been her life Companion.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Home Builder
We made our own fish-lines, twisting and double-twisting and triple-twisting the silk, ganged on the hooks, bought the long bamboo poles and cut them up, and out of them made our own jointed fishing-rods. We always cleaned our fish ourselves. It was the law of the sport that our fun should not make work for others which we ourselves could do.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Reminiscences
What we laymen want at the communion service, from our pastors, is chiefly silence. Only a few and simple words; the fewer and simpler the better. Oh! you who are privileged to distribute to us the emblems of Christ's love, believe me that the communion never reaches its highest end, save when you interpret it to us, not merely as a flower-strewn grave of a dead past, but as a Mount of Transfiguration whereon we talk with a living, an ascended Saviour. Believe me too, we want at that table no other message than that which a voice from on high whispers in our hearts: "This is my beloved Son, hear ye him!"
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
Why, in a world made and ruled by a beneficent being, should there be suffering, — not accidental, incidental, occasional, but wrought into the very woof of life? The first sound of the babe is a cry; the last sound of the dying man is, ordinarily, a sigh or groan; and from the cradle to the grave the sad refrain of sorrow sounds. Neither the merry music of pleasure, the clatter of industry, nor the noise of battle can effectually drown it. We can understand some aspects of this mystery. Why sin should bring with it penalty we can understand; why imperfection should require suffering as a discipline for its removal we can understand. But the innocent suffer more than the guilty: the mother more than the wayward son; the hero on the battlefield laying down his life for the nation, or suffering racking pain in the hospital, more than the ambitious politician who provoked the war; the martyr offering his life for the Church more than the bigot who fires the fagots. How is this? Why should innocence suffer as well as guilt — often more?
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
All forms of modern skepticism have a common philosophical foundation. Their philosophy denies that we can know any thing except that which we learn through the senses directly, or through conclusions deduced from the senses. We know that there is a sun because we see it; we know approximately its weight and its distance from the earth, because by long processes of reasoning we reach conclusions on those subjects from phenomena which we do see. What we do not thus see, or hear, or touch, or taste, or smell, or thus conclude from what we have seen, or heard, or touched, or tasted, or smelled, is said to belong to the unknown and unknowable. This is the basis of modern skepticism. It is the basis, too, of much of modern theology. It is the secret of the " scientific method." By this method we conclude the existence of an invisible God from the phenomena of life exactly as we conclude the existence of an invisible ether from the phenomena of light. But the God thus deduced is like the ether, only an hypothesis. It is quite legitimate to offer a new hypothesis; and the scientist will be as ready to accept one hypothesis as another, provided it accounts for the phenomena. This philosophy, pursued to its legitimate and logical conclusion, issues in the denial that man is a religious being; or possesses a spiritual nature; or is any thing more than a highly organized and developed animal.
LYMAN ABBOTT
A Study in Human Nature
But one truth must ever grow clearer — the truth that there is an Inscrutable Existence everywhere manifested, to which we can neither find nor conceive either beginning or end. Amid the mysteries which become the more mysterious the more they are thought about, there will remain this one absolute certainty, that we are ever in the presence of an Infinite and Eternal Energy, from which all things proceed.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God
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
Each nature requires its own education. The training which will help the man of undue self-esteem, will hurt the man who has too little. A chief end of life is to grow aright; and no man can grow aright.
LYMAN ABBOTT
A Study in Human Nature
I am accustomed to judge of men by their companions, and books are companions. So whenever I am in a parlor alone I always examine the book-case, or the centre table—if there is one. In Mrs. Wheaton's parlor I find no book-case, but a large centre table on which there are several annuals with a great deal of gilt binding and very little reading, and a volume or two of plates, sometimes handsome, more often showy. In the library, which opens out of the parlor, I find sets of the classic authors in library bindings, but when I take one down it betrays the fact that no other hand has touched it to open it before. And I know that Jim Wheaton buys books to furnish his house, just as he buys wall paper and carpets. At Mr. Hardcap's I find a big family Bible, and half a dozen of those made up volumes fat with thick paper and large type, and showy with poor pictures, which constitute the common literature of two thirds of our country homes. And I know that poor Mr. Hardcap is the unfortunate victim of book agents. At Deacon Goodsole's I always see some school books lying in admirable confusion on the sitting-room table. And I know that Deacon Goodsole has children, and that they bring their books home at night to do some real studying, and that they do it in the family sitting-room and get help now and then from father and from mother. And so while I am waiting for Mr. Gear I take a furtive glance at his well filled shelves. I am rather surprized to find in his little library so large a religious element, though nearly all of it heterodox. There is a complete edition of Theodore Parker's works, Channing's works, a volume or two of Robertson, one of Furness, the English translation of Strauss' Life of Christ, Renan's Jesus, and half a dozen more similar books, intermingled with volumes of history, biography, science, travels, and the New American Cyclopedia. The Radical and the Atlantic Monthly are on the table. The only orthodox book is Beecher's Sermons,—and I believe Dr. Argure says they are not orthodox; the only approach to fiction is one of Oliver Wendell Holmes' books, I do not now remember which one. "Well," said I to myself, "whatever this man is, he is not irreligious."
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
I did not think it necessary to frighten my cousin by telling her why I came away. When a bullet whizzed by me and flattened itself against the brick wall over my head, I thought it was time for me to retreat, which I did with celerity. This is the nearest I have ever been to a battle, and I have never desired to be any nearer. My military ambition is not ardent.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Reminiscences
I do not believe that the laws of nature have ever been violated, for this would be to believe that God who dwells in nature and animates it has violated the laws of his own being.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Letters to Unknown Friends
It is true that wisdom has wealth in the one hand and pleasure in the other, that her ways are ways of pleasantness, her paths are paths of peace; but she will never come to one who follows her for the sake of the wealth in the one hand or the pleasure in the other.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God
My faith in miracles rests also on my faith in Christ -- he himself a greater miracle by far than any attributed to him.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Letters to Unknown Friends
Next week I went down to New York and called on the young lady to whom Maurice is engaged. Her home is in New York, or rather it was there; for to my thinking a wife's home is always with her husband; and I never like to hear a wife talking of "going home" as though home could be anywhere else than where her husband and her children are. Maurice and Helen were to be married two weeks from the following Friday, for Maurice proposed to postpone their wedding trip till his next summer's vacation; and Helen, like the dear, sensible girl she is, very readily agreed to that plan. In fact I believe she proposed it. She had some shopping to do before the wedding, and I had some to do on my own account, and we went together. I invented a plan of refurnishing my parlor. I am afraid I told some fibs, or at least came dreadfully near it. I told Helen I wanted her to help me select the carpet; and though she had no time to spare, she was very good-natured, and did spare the time. We ladies had agreed-not without some dissent-to get a Brussels for the parlor, as the cheapest in the end, and I made Helen select her own pattern, without any suspicion of what she was doing, and incidentally got her taste on other carpets, too, so that really she selected them herself without knowing it. Deacon Goodsole recommended me to go for furniture to Mr. Kabbinett, a German friend of his, and Mrs. Goodsole and I found there a very nice parlor set, in green rep, made of imitation rosewood, which he said would wear about as well as the genuine article, and which we both agreed looked nearly as well. We would rather have bought the real rosewood, but that we could not afford. Mr. Kabbinett made us a liberal discount because we were buying for a parsonage. We got an extension table and chairs for the dining-room, (but we had to omit a side-board for the present), and a very pretty oak set for the chamber. We did not buy anything but a carpet for the library, for Mr. Laicus said no one could furnish a student's library for him. He must furnish it for himself.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
Carry your daily affairs to God. Ask his guidance in every emergency. Expect discoveries of his will. Let the promise of his help quicken all your faculties. Act for yourself energetically. Judge for yourself thoughtfully. Look unto God trustingly. Then will God both act and judge for you.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Old Testament Shadows of New Testament Truths