LYMAN ABBOTT.
PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH, EDITOR OF “THE OUTLOOK.”
IDE sympathies and broad Christian charity are potent factors in the uplifting of men, and there have been many in America who have exhibited these characteristics, but few possess them to a greater degree than the present pastor of the Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, Lyman Abbott. He comes of good New England stock, and was born December 18, 1835, at Roxbury, Massachusetts. He is the third son of Jacob Abbott, so dear to the children of the past generation, as the author of those books which were the delight of the childhood of many still living—the “Rollo Books,” the “Jonas Books,” and the “Lucy Books.” The plain, practical, broad common sense in Jacob Abbott, which dictated the composition of these attractive realistic stories, has been inherited in large measure by his son. Lyman Abbott was graduated from the University of the City of New York, in 1853, then studied law and was admitted to the bar. He soon found that the ministry had greater attraction for him than the law, and after studying theology with his uncle, John S. C. Abbott, so well-known as the author of the “Life of Napoleon Bonaparte,” he was ordained in 1860, a minister of the Congregational Church. He went the same year to take charge of a congregation at Terre Haute, Indiana. After five years’ work he became discouraged, for there seemed to be little or no fruit from his labors. He came to the conclusion that, after all, he had mistaken his calling, and so in 1865 he accepted the position of Secretary to the American Freedman’s Commission, an office which took him to New York. Returning to Terre Haute on a visit, he saw that his previous labors had not been in vain, but had brought forth abundant fruit in the lives of former members of his congregation. It was perhaps this fact that induced him to re-enter the ministry, and for three years to be the pastor of the New England Church in New York. He did not, however, lay aside the literary work he had taken up while connected with the Freedman’s Association. He conducted the “Literary Record” in “Harper’s Monthly,” and became editor of “The Illustrated Christian Weekly” in 1871. Resigning his connection with other papers he became joint editor with Henry Ward Beecher of the “Christian Union” in 1876, and its chief editor in 1881. After some years the name of the paper was changed to “The Outlook,” as indicating more nearly the character of the journal. In October, 1887, after the death of Henry Ward Beecher, he was chosen temporary Pastor of the Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, and later he was invited to remain permanently at the head of that large congregation. He has written much, and has published a number of volumes, nearly all upon religious subjects, but his influence has been chiefly exerted through the pulpit, and especially through the columns of the “Christian Union” and “The Outlook,” one of the most ably conducted weeklies in the country. Popular in its presentation, trenchant in its comments upon contemporary men and events, clear and unmistakable in its position, few papers have a more decided influence upon their readers. Its tone is high, and its view of what is going on in the world is wide and comprehensive. All subjects are treated fearlessly and independently, and truth, purity, and earnestness in religion and politics are insisted upon. Not the least interesting columns of the paper are those devoted to “Notes and Queries,” where, in a few well-chosen words, the difficulties of correspondents are answered, and at the same time valuable lessons are enforced. Lyman Abbott is one of the leaders of liberal Christian thought, is sympathetic with every movement for the advancement of mankind, a strong believer in practical Christianity, and a hater of all kinds of cant.
As a speaker differing widely from his great predecessor in the Plymouth pulpit, Lyman Abbott’s success is due to the clearness with which he presents his subject, to his earnestness, and to his practical way of putting things.
THE JESUITS.[¹]
(FROM “DICTIONARY OF RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE.”)
[¹] Copyright, Harper & Bros.
ESUITS is the popular name of a Society more properly entitled “The Society of Jesus”—of all the Religious Orders of the Roman Catholic Church the most important. The Society of Jesus was founded in 1554 by Ignatius Loyola. He was a Spanish cavalier; was wounded in battle; was by his wounds, which impaired the use of one of his legs, deprived of his military ambition, and during his long confinement found employment and relief in reading a Life of Christ, and Lives of the Saints. This enkindled a new ambition for a life of religious glory and religious conquest. He threw himself, with all the ardor of his old devotion, into his new life; carried his military spirit of austerity and self-devotion into his religious career; exchanged his rich dress for a beggar’s rags; lived upon alms; practiced austerities which weakened his iron frame, but not his military spirit; and thus he prepared his mind for those diseased fancies which characterized this period of his [♦]extraordinary career.
[♦] ‘extraordinay’ replaced with ‘extraordinary’
He possessed none of the intellectual requirements which seemed necessary for the new leadership which he proposed to himself. The age despised learning, and left it to the priests; and this Spanish cavalier, at the age of thirty-three, could do little more than read and write. He commenced at once, with enthusiasm, the acquisition of those elements of knowledge which are ordinarily acquired long before that age. He entered the lowest class of the College of Barcelona, where he was persecuted and derided by the rich ecclesiastics, to whose luxury his self-denial was a perpetual reproach. He fled at last from their machinations to Paris, where he continued his studies under more favorable auspices. Prominent among his associates here was Francis Xavier, a brilliant scholar, who at first shrunk from the ill-educated soldier; yet gradually learned to admire his intense enthusiasm, and then to yield allegiance to it and its possessor. Several other Spaniards were drawn around the ascetic. At length, in 1534, Loyola, and five associates, in a subterranean chapel in Paris, pledged themselves to a religious life, and with solemn rites made sacred their mutual pledges to each other and to God.
Loyola introduced into the new order of which he was the founder, the principle of absolute obedience which he had acquired in his military career. The name given to its chief was the military title of “General.” The organization was not perfected, so as to receive the sanction of the Pope, until 1541. Its motto was Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam—“To the greater Glory of God.” Its vows embraced not only the obligations of Chastity, Poverty, and Obedience, but also a pledge on the part of every member to go as missionary to any country which the Pope might designate. Loyola was himself the first General of the new Order. Its Constitution, due to him, is practically that of an Absolute Monarchy. The General is elected by a General Congregation, selected for the purpose by the whole body of professed members in the various Provinces. He holds his office for life. A Council of Assistants aid him, but he is not bound by their vote. He may not alter the Constitution of the Society; and he is subject to deposition in certain contingencies; but no instance of the deposition of a General has ever occurred. Practically his will is absolute law, from which there is no appeal.
The Jesuits are not distinguished by any particular dress or peculiar practices. They are permitted to mingle with the world, and to conform to its habits, if necessary for the attainment of their ends. Their widest influence has been exhibited in political circles, where, as laymen, they have attained the highest political positions without exciting any suspicion of their connection with the Society of Jesus; and in education they have been employed as teachers, in which position they have exercised an incalculable influence over the Church.... It should be added that the enemies of the Order allege that, in addition to the public and avowed Constitution of the Society, there is a secret code, called Monita Secreta—“Secret Instructions”—which is reserved exclusively for the private guidance of the more advanced members. But as this Secret Code is disavowed by the Society—and since its authority is at least doubtful—it is not necessary to describe it here in detail.
THE DESTRUCTION OF THE CITIES OF THE PLAIN.[¹]
(FROM “OLD TESTAMENT SHADOWS.”)
[¹] Copyright, Harper & Bros.
HE story of Sodom and Gomorrah epitomizes the Gospel. Every act in the great, the awful drama of life is here foreshadowed. The analogy is so perfect that we might almost be tempted to believe that the story is a prophetic allegory, did not nature itself witness its historic truthfulness. The fertile plain contained, imbedded in its own soil, the elements of its own destruction. There is reason to believe that this is true of this world on which we live. A few years ago an unusually brilliant star was observed in a certain quarter of the heavens. At first it was thought to be a newly discovered sun; more careful examination resulted in a different hypothesis. Its evanescent character indicated combustion. Its brilliancy was marked for a few hours—a few nights at most—then it faded, and was gone. Astronomers believe that it was a burning world. Our own earth is a globe of living fire. Only a thin crust intervenes between us and this fearful interior. Ever and anon, in the rumbling earthquake, or the sublime volcano, it gives us warning of its presence. These are themselves gospel messengers. They say if we would but hear them—“Prepare to meet thy God.” The intimations of science confirm those of Revelation: “The heavens and the earth ... are kept in store, reserved unto the fire against the Day of Judgment and perdition of ungodly men.” What was true of Sodom and Gomorrah—what was true of the earth we live on—is true of the human soul. It contains within itself the instruments of its own punishment. There is a fearful significance in the words of the Apostle: “After thy hardness and impenitent heart treasureth up to thyself wrath against the day of wrath.” Men gather, with their own hands, the fuel to feed the flame that is not quenched; they nurture in their own bosoms the worm that dieth not. In habits formed never to be broken; in words spoken, incapable of recall; in deeds committed, never to be forgotten; in a life wasted and cast away that can never be made to bloom again, man prepares for himself his own deserved and inevitable chastisement. “Son, remember!”—to the soul who has spent its all in riotous living, there can be no more awful condemnation.
