Lyman Abbott, Christian Evolutionist: A Study in Religious Liberalism [Reprint 2014 ed.] 9780674731790, 9780674730427

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LYMAN ABBOTT CHRISTIAN EVOLUTIONIST A Study in Religious Liberalism

Pach

LYMAN ABBOTT AT ( I 9 I 5)

EIGHTY

Bros

Lyman ALLott CHRISTIAN

EVOLUTIONIST

A Study in Religious Liberalism BY

IRA V. BROWN

Fran\ S. and Elizabeth D. Brewer Prize Essay of the American Society of Church History for ig4g

HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge,

Massachusetts

1953

COPYRIGHT,

1953

B Y THE PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE

Distributed in Great Britain by GEOFFREY OXFORD

CUMBERLEGE

UNIVERSITY

PRESS

LONDON

L I B R A R Y OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD N U M B E R

53-5065

PRINTED IN THE U N I T E D STATES OF A M E R I C A

TO MY MOTHER AND FATHER

PREP ACE Jt appears that theology must be modified constantly to \eep pace with advancing knowledge and changing social conditions. Düring the late nineteenth Century, an era which one historian has called "a critical period in American religion,"^ the outstanding figure in the liberalizing movement was probably Lyman Abbott. "Judged by the number of persons whom he reached through his voice and pen, and by the extent to which he shaped their thinking," wrote Henry Sloane CofEn, "Lyman Abbott was unquestionably the foremost doctor of the church in America in his time, and 6ne of the half-dozen most potent teachers of Christianity in our national history."^ William W. Sweet, authority on American church history, says that no religious leader in the modern period has exercised a more abiding influence ® If Abbott was a potter, he was also clay. As he molded public opinion, he himself was molded by the pressures of his time. This work is both a portrait of the man and a study in the thought of his generation. Its object is not only to delineate a character but also to illustrate the impact of revolutionary economic, political, and intellectual changes upon American Protestantism in the years between the Civil War and the World War. More even than molder or mirror was Lyman Abbott an Interpreter of his age. He had an unusual facility for seeing which way the wind was blowing, and he generally charted his course accordingly. Study of his long, varied, and interesting career aflords a panorama of American development for over half a Century. To think of Abbott as a unique figure would be an error. Other prominent divines took part in the same movements and exemplified the same trends. Washington Gladden, Josiah Strong, Phillips Brooks, Walter Rauschenbusch—these and more were also notable. Yet probably none had so wide a following over such a long period

viii

PREP

ACE

as did Lyman Abbott, and none enjoyed such an excellent organ for self-expression as the weekly journal which he edited from iSyS until 1922, the Outloo\. He was not bizarre; by some Standards he was prosaic. For that very reason he was the more typical. Better than Mary Baker Eddy or Robert G. Ingersoll or "Billy" Sunday, more spectacular contemporaries, he represented the main currents of American religious thought. "One of the great needs in the study of intellectual history," Merle Curti has pointed out, "is the further exploration of the role played in ideological conflicts by those who took the middle of the road."^ Such a man was Lyman Abbott. Materials for the biography consisted chiefly of Abbott's voluminous books and articles and the files of the Outloo\. These were supplemented at many points by personal papers in the hands of the family and by Abbott letters in the collections of bis contemporaries, most notably the Theodore Roosevelt manuscripts at the Library of Congress, The author wishes to acknowledge a very special indebtedness to Mr. and Mrs. Alexander L. Abbott of Larchmont, New York, who made available not only the family papers but also the comforts of their home to assist bis researches. He is also grateful to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Harvard University for fellowships which made possible the original study and to the Council on Research at The Pennsylvania State College for a grant which aided its completion.- Award of the Frank S. and Elizabeth D. Brewer Prize of the American Society of Church History for 1949 provided a small publication subsidy. The editors of the Journal of Southern History and of the New England Quarterly have kindly given permission to reprint Chapters IV and XII which appeared earlier in a substantially similar form. Among many who contributed to make possible this book, the author desires to recognize Mrs. Ilene Glenn, who did an exceptionally fine job of typing; Mrs. Marion L. Hawkes, who edited the book for the press; and Mrs. Helen Duprey Bullock, who generously gave invaluable professional assistance with the index.

PREPACE

IX

Professors Richard W. Leopold of Northwestern, Sidney E. Mead of the University of Chicago, and William W. Sweet of Southern Methodist read the manuscript at various stages and made many helpful suggestions, as did the anonymous critics selected by the Harvard University Press. Above all, thanks are due Professor Arthur M. Schlesinger, pioneer in American social and intellectual history, who suggested the subject and directed the dissertation, accepted at Harvard in 1946, out of which this book has grown. Ira V. Brown Arlington, Virginia March 1953

CONTENTS I.

Ne«/ England

Heritage

I

2.

"Lord, Here Am 1"

12

3-

Liberty and

Union

25

4-

Regenerating

the

37

5-

Evangelical

Orthodoxy

6.

"Mr. Beechers

7-

Politics and Economics:

8.

Civilization

9-

Industrial

South

51

Paper"

66 the Moral

View

79

and Barbarism

89

Demoeracy

99

10,

An Institutional

Church

at

Wor\

11.

Are the Heathen

12.

Evolutionary

13-

The Bible as Literature

150

14-

"The

161

15-

"My Dear Mr.

16.

Preacher of Divine

17-

The New Nationalism

18.

The Christian Rationale of War

214

19.

The Other

229

113

Doomed?

128

Theology

Imperialism

of

139

Liberty"

Roosevelt"

Room

178

Immanence versus the New

193 Freedom

203

Bibliography

243

Notes

256

LYMAN ABBOTT

Chapter One

A NEW ENGLAND

HERITAGE

Between the era of Abraham Lincoln and that of Woodrow Wilson lay a vast gulf, not only o£ time but o£ temper. The mature life span of Lyman Abbott encompassed both periods, and he viewed the later one as freshly as he had the earUer. From before the Civil War until after the World War, as preacher, editor, and author, he dealt with virtually all the significant issues of the passing years. The nation changed mightily before his eyes. At his birth, in 1835, the railroad was a novelty and the telegraph yet unknown; at his death, in 1922, the automobile had come into general use and radio broadcasting had begun. He played his part, however, in connection with mental rather than material changes. He was an Interpreter of three significant revolutions which demanded a recasting of public opinion. One was economic: America's transition from agrarianism to urban industrialism created great new problems. The second was political: these years saw the American people welded into a single nation, governmental functions centralized and enlarged, and the country's traditional pohcy of Isolation modified by ventures into imperialism and internationalism. The third was religious: the doctrine of evolution, the higher criticism of the Bible, and the study of comparative religion necessitated a far-reaching readjustment of theology. Abbott's is the story of what one man, "without pretension to either genius or notable scholarship," was able to do to orient his fellow-men in the new economic, political, and intellectual climate. He had not been ahead of the times, he confessed, but he had moved

2

LYMAN

ABBOTT

with them "and generally in or near the front rank."^ He was not a leader discovering new truth but a popularizer of the advancing thought of his contemporaries. Though he seldom piloted the ship, he usually traveled in the bow. The very title of his journal, the

Outloo\, is significant. All Problems he viewed from a religious Standpoint. Slavery, Indian policy, temperance, civil service, labor, prison reform, the tarifl, women's rights, imperialism, war—a few of the many issues which attracted his attention—were moral questions in Lyman Abbott's mind. Monetary policy, for instance, was to be determined by asking, "What is an honest currency?" The colonial problem was a matter of "our moral obligations to a people who had come by the fortunes of war under our sovereignty." ^ Conscience, not self-interest, he insisted, must supply the answers. One who saw him could hardly mistake his profession. His slender figure, his wrinkled visage, his high-domed forehead, and his flowing white beard gave him the appearance of an Old Testament prophet. In his last years he became something of a national Patriarch. T o thousands he was no less than a modern oracle.

Lyman Abbott was peculiarly a product of parental and family influence. That he chose to devote his life to various forms of didactic endeavor was entirely natural, since in the hearts of his father and numerous other relatives vibrated a yearning to instruct and elevate. Like the more famous Beecher family, they were irrepressible ministers, teachers, and authors. Clarence Day facetiously charged that in Abbott's veins flowed "listerine instead of blood."® Hamilton W . Mabie remarked, more sympathetically, that his legacy of ancestral piety endowed him with "a certain lustral cleanness."^ The family tree springs from a Yorkshire Puritan named George Abbot {sie), who came to Massachusetts about 1640, toward the end of the "Great Migration." In 1643 he became one of the original

A NEW ENGLAND

HERITAGE

3

town proprietors of Andover, and four years later he married Hannah Chandler. The house built by one of their thirteen children in 1685 still stands. Many years later their descendants erected a monument "in reverence £or their moral worth and Christian virtues."® In 1776 George Abbot's great-grandson Jacob left Massachusetts for New Hampshire and eventually moved to Maine. His son, also named Jacob, a resident of Hallowell, played an active part in developing the interior region of Maine. Father and son together built a pioneer road between the Valleys of the Kennebec and the Connecticut. According to family tradition, they took their Bibles, hymnbooks, and printed sermons along with them, holding daily morning worship for their men, with two services on Sunday.® The enterprise and thrift of early generations prepared the way for cultural achievements on the part of succeeding ones. New England industry made possible New England intellectuality. The live sons of the second Jacob Abbot all were graduated from Bowdoin College, and they all studied theology at the Andover Seminary. All of them served as pastors and teachers, and all except one became authors. The oldest was Jacob Abbott, father of Lyman. Born in Hallo well on November 14, 1803, he received his A.B. degree in 1820. While at Bowdoin he added the extra "t" to his name, thus avoiding the designation "3rd." His brothers followed suit, as did many other Abbots from time to time. For a year after graduation he taught at the Portland Academy, where Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was one of his pupils. The next three years he spent in theological school. Instead of immediately entering the ministry, however, he accepted a position at Amherst College, where he soon became Professor of mathematics and natural philosophy. In 1828 he married Harriet Vaughan, of Hallowell's leading family.'^ The following year Jacob Abbott moved to Boston and established the Mount Vernon School for girls, at a time when secondary education for women was still something of a novelty. This was

4

LYMAN

ABBOTT

the first o£ several academies operated by members of his immediate family. Here he displayed his talent as a teacher by abandoning traditional discipHnary methods, relying instead on appeals to honor and conscience. "I place very great confidence in the scholars in regard to their moral conduct and deportment," he wrote with characteristic Abbott optimism, "and they fully deserve it."® He elaborated his educational philosophy in The Teacher, or Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and Government of the Young (1833), a widely used textbook in early teacher-training institutions. In The Young Christian, or a Familiar Illustration of the Principles of Christian Duty (1832), Jacob Abbott placed an emphasis on practical Christianity which was in accord with progressive trends. This work and a companion volume, The Corner-stone, or a Familiar Illustration of the Principles of Christian Truth (1834), attracted considerable attention, not only in this country but in England. Thomas Arnold of Rugby, like Abbott a champion of moral education, hailed them as "very original and powerful."® These books anticipated many of the viewpoints of liberal Congregationalism later developed more fully by Lyman Abbott. Indeed, the latter's indebtedness to his father for his theology and his whole philosophy of life would be hard to exaggerate. The Cornerstone repudiated the idea of a material heaven beyond the skies and defined the Deity as an " A L L PERVADING POWER, which lives and acts throughout the whole." Jesus was "the GREAT MORAL MANIFESTATION OF THE DiviNiTY to U S . " He was "ß man, with all the feelings, and exposed to all the temptations of men," and His powers were human powers. His object was to induce men to repent of their sins and to cultivate the excellencies of character.^® Conservative theologians called The Corner-stone rationalistic. John Henry Newman denounced it in one of his famous Oxford Tracts for the Times. Accusing the author of Socinianism, if not pantheism, Newman asserted that there was utterly no Warrant for speaking of "the Person of the Eternal Word" as thinking

A NEW ENGLAND

HERITAGE

5

and feeling like a mere man. Abbott was "the voice of that scornful, arrogant, and self-trusting spirit, which has been unchained during these latter ages, and waxes stronger in power day by day, tili it is fain to stamp under foot all the host o£ heaven."^^ On a Visit to England in 1843 the American paid a call at Newman's home, where the two discussed their differences in an amicable manner. The Cardinal later commented on the Christian forbearance and generosity with which Abbott had met his strictures. Jacob Abbott forsook his school in 1833 and moved from Boston to the then suburban town o£ Roxbury, planning to devote all his time to writing. There he began the first of several series o£ stories for children, the celebrated Rollo books, which ran to twenty-eight volumes and indoctrinated American youth for many decades.^^ Through these simple tales—Rollo at Wor\, Rollo at Play, Rollo's Museum, Rollo in Rome, etc.—he attempted to provide elementary Instruction in practical ethics, religion, science, geography, and history. For the use of teachers he wrote an exposition of the moral principles which his stories were supposed to exhibit, These were conscience, justice, honesty, faithfulness, obedience, industry, patience, benevolence, forgiveness, and purity.^® "The pleasure of working," said Rollo's father, "is not the fun of doing amusing things, but the satisfaction and solid happiness of being faithful in duty and accomplishing some useful purpose."^^ "I always find," said his mother, "that when I am disappointed of any pleasure, it is best not to try to find any other pleasure in its place, but to turn to duty."'^^ "We are now travelling for improvement, not for play," Said little Rollo's ever-present and omniscient touring companion, Uncle George.^« Modern youth would probably be bored by the prosaic adventures of Rollo and his companions. Nevertheless, in their own time— the era of the unusually stuffy "Peter Parley" books of Samuel G. Goodrich—Abbott's creations were more human and less priggish than those of most other juvenile authors. The cheerful unregenerates of Mark Twain and Thomas Bailey Aldrich belong to a

6

LYMAN

ABBOTT

later period. In many respects the Rollo books provide plausible and realistic pictures o£ a simpler age than our own. They teil o£ barnyard and pasture, wood-chopping and apple-gathering, blueberrying and fishing, early hours and earnest aspirations. Here the Yankee passion for self-improvement, says Van Wyck Brooks, found its completest record. How to be conscientious and industrious, how to be genteel and well-informed, in order to be right on all occasions and also able to set others right, "this was Jacob Abbott's open secret."^'^ The Franconia stories, the most artistic and mature o£ Abbott's books for children, are even today considered to possess literary merit/® From heredity and childhood training Lyman Abbott feil heir to high moral character and purpose, to sobriety, sincerity, devoutness, kindliness, and simplicity. The foundations of Jacob Abbott's philosophy were faith in a heavenly Father as a friend and companion known to men by the human life of Jesus of Nazareth and a supreme desire to know His will, deserve His confidence, and cooperate with Him in His work. This modest creed the son imbibed from the parent.^® The eider Abbott was a liberal Congregationalist but far from Unitarian. As his son was to do, he followed a middle road between conservative and radical Christianity. When a group of Roxbury gentlemen oflered him the temporary pastorate of the newly established Eliot Church, he accepted. The avowed purpose of the founders was to combat the spfead of Unitarianism and Universalism. The success of rationalistic theology in the Boston area had aroused the orthodox to undertake a counterreformation, a movement given great impetus by Lyman Beecher, pastor of the Hanover Street Congregational Church from 1826 to 1832.^" The aim of the Roxbury group was to "extend the boundaries of Zion and advance the influence of the pure gospel of Christ by aiding the friends of Evangelical truth. . , The church Organization was completed on September 18, 1834, and on the same occasion Jacob Abbott was ordained as an evangelist. Want of unanimity after the

A NEW ENGLAND

HERITAGE

7

first examination made a second one necessary, after which the Ordination was agreed upon. T h e articles o£ faith adopted at that time included a Statement of belief in the fall of man, the atonement, "a general resurrection of the dead, when Jesus Christ shall judge the world in righteousness," everlasting punishment, and everlasting bliss.®^

A year later Jacob's brother, John S. C. Abbott, became permanent pastor of the Eliot Church, remaining there until 1843. Second of the five sons, he was graduated from Bowdoin in 1825 in the class with Hawthorne and Longfellow. Like his older brother he turned to authorship, beginning his literary career in 1833 with TAe Mother at Home, or the Principles of Maternal Duty Familiarly Illustrated. Later he became a historian of great populär reputation in the period immediately before and after the Civil War. He contributed much to the initial success of Harper's Magazine in the 1850's through his long serial life of Napoleon. This biography idealized the Corsican so flagrantly that more discerning thinkers made vigorous protests. When, at their request, Fletcher Harper undertook to induce Abbott to correct some of his misstatements, the latter is said to have replied: "Mr. Harper, I never write a line of my life of Napoleon without first getting down on my knees and asking Almighty God to keep me from errors."^' Emerson remarked that the book seemed to teach that Napoleon's great object was to establish in Europe "our New England system of Sunday schools."^^ This work and the many other historical volumes written by John S. C. Abbott, with Jacob Abbott's Red Histories for schoolchildren, furnished the basis of such knowledge for thousands of American boys and girls. According to Harper claims, Abraham Lincoln read them with the greatest interest and was indebted to them for most of his historical Information.^' While Jacob Abbott was working on The Way to Do Good, his wife gave birth to their third son in Roxbury on December 18, 1835. They called him Lyman, probably for a friend of the family who bore that surname. Her hope and desire from the moment

8

LYMAN

ABBOTT

of his birth, his mother wrote, was that he might, if he lived, be "not only a follower of Jesus, but a devoted Minister of God—yes, even a Missionary of the Gross, the Lord wilHng." Mrs. Abbott's health was very feeble at this time and consequently she looked upon her new-born babe "as but a treasure sent by God, upon which a Mother's affections must not be fixed too fondly." She was dedicating him wholly to the Lord. Her illness grew worse, and she had Httle expectation of remaining long in the world, but God sustained her "with many sweet and cheering promises."^® On April 17, 1836, a few friends collected in her room, where the child was baptized into the Gongregational fold.^'^ The mother's infirmity continued during the year. Her two older boys Hkewise incurred sickness, and her husband's health gave cause for anxiety. Lyman also was far from robust, though his physical and mental powers lasted almost unimpaired until his eighty-seventh year. When he was two and a half, his mother wrofe that he had been more delicate since a recent illness and was subject to a severe cough. He would need all a mother's watchfulness for two years or more, and he was not to be allowed to run about freely. " H e is such an active child that it is difficult to restrain him," his mother wrote, "but he seems at times, from his suffering, to be fully conscious that he cannot do all he wants." Sometime in 1838, before Lyman was three years old, the Abbott family moved to Farmington, Maine, where they built a new house opposite that of Jacob's father, who had settled there earlier. Deeply interested in landscape gardening, and forced by considerations of health to spend much time out of doors, he developed the grounds around his home into a kind of village park. A miry swamp became a crystal pond and a sluggish stream a singing brook. A sand bank, sodded and planted with trees, gave the place its name, "Little Blue," on account of its fancied resemblance to Old Blue, one of the higher mountains of Maine, some twenty miles away. Winding paths, steps, terraces, shrubs, and flowers beautified the whole area.^®

A NEW ENGLAND

HERITAGE

9

In 1843, shortly after Jacob's return from the tour on which he visitcd John Henry Newman, Harriet Vaughan Abbott died in childbirth.^" Lyman was only seven years old. The home was broken up and Little Blue was transferred to Jacob's brother Samuel, who occupied it as a boarding school. Jacob himself went to New York City where, in Cooperation with his two other brothers, Gorham Dummer and Charles Edward, he opened the Abbott School for Girls. The children went with him to New York, but Lyman was soon sent back to Farmington to attend his Uncle Samuel's school in his old home. Across the road was his grandfather's house, a long, rambhng, one-story structure later known as "Fewacres" and still Standing.^ ^ There the boy lived for several years, cared for by his aunts Clara and Sallucia, the one a widow, the other a spinster. He had great reverence for his grandfather, as apparently did other members of the Community. When a certain layman being ordained to the ministry was asked to define his conception of God, he is said to have replied: " I conceive that he is some such person as Squire Abbott."®^ What Lyman studied at Little Blue is unknown, but it must have been mainly reading, writing, and arithmetic. As for sports, looking back seventy years later, he pictured himself as a weakling, fairly good at swimming, skating, climbing, and tramping, but unable to hold his own in the rougher sports of the boys, "somewhat solitary, somewhat a recluse, and naturally timid."®® His recollections of childhood religious experiences were mixed. Nearly everyone went to the Congregational church, a piain and homely brick meetinghouse, which his grandfather had been instrumental in constructing. The sermons he did not remember, but the long prayer he always found interesting, since in it the pastor told all the village news. Those who had been married, who were ill, or who had gone on a journey or away to school were remembered before "the throne of grace," and since no names were mentioned, there was a splendid opportunity for guessing. In summer the children remained inside after the worship Service for Sunday

10

LYMAN

ABBOTT

school, while the older folk gathered in the churchyard to discuss the weather, the crops, and other matters of general interest. After a cold luncheon they hurried back for a second Service. O n Sunday evenings the Abbotts collected around the parlor organ for a hymn-sing. Family prayers were held on weekdays, morning and evening.®^ A conscientious child, Lyman was disturbed at times because he could not work up the "conviction of sin" so necessary to salvation according to orthodox religious teaching. "In the evening twiUght," he recalled, "when the dusk was gathering and the melancholy frogs were croaking, I used to go to my bedroom and try to think of all the wicked things I had done during the day, and, as that was not enough, of my mother in heaven and my father in N e w York, and of myself, a lonely, homeless, outcast boy, in the vain hope that conviction of sin would come. But it never came."®® H e could never get any further than to feel sorry because he was not sorry. Yet religion was not always a cause for apprehension. One of his childhood ambitions was to be a minister, and sometimes he preached to a congregation of empty chairs, with his brothers at the opposite end of the sitting-room practicing as a choir. T h e only condition on which they would attend the service was that they might sing while he gave the sermon!®® In 1846 his eldest brother, Benjamin Vaughan, entered N e w York University. A year later his second brother, Austin, did the same. About this time Lyman himself transferred from his Uncle Samuel's school at Farmington to a new academy opened by his Uncle Charles at Norwich, Connecticut, where he completed his preparation for College, His grandparents had both died, and his father wished him to be nearer N e w York. He spent the Christmas holidays of 1847-48 in the big city. In 1848 he wrote his younger brother Edward that he was studying Latin, Greek, algebra, geometry, and writing, and that on the whole he was "getting on pretty well."®^ T h e following year his father oflered him the choice of being sent to College or having $500 set aside annually for him

A NEW ENGLAND

HERITAGE

ii

Over a four-year period, which he might use to go into Business. T o an Abbott, College was more attractive than the counting room. In the fall of 1849, when he was less than fourteen years old, Lyman joined his brothers at N e w York University.®®

Chapter

Two

"LORD, HERE AM 1" N . ew Yor\ University in 184g was orte of the smaller American Colleges, and the years Lyman Abbott spent there were critical ones in its history. Its financial condition was so poor in 1850 that Chancellor Theodore Frelinghuysen resigned and the regulär faculty was reduced £rom twelve to four. The university was unable to find a new administrative head until 1853, the year o£ Abbott's graduation.^ Founded in 1832, it occupied during this period a single marble building, neo-Gothic in style, on the east side o£ Washington Square. It justified its title of university by the fact that it had a grammar school and a medical department in addition to an undergraduate enrollment which in the year 1849-50 totaled one hundred and fifteen.^ Since there was no dormitory, the students lived at home, with relatives, or in lodging houses. They assembled each morning for chapel, then dispersed to their classes, which detained them for only three hours. Thereafter they were free until the next day. The rules included a provision that anyone who frequented "billiard-rooms, taverns, or other places of corrupting influences" would not be allowed to remain in school, but probably this regulation was not enforced.® Nevertheless, for the adolescent Lyman Abbott liberty did not become license. With two or three College chums he once hired a policeman to lead a tour of the great city's underground society, including several houses of prostitution. "There has never since that Visit," Abbott wrote years later, "been for me any glamour in vice."^ He lived with his two older brothers, who were just as upright as

"LORD, HERE AM 1"

13

he. Though tliey lodged in hired rooms and took their meals in restaurants, they seem to have survived the supposedly dreadful temptations of urban life with their virtue unstained. That they did so was perhaps due to their inheritance, their early training, and their family soHdarity. They could spend spare hours at the Abbott School, which their father operated until 1851, or at the Spingier Institute, another academy for girls run by John S. C. Abbott from 1848 to 1853 and by Gorham D. Abbott until 1870. They customarily went to Farmington, Maine, for vacations. Lyman was not, therefore, a homeless boy; nor was he motherless. He had three second mothers: in the school at Norwich his Uncle Charles's wi£e, in New York his Uncle John's wife, in Farmington his Aunt Clara. Rather, he said, he had four mothers, three on earth and one in heaven, and the latter was just as real to him as the former.® His studies during the freshman and sophomore years were the usual ones of the classical«curriculum: Greek, Latin, mathematics, and English rhetoric. Lectures on history, political economy, philosophy, theology, astronomy, chemistry, and botany provided a broader intellectual experience during the junior and senior years. Instruction in French, Italian, Spanish, and German was furnished at extra expense for those who desired it.® Abbott studied German for a short time, but he never really mastered any foreign language and thus was unable to carry on the highest type of scholarly work in theology. His verbal memory was so poor that he seldom quoted Scripture texts except directly from a Bible.'^ On the annual general examination covering all subjects of the year's work he ranked only fifteenth among nineteen freshmen, with a grade of 79.5 per cent. The next year he placed ninth with a mark of 88 per cent, and as a junior he rose to seventh with 90.5 per cent. He graduated fourth in a class of sixteen with a rating of 91 per cent.® Considering that he entered College with inadequate preparation at the age of thirteen and was handicapped by poor health which sent him away every spring four or five weeks before the term closed, this was a very creditable record.®

14

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ABBOTT

Despite the disorganized condition o£ the university, Abbott had several teachers who made a significant impression upon him. A. E. Johnson, professor of Latin, inspired in him the habit o£ reading authors for their style as well as £or their ideas. From Elias Loomis, his mathematics instructor, he learned the principle that in philosophy as in geometry there are axioms which must be assumed as the basis of all subsequent reasoning. Dr. C. S. Henry, "Professor of Intellectual Philosophy, History, and Belles-Lettres," gave courses in rhetoric and oratory, imparting to Abbott a dread of artificial gestures and finely turned phrases. He also encouraged in his students an ability to arrive at independent philosophical conclusions. Dr. Howard Crosby, who became professor of Greek in 1852, gave him an impulse for studying the New Testament in the original and became a lifelong friend.^" The name of Samuel F. B. Morse was printed in the catalogue as "Professor of the Literature of the Arts of Design," but Abbott had no recollection of him as an instructor. Also on the faculty at this time was John W. Draper, later famous as the author of The Intellectual Development of Europe and A History of the Conflict between Religion and Science and already known as a pioneer in the development of photography. Professor of chemistry and natural history, he was a brilliant experimenter and a lucid lecturer, but not even Draper could make Lyman Abbott a scientist.^^ Since the required reading was not heavy, Abbott did not limit himself to prescribed assignments. He bought John Stuart Mill's Political Economy and discussed political and economic questions with his classmates, his brothers, and anyone eise who would argue them with him, thus laying the foundation for his later interest in current problems. He also read Macaulay's History of England, which was appearing in installments during his College years, and the works of Hume and Hallam. These, with his father's less pretentious Red Histories, provided the basis for subsequent historical reading.^ ^ He also laid out for himself a course in theology. Though he

"LORD,

HERE

AM I"

15

desired to retain the Puritan faith of his ancestors, he could not and would not do so without valid reasons. He had come to doubt all the fundamental doctrines of Christianity except the immortality of the soul and the existence of God. With Bishop Pearson's Exposition of the Creed as a guide, he studied one by one the basic articles of Christian faith. In connection with this project he read Jonathan Edwards' great work On the Freedom of the Will, bat he refused to accept Calvinist premises. As Dr. Johnson had said to Boswell, "We know that we are free, and there's an end on't." Abbott accepted instead the "New School" theology pf Lyman Beecher and Charles G. Finney, who repudiated the traditional Puritan dogmas of predestination and total depravity. Throughout his life he opposed deterministic doctrines, whether religious or scientific. He insisted that man's will was an original cause and that within a certain ränge it was supreme. John Foster's Decision of Character led him to a conviction that one could not throw upon others responsibility for his choices.^® Notwithstanding his theological questionings, he remained a regulär churchgoer. Though brought up a Congregationalist, in New York he first attended St. George's Episcopal, where he was greatly impressed by Dr. Stephen H. Tyng. With the aid of his brother Vaughan he taught himself to play the organ and to read simple sacred music. In his senior year he served as organist for an Episcopal church in one of the suburbs. A theological dispute with the rector over apostolic succession showed him that this denomination could not be his home, and in the spring of that year he united with a Presbyterian group.^^ Another important element in his collegiate experience was participation in the work of the Eucleian, one of two literary societies in the university. Nearly all the undergraduates belonged either to the Eucleian or to the Philomathean.^® The program of its biweekly Friday evening meeting consisted of an oration, criticized as to form and content by .the presiding ofEcer; the reading of the College paper, not printed but simply delivered orally by the editor;

i6

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and a debate, which was always extemporaneous. Here Abbott learned to think on his feet and began his practica of speaking without a manuscript.^® There were three secret fraternities, but Abbott was not a member.^'^ Düring his years in College and the succeeding period spent in New York City, he did not fail to take advantage of the recreational and cultural facilities aflforded by the metropolis. "The delight of my life," he recalled, was the Ravel family, pantomimists and acrobats who performed at Niblo's Garden. Other attractions were Barnum's Museum, Christy's Minstreis, and Perham's Panorama. An especially vivid memory was that of hearing Jenny Lind in Handel's oratorio The Messiah. It was impossible for him to doubt the resurrection while she was singing "I know that my Redeemer liveth." Another great occasion was the visit of the Drury Lane Theater Orchestra to New York in 1854 with 1500 voices and Instruments. Abbott neither danced nor played cards and rarely went to the theater, but he attended all sorts of concerts, from Buckley's Serenaders to the Italian opera, the Philharmonie, and the Oratorio Society.^® On June 29, 1853, Lyman Abbott received his A.B. degree from New York University at commencement exercises in Niblo's Garden. The ceremonies comprised the Inauguration of a new chancellor, the Reverend Isaac Ferris, the conferring of degrees, and the delivery of five Student orations. Abbott gave one of these, speaking on the subject, "Superstition, the Parent of Science." The honors of the day, however, were taken by his classmate T. De Witt Talmage, who likewise was to become a populär Brooklyn preacher with a national reputation. Talmage's oration was füll of wit and imagination, and the audience interrupted it with repeated bursts of applause.^® Vaughan and Austin Abbott were already engaged in a successful law practice in New York, and Lyman prepared to join them. After a brief vacation and a few months in their ofEce, he went to Farmington to further his training. John Cutler, a relative who

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had a law Business in that town, was a delegate to the Maine State legislature during the winter o£ 1853-54, and Abbott took charge of his Office during his absence. At the same time he read Blackstone and Kent. Returning to New York in the spring, he began such legal work as was possible for one not yet eligible to the bar. He soon obtained a position as law reporter for the New York Times, a job involving daily visits to the courts, writing accounts of minor news, and notifying the editors when important cases were Coming up. On occasion he also served as a bill collector. In February 1855, the Abbott law firm won considerable prominence by their successful defense of the Times against contempt charges arising from a jocose article on the Marine Court of New York. Thereafter they became regulär counsel for this newspaper.^" The three brothers formed a fine team, parceling out the duties according to their individual talents. Austin administered the office. Vaughan handled the trials, and Lyman performed the amateurdetective function of talking with clients and witnesses to determine facts for the others to utilize. Gradually litigation was also turned over to him and in March 1855, ^^ the age of nineteen, he tried his first case. In November 1856, a few weeks before he came of age, he was congratulated on passing a "brilliant" bar examination. Nine others tested at the same time failed.^^ Lyman Abbott's six years in the law may have contributed to the development of his shrewd and logical mind, which served him well as minister and editor in later years. The Abbotts were also partners in the preparation of two novels published under the pseudonym "Benauly," constructed from the first syllables of their names. One of these, entitled Cone Cut Corners (1855), was a temperance tract. Though marred by sermonizing, it presented a fairly acute portrait of society in a New England village and in New York City, the two locales with which the authors were familiar. Their moral purpose did not preclude sardonic humor, as in their reference to physicians who "adorn the profession and oblige their patients, by freely commending the

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poison (liquor) in the evening when they know they will be paid for the antidote in the morning."^^ This book enjoyed a fair success, but the other one, Matthew Caraby (1858), had none at all.^® Somewhat like an old-£ashioned melodrama, this tale illustrated the eventual triumph of long-thwarted virtue and justice. Lyman also wrote occasional articles for the press. One on women's rights was never published, fortunately for his record, since it advocated equal sufirage, a cause from which his wi£e converted him.^* In 1855 he became engaged to his second cousin, Abby Frances Hanilin, and on October 14, 1857 they were married at her home in Waverley, Massachusetts,^® Daughter of Hannibal Hamlin, a relative of the Vice-President bearing the same name, she was a niece of Dr. Cyrus Hamlin, missionäry to Turkey and founder of Robert College in Constantinople.^® So inbred was the Abbott family that Lyman's grandfather and grandmother were second cousins, while two of his three brothers also married second cousins.^^ Mr. Hamlin's first letter to the newly wed couple, whose honeymoon journey consisted simply of the trip from Boston to New York, expressed the opinion that they should "above all things, strive to attain an intimate knowledge of God and his word."^® Mrs. Abbott spent almost fifty years with her husband before death parted them, and the relationship between them seems to have been unusually congenial. His constant companion, she influenced him in many ways. He attributed the clarity of his style partly to her criticism, and her conservative nature tempered his liberal tendencies, making it possible for him to live on good terms with people holding all, shades of opinion.^® Early in 1858 they bought a house on State Street in Brooklyn. Despite the happiness of his professional and marital adjustments, he was increasingly restless. His childhood aspirations for the ministry again came alive in consequence of three influences: the slavery question, Henry Ward Beecher's personality, and the revival of 1858. He had become interested in the Republican Party shortly after its founding, on account of its antislavery purpose. Though

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not an abolitionist, he believed wich such men as Seward, Chase, Lincoln, and Beecher that the Solution of the problem lay in excluding slavery from the territories. On November 6, 1855, he had written to his future wife that America would either remain "in God's Service, an exponent of individual freedom," or would go Over to Satan's side. "I believe vi^e are near where the tvi^o roads branch off. Republicanism points to freedom."®" A business trip to Georgia in 1856 gave him an unfavorable Impression of the South and Southern institutions. "As we left Washington City," he wrote Abby, "I began to get into a rather dubiouslooking Company. Everybody chewed tobacco and smoked cigars; and from the looks of collars and shirt bosoms I should think very few had very large monthly bills to setde with their washerwomen." South Carolina looked to him like "an interminable pine forest of dead or dying trees growing in a miserable swamp." The train w^as crowded with slaves being sold south, apart from their families. A Virginian told him that medical students at the university in Charlottesville were accustomed to take bodies from Negro burial grounds for dissecüon, thus driving the blacks to holding mock funerals.®^ For a time he was eager to join the band of Northern immigrants to Kansas and Nebraska, but his father urged him to continue in the law and use his influence where he was, perhaps going into poliücs. He was an enthusiastic supporter of Fremont, and worked all day at the polls distributing Republican Party dckets in the election of 1856. A little later, in a debating society to which he belonged, he took an active part in criticizing the imprisonment of men who encouraged resistance to the fugiüve slave law. He also wrote several articles on the duty of the church to deal with slavery. Denying that the examples of Christ and Paul furnished an excuse for clerical indiflference to the enormity of this "sin against God," he exhorted those who thought antislavery discourse improper for the pulpit to ask themselves: "Why do I not preach against political sins? Is it because I desire truly to follow the example of Christ?

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Or is it because I fear to oflend a portion of my congregation?"®^ Aside from this increasing interest in the practical ethical problem of the day, he developed an intensified concern for theological issues as a result of his contact widi Henry Ward Beecher, who had come to the Plymouth Congregational Church in Brooklyn as its first pastor in 1847 and was rapidly becoming the most prominent pulpit orator in America. In a peculiar sense Abbott was Beecher's heir. His call to the ministry came largely under the latter's influence. His religious beliefs and social outlook he borrowed in large measure from Beecher. He was associated with him and succeeded him as editor of the Christian Union and followed him as pastor of Plymouth Church in 1887. He wrote the fairest biography of Beecher.®® At first Abbott attended this church irregularly because he was generally engaged in playing the organ elsewhere. Furthermore, Beecher's pulpit manner, politics, and theology were too radical for the more conservative Abbott mind. Writing to his fiancee in September 1855, he remarked that Beecher was "a great man, though hardly domesticated, a good man, though a litde rough."®^ But as time passed, his attitude changed from the apologetic to the defensiv^ and finally to the eulogistic. Both men were to make outstanding contributions to the development of liberal Protestantism. While the old orthodoxy emphasized divine law, progressive orthodoxy as formulated by such leaders as Beecher and Abbott and Horace Bushnell emphasized divine love. Beecher's part in this movement is especially significant because of the power of his remarkable personality.®® The third influence in Abbott's decision to abandon the law for the ministry was his experience in the great revival of 1858, a nationwide Spiritual awakening accompanying the economic depression of 1857. Beecher took füll advantage of this opportunity to win souls to Christ and held daily morning prayer meetings at Plymouth Church. In the first six months of 1858 about three hundred converts joined his congregation on profession of faith. At one of these

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services Lyman Abbott asked prayers for bis younger brother Edward, then a sophomore at New York University, who appeared to be drifting from tbe straight and narrow patb. Sbortly thereafter Edward and bis two best friends decided to become ministers, an event wbicb seemed to aflord a striking example o£ answered prayer.®® Witbin a year Lyman also answered tbe call of tbe Lord. His was not, bowever, an instantaneous conversion like tbat of Dwigbt L . Moody, wbo found bis profession at tbe same time, but ratber a calculated decision. His relatives would give bim no encouragement. His £atber-in-law, wbo bad advised bim after bis wedding to put first tbe knowledge of God, doubted wbetber his bealtb was strong enougb for pastoral labor. Furtbermore, Mr. Hamlin reasoned, "would tbe Lord bless you to such a degree in your present business if be wished you to give it up?"®^ Abandoning a comfortable home and secure circumstances, he would have tbe Problem of supporting himself while pursuing his theological studies. The young man was also in doubt as to bis temperamental fitness for church work, since he cared little for creeds and lacked a "personal knowledge" of the Saviour. Mrs. Abbott refused to make the decision for bim but raised no objections. When a friend asked her how she feit about marrying a lawyer and finding herseif a preacher's wife, she replied: "I did not marry a lawyer. I married Lyman Abbott."®® On July 13, 1859, he wrote his father of his determination to cbange his career. He never regretted his decision, except for the fact tbat it involved hardship for his wife and inconvenience for his brotbers' law firm.®® Selling his house and bis share in the partnership, he took his wife and their first child (Lawrence, born in 1859) to the old family place at Farmington. He planned to spend the winter on theological studies, as five years earlier be bad prepared for the law. Jacob Abbott was there during the fall, and Lyman spent five memorable weeks in companionship with bim, talking over tbe problems of his new life work. Several of his father's counsels, given bim as they worked together around the yard at Fewacres, remained with him

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to the end of his days. One piece o£ advice was that he should decrease the length of his sermons until the congregation complained that they were too short and then eliminate another five minutes' Worth. A second was that if he wished to take his hearers from one idea to another, he must go through all the intermediate points, just as in going from one place to another. A third was that most of the controversies which had agitated the religious world had been about words. Pursuing this advice, Abbott generally refused to raise such theological battleflags as "Trinity," "Atonement," and "Regeneration." In consequence both radicals and conservatives came to accept his leadership. Finally, he was to remember that the way always to have plenty of money was always to spend less than he earned.^" Whether taken entirely from his father or not, these maxims were without question among the secrets of Lyman Abbott's subsequent success in religious work. Much more important than these specific precepts was the general religious oudook of his father, who gave him many of the clues he later followed in elaborating his own philosophy. Jacob Abbott's definition of God as "the All-Pervading Power which lives and acts throughout the whole" was very similar to Lyman Abbott's later equation of the Deity with Herbert Spencer's "Infinite and Eternal Energy from which all things proceed." Both parent and son defined Christ as "God manifest in the flesh." His father's emphasis on practical Christianity led Abbott to deny the common distinction between religion and "mere morality" and to consider obedience to the moral law the first step in the Christian life and the best evidence of conVersion.^ ^ After his father's departure in October on one of his frequent trips, Lyman Abbott began at the imaginary "Fewacres Theological Seminary" a formal course of study which he had marked out for himself in consultation with Beecher, Dr. E. N. Kirk of Boston, and Dr. Calvin E. Stowe of Andover. Dr. Kirk had told him that the Bible should be "the main thing," and Beecher had said, "Buy Alford's Greek Testament, whatever you do."*^ Other works on

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his list were Edward Townsend's Chronological Arrangement of the Old Testament, Robinson's Biblical Researches in Palestine, Sinai, and Arabia, and William J, Conybeare and J. S. Howson's hije and Letters of Paul. For philosophy he reread Sir William Hamilton's lectures on metaphysics, which he had studied in College, Henry L. Mansel's Limits of Religious Thought, Calvin's Institutes, and George Combe's Phrenology, which he thought afforded the most convenient Classification of mental and emotional phenomena for practical use by the religious teacher.^® He had been reading at Farmington for only a few weeks when he received a call to fill the pulpit at the village of Wilton, nine miles distant, where the pastor had just died. After conferring with his Uncle John, who told him that the way to learn to preach was to preach, he decided to undertake the work, though at first it involved no compensation. His father had also expressed the belief that theological study was best carried on in conjunction with church work and that lengthy academic training was unnecessary.^^ Lyman spoke extemporaneously and made litde special preparation. Thus enabled to spend the week in general mental cultivation, he always had something new to say, though it was not always said in the most polished style. On November 2, 1859, he was licensed to preach by a Congregational association meeting in Temple, Maine.^® The following spring, through the auspices of Henry C. Bowen, founder of Plymouth Church and proprietor of the Independent, he received a call from the Congregational church in Terre Haute, Indiana, at a salary of $1000 a year. Despite his lack of formal theological schooling, he was granted Ordination by a Congregational council in Farmington on March 12, 1860, and departed immediately for the West.*® For Lyman Abbott, however, education was not a matter of schools and courses but rather a self-disciplining process which never ceased. It is interesting to note that Washington Gladden, another prominent liberal minister of the late nineteenth Century, who took a leading part in directing the same religious adjustments.

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was likewise largely self-taught. His only formal theological study was in a class under Mark Hopkins at Williams College. Both Gladden and Abbott were protected from the ossifying influence of stereotyped theological training; neither was charged with the maintenance of any rigid system of thought. Both did their investigation along independent lines, hammering out their shields of faith on the anvil of daily pastoral labor.^^

Chapter Three

UBER TY AND UNION Marth and South, church members loyally supported their respective sections in the Civil War, some considering it a holy Crusade. Like the vast majority o£ other Northern ministers, Lyman Abbott identified the Union side with God and right; unlike many, he preached this message from the pulpit. Though still under thirty and comparatively unknown, he was typical of the outspoken clerical group who asserted that a campaign for liberty, even when carried on by force o£ arms, was thoroughly consonant with Christ's teachings/ Among the virtues he always placed righteousness above peace. Thus he actively upheld the Federal government and roundly condemned the Confederacy for despotism and disunion. Henry Ward Beecher, then at the height of his influence, displayed even greater patriotic zeal by making a tour of England in 1863, supposedly Converting hostile audiences to the Northern cause.^ Abbott spent the exciting years from 1860 to 1865 as pastor of the Congregational church in Terre Haute, Indiana, a Community in which sectional sympathies were divided. This city, a commercial center situated on the Wabash River, in 1860 was the sixth largest in the State, containing over eight thousand inhabitants.® Indiana probably had a larger population of Southern birth or parentage than any other free State, and south of the National Road, which ran through Terre Haute, this element held a Controlling political majority. Despite the efforts of able and loyal Governor Oliver P. Morton, Opposition became open, resulting in the formation of secret societies, political demonstrations, attacks on news-

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paper offices, and resistance to the draft. Confederate sympathizers wrecked Unionist presses in Terre Haute, and the State Organization of the Order of American Knights, a Copperhead Society, was established there in 1863.'* The "best people" of the city had come largely from the Middle states. There were only two N e w England families in Abbott's congregation, and "Yankee" was a term of opprobrium. His church had been founded in 1834 by the Reverend Merrick A . Jewett, who had left Baltimore in search of a Western mission field and had been persuaded to settle in Terre Haute. Originally nonsectarian, it had become Congregational in 1850.® On the day of his arrival, March 31, 1860, Abbott wrote his father that his prospective parishioners were "unusually warm-hearted and \ind" and were characterized by "fully as much cultivation and refinement as we should find in N e w England."® At first he and his family roomed and boarded with Lucius Ryce, a prominent merchant and pillar of the church, but after several months they secured "a very pleasant little cottage quite surrounded with shrubbery."^ Meeting expenses from his meager salary was a task of no little difHculty. Fortunately he was able to augment his income by making occasional contributions to the press and by assisting his Uncle John in writing a history of the war. He also joined the staff of the Terre Haute Female Seminary. Invited to deliver the commencement address there in June of 1860, he took the opportunity to afiirm that woman was as truly created in the divine image as man and that she should be educated as a person rather than specifically trained to serve as wife and mother.® The speech attracted favorable attention, and in the fall the College employed him as chaplain and professor of philosophy. At the same time he began tutoring a young man in Gfeek and Latin.® Finances were not his only problem. Many members of the church had been reluctant to accept the resignation of Dr. Jewett, whom Abbott replaced, and when the older minister returned to Terre Haute some time later he found them more than ready to

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attend services which he began to conduct in the courthouse. Reports that the new preacher held heterodox views contributed to the discontent, and for a time the congregation was divided into Abbottites and Jewettites.^® Abbott's own audience on August 19 was "only tolerable in size and not very attentive." ^^ Düring his first four months only three new people joined the church. Just as difEcult as making ends meet and quieting dissension among his flock was the question of dealing with the slavery issue, a matter of great concern to Lyman Abbott. Prior to the election of Lincoln in November 1860, he did not speak on political matters in the pulpit. There were two reasons for this. One was his father's counsel, first to acquire influence, then to use it. The other was his wish not to work direcdy for the Republican candidate. "I have never believed that the minister should be the advocate of a political party or a poÜtical candidate," he wrote in his old age. "He may urge temperance, but not the claims of the Prohibition party; social reform, but not the claims of the Progressive party; liberty, but not the claims of the Republican party." ^^ His best friend and counselor, Ryce, advised him against speaking upon slavery at all. Whatever had been the tradition in New England, the people of Indiana were not accustomed to political preaching; probably his would be the first such sermon ever given in Terre Haute. The epithel "Unitarian" had been applied to him without great effect, but the designation "abolitionist" would not be regarded so lightly in a locality where Southern and compromise views were predominant. In spite of these considerations, on December 9, the Sunday following Buchanan's annual message to Congress, Abbott at last ventured to express publicly his personal opinions regarding the State of the nation. As he was normally to do, he adopted a moderate Position. Taking for his topic "The Crisis—Its Cause and Cure," he elaborated at some length on the evils of slavery. America, he contended, faced the basic question of whether the Negro race was to be kept in ignorance and subjection or whether it was to be

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protected and uplifted. This was a religious matter, a question of love versus selfishness, "whether we that are strong shall use our strength to beat down or raise up the weak." Then the preacher went on to reassure his parishioners that he was not an abohtionist. Northern Citizens should recognize that under the American system of State sovereignty they had no right to interfere with slavery in the South. He urged füll and faithful observance of the Constitution. (On the one hand, then, to paraphrase "Mr. Dooley" on Theodore Roosevelt and the trusts, he would stamp slavery under foot; on the other hand, "not so fast!") Finally he expressed his confidence that God would preserve the Republic and that the convulsions which were shaking nations were "but the labor pains of the World which are to give birth to liberty, and love, and the Kingdom of God."^® T w o families of Southern origin left the church in consequence of this sermon, but others came in to take their places, and the members as a whole displayed their confidence by re-engaging him in January at an increased salary. The beginning of the war in the following spring made it easier for him to take a positive stand. Governor Morton responded to Lincoln's call for volunteers with a promise to furnish ten thousand. Within two weeks Abbott wrote that Terre Haute had sent three companies to Indianapolis, in all some three hundred and twenty men. While he was "in the midst of a strong pro-slavery sentiment," he feit that aside from a few Democratic politicians who secretly favored the secessionists there was little vocal Opposition to "the putting down of treason by force of arms."^^ A camp was organized on the outskirts of the city, and there on May 27 he preached on the text, "In the name of God we set up our banners." A choir opened the service with "The Star-Spangled Banner." The Democratic paper advised them to conclude the next occasion on which he ofEciated by singing "Yankee Doodle."^® A month later he spoke at the same place on "The Dangers and Temptations Incident to War."^« About the same time he wrote several articles defining the issues

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of the conflict. " W e have wisdom to makc our own laws; have we power to enforce them?" he asked. "Or is our country, which has been strong to defend itself against foreign aggression, to drop to pieces at last of its own weakness?" W e had shown by our unexampled prosperity that democratic government was best for peacetime. In addition we had driven from our shores the strongest outside power (Great Britain) which could have taken up arms against us. N o w we faced "a treason such as never any nation in the history of the world was ever called on to cope with before." Would we be able to show that self-government was also able to crush rebellion within? If so, "the problem of the world's government will be settled and liberty will be established forever."^^ In his view the question was not simply one of party politics, nor of sustaining the Federal administration, nor of preventing the extension of slavery. It was not even merely that of preserving the Union—"whether one by one the stars shall fade from our Southern horizon, and one by one the stripes be torn from our ensign, and our once glorious flag left to wave a mutilated emblem of a distracted and broken country. . . ." The paramount question was whether the very system of republicanism itself was more than "a delusion and a failure."^® Thus Abbott anticipated the thesis given classic expression in Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. Lyman Abbott feit that government enjoyed divine sanction and that it was just as much a Christian duty to uphold the State as the church. T h e annual meeting of the Congregational Association of Indiana in 1861, after choosing Abbott as moderator, adopted resolutions declaring it the obligation of all church people to Support the Union against "flagrant and audacious treason." A t Abbott's suggestion the following Statement was added: T h a t our duty as Christian patriots is the plainer, inasmuch as not only law and order, but liberty itself is involved in the present contest, the banner of treason being avowedly raised for the perpetuation and extension of a system of slavery, which is as antagonistic to the plainest principles of humanity and the simplest precepts of the Gospel, as it is at last confessed to bc to those principles of liberty which underlie our nation, and to which. under God, we are indebted for all its prosperity.^"

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In the summer of 1861 the church gcnerously gave her young pastor a vacation, which he spent in the East. His Uncle John suggested his name for a vacant Congregational parish in Menden, Connecticut. Preaching there upon invitation, he soon received a call to the regulär pastorate. This large and flourishing church offered a salary o£ $1200 in addition to the parsonage. He would be near friends and relatives as well as in a congenial intellectual and social atmosphere, The Meriden call, however, was not unanimous, and besides he feit that Terre Haute needed him, while Ryce and others persuaded him that his leaving would be detrimental to their Organization.^" Mrs. Abbott put the matter in a sentence: "It seems to me that both places are attractive, and the question is, Where can we do the most good?"^^ Since to both of them Terre Haute seemed the answer, in October he accepted a permanent appointment there. His people showed their loyalty at Christmas by showering upon him an especially large assortment of food for the family larder, silver and equipment for the household, books for his library, toys for his children, and substantial gifts in cash. He found them so liberal that he wrote a facetious article entitled "Wanted—^A ShadySide Parish." While he had gone to the wild and woolly West in the expectation of becoming a martyr, he had found it impossible to be one. His salary was promptly paid, he was undercharged by tradesmen or not billed at all, and his home had become "a receiving depot" for all sorts of delicacies. Though he preached temperance in a Community cursed by drink and upheld liberty where the slave had few friends, he received a courteous hearing.^^ In the fall of 1862 Lyman Abbott delivered what was probably his most notable sermon during the war. On Sunday evening, September 7, two weeks before Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, he publicly urged the adoption of this policy. For some months antislavery elements had been insisting that such a blow be Struck at the Confederacy; Henry Ward Beecher's edi-

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torials in the Independent may have given the younger minister the cue £or his sermon on "The Issue and Duty of the Hour."^® The Northern clergy in general were an important factor in the pressure upon the President for freeing the Negroes.^^ Government, Abbott said, was a divine institution whereby the few might serve the many. Matthew 20:27—"whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant"—was his text, Rebellion, sometimes glorious, in this case was infamous. In earlier times the State had been on the side of despotism; revolutions had been waged on behalf of populär rights. Now government was on the side of the people, and tyranny was rising against it. The North and the South, he continued, represented two irreconcilable ideals, one of a Society operated for the many, the other for the few. The plantation system had nurtured "a servile race, ignorant and semibarbaric; a white race, quite as ignorant, easy subjects of prejudice and passion; a governing race, rapidly degenerating from high-toned and chivalric gentlemen, to domineering, tyrannical, and sometimes brutal taskmasters." No man, no class of men, was pure enough to possess absolute power. The vast differences between the sections were all the product ultimately of slavery. To entertain the idea that the two could live separately side by side was futile. "To conciliate such a foe is impossible," Abbott declared. "It only remains to subdue it. To that end we should demand of our Government earnest and aggressive action."^® As he saw it, one of the most promising measures for winning the war was emancipation, which would turn the Southern slaves, a bulwark of Confederate strength, against their masters. Such action would also gain the support of Europe for the North. The day of which Jefferson had written, the day of God's justice for the Negro people, had arrived. Liberty for the slave would be not only a fruit of victory but a means of obtaining it. Admitting that most blacks were not prepared for the responsibilities of citizenship, he stated his opinion that they should not be granted immediate political equality. "I would confine the administration of Government

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always," he asserted, "to the moral and the intelligent." The question was merely whether those unfit for self-government were to be ruled in a selfish or in a Christian manner, whether their basic human rights were to be protected. Neither would hc favor an attempt to treat the South as a conquered province. The main object was simply to destroy the slaveholding aristocracy and to build "a pure and genuine democracy" in its place. While many supposed that God's ministers ought not to care about politics, it was certain that God Himself cared. "I should be unworthy of my place, and of the times in which God has cast my lot," he declared, "if I feared to speak with unloosed tongue."^® Since Abbott's was dubbed "the abolition church," it is probable that he was the only minister in Terre Haute to deal with the issue. Despite the importance the young clergyman attached to the great national problem of the day, most of his time and energy went, as a matter of course, into daily pastoral duties. With the small library he had acquired, he continued his self-education and attempted to perfect his training for his chosen career. He feit deeply the inadequacy of his theological preparation. Typical was his notation that on a certain Sunday, "wearied and imprepared," he had preached a "very poor sermon, not only weak but having many errors in it, at least of Statement." A notebook spasmodically kept during these years reveals him as highly introspective, given to soul-searching, and often discouraged at the lack of spiritual vitality in his own life as well as in that of his flock. He was constantly resolving to rise earlier, to read more, to work harder, and to "do better." On one occasion he confided that he had not "been personally living aright." He had not maintained "a spirit of prayer," nor had he carried on "a careful, spiritual, & personal study of God's Word." He was worried because he had attended a surprise party which turned out to be a masquerade ball. He had resolved to stop "getting up" sermons, to probe instead the hearts of his people that he might preach to their needs. He feit also that he had been .derelict in his pastoral duties, since there were many in his congrega-

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tion to whom he had never spoken individually on the subject of religion.^® Despite the liberalizing influence of his father and of Beecher, his theology seems to have been still quite orthodox. In a confession of faith dated May 1862, he expressed his conviction that the Scriptures provided an authoritative and infallible rule of religious faith and practice. Man was originally created in the image of God; by voluntary transgression he feil from his original State of purity, "all his descendants inheriting his depraved nature from him. . . ." Jesus was born of a Virgin and was "in the form of God and equal with Him, the express image of His person. . . ." Christ had provided "expiation" for man's wickedness; those who accepted Him had the punishment for their sins remitted. Regeneration was "not a gradual development of the untried ppwers of the soul, but a radical and instantaneous change in the Controlling affections and desires of the heart.. . ." "How cold & harren any doctrine (as Unitarianism, or Swedenborgianism)," he declared in his notebook, "that omits the justifying, pardoning blood of Jesus."®" He also recorded his belief that the Bible spoke as clearly against the idea of probation after death as against the future world's being one of unconsciousness.®^ However, an experience during his Terre Haute pastorate soon shook his confidence in the doctrine that those departing this life unrepentant could not be saved. The problem was thrust upon him by the sudden drowning of a young man who had never professed faith in Christ. His mother, a widow, was a member of the Old School Presbyterian church; some of the family attended the Congregational. Thus both pastors called on the bereaved woman. The Presbyterian minister would give her only the assurance that there might have been time for a last-minute repentance. Abbott, on the other band, read to her some passages from the Psalms affirming God's eternal mercy and then in prayer commended both mother and son to divine keeping. In his Reminiscences he asserted that he never again held that death ended hope for any man, but it took him many years to reconstruct his

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theology regarding the future life and to discover that Scripture a£Eorded as little ground as reason £or the doctrine o£ "a closed door."®^ He was also to modify all his other evangelical doctrines within two or three decades. Returning from a second trip to the East in the summer of 1863, he stopped at Oberlin to hear Charles G. Finney. Earlier he had read a biography o£ the noted evangelist and studied his lectures on revivalism. "I am not sure," he recalled years later, "that his quiet conversational method did not have a great effect on my own public style, for before that visit my ideals of oratory had been largely derived from Wendeil Phillips, John B. Gough, and Henry Ward Beecher—the first a rhetorical orator, the two latter dramatic orators. I think it was Dr. Finney who demonstrated to me that one could be an eflective Speaker without being either rhetorical or dramatic."®® Thereafter he tried to make his preaching "more Spiritual," that is, "more directly addressed to reverence, conscience, aflections, and especially hope." In the fall of 1863 he began a series of sermons on such common sins as lying, dishonesty, and promiscuity, something like the Seven Lectures to Young Men which Beecher had given in Indianapolis twenty years earlier.®^ He spoke with a professional gambler in Order to get first-hand Information for a pulpit attack on games of chance. A sermon on the text, "She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth," caused the Democratic paper in the city to make the following comment: His Word pictures of the causes of Initiation of young men in the three great evils of gambling, drinking, and licentiousness were in bold relief and füll of truthfulness, and it is hoped may be a warning to young men. W e cannot think, however, that the extreme plainness of Statement and bluntness with which the reverend gentleman depicted some things in his sermon was appropriate on the occasion."

One of these talks produced a considerable sensation as the result of a blunder on his part. It dealt with the problem of men who did not directly lie yet were not always careful to make sure

LIBERTY

AND UNION

35

of accuracy, as in the advertisement by a local merchant of "die greatest stock of goods in the West." This illustration had been furnished him secondhand, and it turned out that the person to whom it applied was none other than his friend Lucius Ryce.®® Stepping on the toes of his parishioners evidently did not alienate their sympathies, for in the following summer they provided him with a bonus of $150 for another vacation, which he spent with friends aboard a Lake Superior steamer.®'' And his discouragement at the lack of intense spiritual fervor in the church did not mean that he was not making progress. The enrollment, at any rate, increased steadily despite the fact that the war must have caused a certain drain on the town's population. Most churches lost membership during these years ®® In 1860 his congregation numbered 156; by the following year it had grown to 170, and by 1864 to 192. This was the largest of the twenty-five Congregational churches in Indiana. Indeed there were only about 900 Congregationalists in the entire State.®® When he arrived he found it was not customary to hold services on stormy Sunday evenings. Abbott asked Ryce whether he closed his Store on rainy days. "Certainly not," said the latter, to which the enterprising preacher replied, "Neither is it good business to dose the church." Thereafter he declined to do so, and people always came. He also organized an adult Bible class which met one evening a week at private houses to study the life of Christ. Attendance was not confined to members of his own fold, nor was any kind of faith a condition for belonging to the group. Each individual was free to express his own opinions, but debate was not allowed. It required tact and a little authority for the young minister to maintain good will among persons of diverse religious views. The work compelled him to strengthen his knowledge of the Gospels.^® Somewhat later he succeeded in greatly enlarging the prayer-meeting attendance by holding it in a specially designed church parlor rather than in the auditorium.*^ On the two Sunday evenings preceding the presidential election

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of 1864 Abbott gavc sermons entitled " W a r or Compromise?" and "Liberty or Slavery?" H e also spoke twice at jubilees celebrating Lincoln's victory.^^ By this time he was becoming interested in the problem of Southern reconstruction. T h e following spring he resigned his pastorate to become secretary of a relief and rehabiUtation commission—a Störy reserved for the next chapter. A local newspaper remarked that when he deUvered his farewell sermon in April 1865, "a feeling of deep sadness pervaded the entire audience." "The departure of Mr. Abbott," it said, "is not only a loss to the church over which he has ministered, but this Community has lost a talented and useful Citizen."^® T h e pastor took the occasion to express his appreciation for the loyalty of his congregation and to summarize his pulpit teachings during the war. In these crucial years, he said, his chyrch had not been silent or unconcerned. Before Buchanan's administration had closed, when the country still favored compromise, he had opposed concessions to the South. Shortly after the firing on Fort Sumter he had advocated instant, earnest, and vigorous war for the preservation of the Union. Before the Emancipation Proclamation was issued he had espoused the cause of liberty for the slaves.

Chapter

REGENERATING Lyman

Four

THE SOUTH

Abbott confided to his noteboo\ in 1864 a feeling that

he had not been sufficiently alive to the great movements represented by the Sanitary Gjmmission, the Christian Commission, and the freedmen's aid societies, "I wish I had endeavored to bring my people to participate in them more than I have," he wrote. "In respect to the last it is not perhaps too late." ^ When the opportunity came, he did not hesitate to abandon his Terre Haute pastorate for a part in the larger work o£ regenerating the South, of trying to build there that "pure and genuine democracy" of which he had spoken when he demanded the abohtion of slavery in 1862. In an article on "Southern EvangeUzation," pubHshed six months before the war ended, he pointed out that victory alone was not enough, that destruction would have to be followed by reconstruction. MiUtary governments would be but temporary expedients "and doubtful ones at that." "We have not only to conquer the South," he wrote, "— we have also to convert it. We have not only to occupy it by bayonets and bullets,—but also by ideas and institutions. We have not only to destroy slavery,—we must also organize freedom." The two great essentials for successful democracy, he believed, were populär intelligence and populär morality, in other words, free schools and free churches. "The South now possesses neither of these," he said. The North should supply them.^ Many organizations had already begun relief and rehabilitation work in the interests of the freedmen. As early as November 1861, the American Missionary Association, a Congregational group, dis-

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tributed clothing and gave secular and religious Instruction to former slaves at Fortress Monroe, Virginia. In 1862 freedmen's aid societies were formed in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia; before the end of the war they had spread throughout the North and the Middle West. Unreasoning rivalry and lack of coördination counteracted much of their good influence before a plan for systematic Cooperation could be put into effect. While their initial purpose was relief, their energies soon came to be directed largely into educational Channels.® One of these associations, the American Union Commission, was distinctive in that it offered to help both black and white refugees. This Organization grew out of a visit to Tennessee by the Reverend Joseph P. Thompson and the Reverend William I. Buddington of Brooklyn as delegates of the Christian Commission in June 1864. After conferring with Governor Andrew Johnson and President Lincoln on the desolation they saw, they established this association to aid the Federal government in restoring the Union "upon the basis of universal freedom, education, industry, and Christian morality." A nondenominational agency, "Christian in its spirit and purpose," it recognized "no distinctions of caste or color" and claimed to be "neither political nor sectional in its work.'"' By February 1865, its future was sufficiently promising to justify the appointment of a full-time executive secretary. Abbott's article on "Southern Evangelization" had created a favorable Impression on Thompson and others, and a personal interview convinced them that he was the man for the job. His interest in ethical movements and his experience in legal and business affairs provided the desired qualifications. Accordingly he was oflered the position at a salary of three thousand dollars a year.® On February 27 he informed his Terre Haute congregation of his plans. Before leaving for New York to take up his new duties, Abbott made a brief visit to Tennessee to acquaint himself with the Southern Situation. At Nashville he noted the absence of public schools

REGENERATING

THE SOUTH

39

and of good private ones. He had a pleasant conference with Governor William G. Brownlow and several leading members of the State legislature. Brownlow, a somewhat fiery Methodist minister, often called the "Fighting Parson," he found to be "a very quiet, gendemanly man, with an inexpressibly sad cast of coimtenance" and "no trace of the fierceness of his pubUc speeches." ® Abbott proposed that the Commission appoint and pay someone to act in conjunction with the State officials as a quasi-superintendent of public Instruction, "a suggestion which they seemed to l i k e T h o u g h no definite arrangements were made, he thought the foundation had been laid for future accomplishments. Since Abbott was unable to find "a Single radical, progressive, live minister in Nashville," he was also inclined to favor sending a chaplain to the refugees to attempt establishment of a "liberty-loving, progressive church."^ Returning via Clarksville, Tennessee, he inspected a contraband camp accoinmodating about two thousand Negroes. The Federal government provided food and fuel, but the refugees were dependent on private benevolence for other supplies and schooling. Four freedmen's commissions were working there with neither unified plan nor hearty Cooperation. None could do much, and each was jealous of the others. The need for a coördinating agency was obvious. Abbott left Tennessee convinced that the South was a ripe field for "the Christian labor of Northern patriotism." Nevertheless, he was sure that Northern Immigration could not save the South unless the forces of piety outran and outgeneraled those of cupidity. "I am more than ever convinced that we must send our best and ablest men South," he concluded.® On his way from Indiana to the East, he met the Lincoln funeral cortege; he recognized that the assassination would make reconstruction even more difficult. After familiarizing himself with the Commission's New York headquarters and its personnel, Abbott went to Washington and Virginia. On May 18 he visited General Oliver O. Howard, head of the Freedmen's Bureau, who expressed the hope that soon the

40

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benevolent societies would combine forces to achieve more effective and economical administration. Abbott agreed to do all he could to effect unification. The General consulted him regarding the first important Bureau circular, issued on May 19, 1865, announcing well-defined principles of action. It declared that the educational and moral condition of the freedmen would not be forgotten. All possible help would be given private organizations in maintaining schools for refugees and freedmen until public school systems could be organized. The government's purpose was not to supersede private philanthropic agencies, but rather to systematize and facilitate their work.® Conditions in Virginia proved even more discouraging than those in Tennessee. In Richmond Abbott could not find a single newspaper interested in regenerating the South, nor any minister who pointed the way to social salvation. "The clergy," he wrote, "who have been for four years preaching slavery and secession, cannot now preach liberty and union. If they attempt it, the people attribute their conversion to fear or self-interest." An agent of the American Tract Society, he noted, was told that bis publications would be welcomed if the local group could put its own imprint on them. "We do not believe," the Richmond representative said, "in an American Tract Society. We are going to maintain a Virginia Tract Society."^" Lyman Abbott returned to New York with a sober realization that the road ahead would be a rough one. By October 1865, the American Union Commission had helped between 75,000 and 100,000 refugees to find homes and employm^nt. It had distributed $150,000 worth of supplies, including food, clothing, seed, implements, and books. It had established an Information bureau in N e w York. It had organized schools and supplied teachers for the poor in Richmond, Nashville, Knoxville, and Raleigh.^^ In the spring of 1866 Abbott reported that the Commission had established schools, attended chiefly by whites, in eight Southern cities. A five-teacher school in Atlanta had 450 pupils, all white.^^

REGENERATING

THE SOUTH

41

By this tirae efforts to consolidate the rehabilitation forces were beginning to bear fruit. In March 1865, the American Freedmen's Aid Union was organized in New York with representatives from the Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore branches.^® Later in the year this became a part of the American Freedmen's Aid Commission, which added Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Chicago. On November 9 a conference delegated Abbott and several others to report a plan o£ union between this Organization and the American Union Commission.^* As soon as Abbott saw the combination in prospect he tendered his resignation so that his Situation would create no difficulties to reorganization. He did not wish to be oflered merely out of courtesy an official position in the federation.^® Nevertheless, Abbott was chosen general secretary of the new association. J. Miller McKim, who had been general secretary of the New York Freedmen's Aid Society, became corresponding secretary. On January 31, 1866, the officers agreed upon a federation entitled "The American Freedmen's and Union Commission." They accepted the principle of aiding both whites and blacks, with the hope that this would disarm the Southern whites' suspicion of all freedmen's aid.^® Early in February, Abbott sent a letter to the local branches of both commissions asking them to combine. In April he published a proposed plan of Organization, designed to embody existing machinery, to meet Standards of efficiency and economy, and to preserve the identity of the component parts. The local groups were to federate rather than merge, each raising its own funds and appointing its own teachers. The central office would ascertain where schools were needed and allot them among the branches. It would öfler general advice, receive reports, handle publicity, and manage relations with the Federal government.^'' Union under this plan was consummated at a Convention in Cleveland on May 16, by which time nearly all nonsectarian societies engaged in reconstruction were included. Dropping the "and," they continued as "The American Freedmen's Union Com-

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ABBOTT

mission."^** In addition to the Commission's headquarters in New York, there were nine branch offices, operated by die formerly independent groups, in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit, Cincinnati, Chicago, and San Francisco. The first President of the Commission was the famous Methodist "war bishop," Matthew Simpson. In October 1866, he was succeeded by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase.^® Vice-presidents were Joseph P. Thompson, Charles G. Hammond, and William Lloyd Garrison. Abbott, McKim, and George C. Ward, treasurer, directed affairs in the national office, while agents represented them in Richmond, Raleigh, Macon, and Tallahassee. Abbott edited the American Freedman, a small monthly paper o£ about fifteen pages published for the benefit of Commission members and other persons interested in Southern education. It contained editorials, letters, lists of contributions, and reports from the executive committee, agents, and branches. Though Abbott's chief responsibility was not that of raising money, he often organized and addressed mass meetings for the cause. Speaking at Philadelphia, November 23, 1866, he declared: "The South needs three things: Industrial reorganization, political reconstruction, and a pure religion. Education is essential to each."^® That is, to train skilled labor, to prepare men for the suffrage, and to root religion in intelligence, schools were prerequisite. General Howard on the same occasion pointed out that, while the Freedmen's Bureau assisted in procuring school buildings and provided transportation and protection for teachers, private societies would have to pay their salaries. Other speakers were Chief Justice Chase, Phillips Brooks, and the Reverend James Parvin, successful agent of the Commission in England. Solicitation was sometimes disheartening. " I think a year will tire me of this traveling, desultory life," Abbott wrote his wife; " I can hardly go into a church but that I wish I were a preacher again, or into a library but that I want the old opportunities for study Late in 1867 he wrote General Howard that vigorous

REGENERATING

THE SOUTH

43

efforts seemed necessary to show the public the importance o£ the educational work for the South and for the nation. He perceived "a feeling of apathy . . . which seriously impedes the progress not only o£ our work but of the freedmen's cause itself."^^ Nevertheless, before the dose of the school year 1866-67 Commission had raised over $250,000 and was training more than 35,000 pupils. In 1867-68 it secured $275,000.^® In 1867 Abbott prepared a report entitled The Results of Emancipation in the United States for the international antislavery conference held in Paris in August of that year, at which William Lloyd Garrison, William Gullen Bryant, and Charles G. Hammond represented the American Freedmen's Union Commission. The document briefly traced the history of the abolition movement, characterized the legal and social condition of Southern Negroes after emancipation, and described the instrumentalities, voluntary and governmental, for improving their condition, with an account of the achievements. The report was based upon a careful examination of the Freedmen's Bureau records. The total amount in money and kind contributed for freedmen's aid through both nonsectarian and missionary societies from February 1862 to July 1867, it estimated at $5,500,000. At least one-fifth had come from abroad, including $400,000 from England and smaller sums from France, Germany, and Switzerland. Between July 1865 and July 1867, the Freedmen's Bureau expended a like amount. The "rapid and very marked" educational progress of the Negroes, Abbott believed, refuted "slavery's accusation of idleness and incapacity." ^^ Another contemporary observer wrote: "The most hopeful sign in the Negro was his anxiety to have his children educated."^® The groups represented in the Union Commission, it should be noted, were only a fraction of the total number engaged in the attempt to regenerate the South. Denominational agencies actually carried on a larger prograrn than this nonsectarian one. All together there were 1430 Northern teachers in the South in 1866-67, of whom the Commission financed only 458.^® Denominational loyalty

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still counted heavily in this period, and church people as a rule seem to have preferred to furdier their particular brands of the gospel. There was a resolute effort to create prejudice against Abbott's Organization because Episcopalians and Quakers, Congregationalists and Unitarians, worked cordially together in maintaining it. T h e Congregational 'Recorder, for example, deplored the fact that the Commission's teachers were told not to be missionaries or preachers but to confine their activities to the schools. In August 1866, Abbott and four other representatives of the Union Commission issued a Statement condemning sectarian education, acknowledging the nondenominational character o£ their project, and asserting that it embodied "the true religion, . . . a genuine spirit o£ love for God and man." Important as was the evangelistic work which missionary boards could perform, Abbott argued, the promotion of secular education was a task of even greater significance. It was something which could be undertaken only by a society owing allegiance to no particular church but rather to "the great cause of Christ as represented in that downfallen humanity which constitutes, in populär estimate, the least among his brethren." " T h e education of the South," Abbott wrote, "especially of the freedmen, is a truly religious work; none the less so because it is undenominational."^'' This dispute engendered such hard feeling that Bishop Simpson resigned as president of the Commission, and the Reverend Mr. Thompson, first vice-president, advised his fellow Congregationalists to aid instead their own Organization, the American Missionary Association.^® This was the Union Commission's chief rival. It supported about the same number of teachers and won much more notable success in providing higher education for Negroes. Fisk University, Atlanta University, and Hampton Institute all began under its tutelage. T h e Cincinnati and Cleveland branches of the Union Commission withdrew in 1867 to labor under its auspices.®' The Methodists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Baptists, and Friends also carried on extensive freedmen's aid.'®

REGENERATING

THE SOUTH

45

The question of whether sectarian groups should receive assistance from the Freedmen's Bureau occasioned an interesting and illuminating correspondence between Abbott and General Howard. The specific issue was whether the Freedmen's Commission o£ the Protestant Episcopal Church or the American Freedmen's Union Commission should obtain a $5000 grant from the Bureau to build a normal school at Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1867. Howard believed that the Federal government should support attempts to establish all types o£ schools, denominational or not. His practice was to match private contributions with public funds. This meant, of course, that the most active group received the greatest Federal help.^^ Abbott pointed out that, while he fully agreed with Howard's policy of harmony among the various societies and had always shaped his course so as to avoid discord, "the indiscreet zeal of some, whose friendship for particular forms of Organization outruns their catholic love for the cause, makes this somewhat difficult."®^ "The cardinal principle of this country, from its foundation," he declared, "has been the Separation of Church and State." Was it safe to disregard this tradition.? Would Howard make appropriations out of public funds "jor the support of schools, avowedly organized to teach denominational tenets?"^^ The General, in return, denied that the proposed school at Raleigh was to be an ecclesiastical instrument. The Reverend J. Brinton Smith, who was arranging for it, had promised it would be "purely unsectarian in its teaching." If he were obliged to confine his Cooperation to projects not assisted by members of religious groups, Howard reasoned, he would not get a single school, since even Abbott's associates belonged to various denominations. And "with any view of things," he added, "the so-called Liberal Christians are as sectarian as Episcopalians." More to the point was his argument that the wealthy Episcopal Church could be of great service to the cause. "Now, my dear sir," he concluded, "let us drop controversy and keep at work."®^ In January 1868, the St. Augustine

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Normal School, under Episcopalian auspices and the Reverend Mr. Smith's administration, began Operations in Raleigh.®® N o less troublesome than die task of Building a united Organization, raising funds, and adjusting relations with competing agencies was the thorny issue of race segregation. T h e Constitution of the Commission provided that no schools or supply depots should be maintained from whose benefits any persons were excluded because of color. When the Reverend F . P. Brewer, general agent in North Carolina, wrote in March 1866 that separate schools for blacks and whites seemed desirable in large cities, Abbott replied that there should be no attempt to prevent children from going to institutions of their own preference; each might choose to attend school with companions of his own race, bat no pupil could be barred from any Commission school on racial grounds. Although the officers realized that this policy would arouse Opposition, they had adopted it "not only as a common principle, but as a right platform." Exclusion because of color was "inherently wrong" and must, therefore, be condemned by the Commission. H e had been inclined to "move gradually" in the matter, but he was convinced that segregation, once established, could not be abolished.®® A t the same time he wrote an editorial entitled "Equal Rights," stating the case against discrimination. T h e wisest and best friends of the freedmen, he averred, did not admit race inferiority. They simply asserted that the Negro must be accorded an opportunity before his capacity could be known. Until both groups were given the same chance, the white man's claim to superiority rested on a shadowy foundation. It had taken America three-quarters of a Century of agitation and four years of war to learn the meaning of the Word "liberty." " G o d grant," he exclaimed, "to teach us by easier lessons the meaning of the words 'equal rights'!"®'^ A little later Abbott sent a circular letter to various leaders engaged in Southern education, asking whether there was any possibility of enrolling poor whites in schools with Negroes. T h e reply of General Clinton B. Fisk, Freedmen's Bureau Commission-

REGENERATING

THE

SOUTH

47

er for Kentucky and Tennessee, was typical; he wrote that it cpuld not be done. Both classes opposed it. Although separate schools under the same Organization could be conducted without difficulty, he knew of no successful experiment in mixing them. "I do know o£ Signal failure," he declared.^® In practice, white children, with £ew exceptions, refused to attend institutions run by Northern societies.®® They were determined not to associate with the blacks in this way, they disliked the idea of charity schools, and they hated "Yankee schoolmarms." The American Freedman seldom dealt with current political events and unfortunately there is no such complete record of Lyman Abbott's opinions for this period as the Outloo\ aflords for later years. The Union Commission was not a political Organization, its secretary wrote in reply to an inquiry as to its position on Negro suffrage. It was nonpartisan. But neither was it "a merely charitable or eleemosynary Institution." Its objects were both philanthropic and "politico-economical." It was devoted to the planting of free government in the South and assumed that the ballot "is the right of every man, but also that a developed manhood is his best guarantee of the ballot."'^® Earlier Abbott pointed out that to give the Negro the suffrage without proper preparation for it would "only increase the power of Southern demagogues," while education and the vote "would destroy the power of both demagogue and aristocrat." He was less concerned with giving Privileges to the freedmen than with preparing them to assume responsibilities. A generation later he was even more certain that it was a grave mistake to put the ballot into the hands of ignorant men.^^ The Commission's final major problem in the process of moral reconstruction was that of securing the collaboration of Southern whites. "The South must become self-educative," said an article in the Freedman. "She will; and ours it is, primarily to help her to become so, only secondarily to assist to provide her with a partial education meanwhile." Eklucation was not a charity but a national necessity. Another editorial asserted that, though lower-

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class prejudice had not vanished, the more thoughtful Southerners saw that Negro education was "imperatively necessary to the welfare of the South." This dement would join forces with Northern philanthropy, provided it was oflered in a kindly and Christian spirit. Teachers should refrain from any actions which might unduly excite Southern prejudices, or which might give the appearance of a "second invasion." They should confer with local leaders hefore undertaking their duties and follow advice as far as possible.'*^ One teacher wrote Abbott of her annoyance at the offer of a local Citizen to take over the teaching of her pupils. Although she had no objection to a new school being opened by the people there, she hesitated to release the one she had organized. Abbott replied: "That is a serious mistake. This is just what we want to do. The whole object of the Commission is to stimulate the Southern people to take up and carry on this work of education for themselves." The more Southerners they could take into partnership with them, the better. The sooner they could turn the movement entirely over to Southerners, the better for all concerned. The faintest inclination to coöperate in the work of educating the colored people should be welcomed.^® By and large, Yankee teachers met with a hostile reception. Seidom bothering to conceal their antislavery backgrounds and their equalitarian program, they had little chance of winning the sympathy of Southern whites. As their political influence and the academic rather than industrial orientation of their teaching became increasingly clear, they became objects of social ostracism, persecution, and open violence. They were refused lodging and groceries. They were greeted with laughter änd curses on the Street. They were denied the fellowship of local churches. Sometimes their schoolhouses were burned. They themselves were often driven out of town.^® In March 1869, the executive committee of the American Freedmen's Union Commission concluded that other agencies were carrying on the educational task so eflectively that it no longer had good

REGENERATING

THE SOUTH

49

reason for existence. It had been established simply to bridge the gap until the South could by legislative action set up a free public school system, for which private charity, however generously provided and wisely administered, was a poor Substitute. By this time, most of the states had begun to make provision for elementary schools for both races. George Peabody had donated a trust fund of two million dollars, the interest of which was used to promote this cause in the South. On July i, 1869, the Commission's central ofEce closed, but several branches continued active for a few years longer.^^ The accomplishments of the benevolent societies and the Freedmen's Bureau for Southern education were but a beginning and an object lesson. Only a small fraction of the Negroes of school age attended in these years. Though Abbott declared that in some cases institutions begun by his Commission were eventually incorporated into the public school systems of the South,^® it seems certain that this was the exception rather than the rule. The connection between these charity schools and the free education system of today is remote; in präctice they served only a small portion of one race during a temporary period. It has also been charged that these schools "sometimes tended to divert the mind of the negro from those immediate duties of self-preservation which freedom devolved upon him and to encourage his inordinate appetite for Greek and Latin lore."^® Nevertheless, the benevolent societies served in greater or lesser degree three commendable purposes. They aroused interest in Negro education and demonstrated its practicability. They provided a nucleus for the development of the public school system, in some cases leaving buildings and equipment. They established a number of normal schools which became the chief source of Negro teachers.®" The American Freedmen's Union Commission under Abbott's direction performed a useful Service in coördinating the efforts of the nondenominational benevolent societies, in acting as an intermediary between them and the Freedmen's Bureau, and in gen-

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erally stimulating interest in moral reconstruction. Its achievements are best seen by recalling the chaotic condition of the freedmen's aid program at the time when the first steps were taken toward a national Organization. The Federal government was unwiUing to assume complete responsibihty for Southern education. The South itself was not able or ready to establish public schools. Proselytism marred the program of church agencies. The Union Commission aimed to put Northern philanthropy to work in an ordtrly manner without distinction of locality, party, sect, or race for improving the condition of the South on the basis of "industry, education, freedom, and Christian morality."®^ Whether anyone could have attained this worthy goal is open to question. "It required both greater resources and greater abilities than I possessed," Lyman Abbott himself admitted, "to win the success I had hoped for."''^

Chapter Five

EVANGELICAL

ORTHODOXY

In December 1865, some months after his return to Neu/ Yor\ from Terre Haute, Lyman Abbott received a call to the pastorate of a small independent Methodist church located on Forty-first Street at Sixth Avenue. At about the same time an invitation came to him from a strong Congregational church in Portland, Maine. The Problems of the Manhattan group appealed to him, however, and in any case it was necessary for him to remain in the metropolis to direct the freedmen's aid work. He accepted the appointment when the church agreed to become Congregational.^ At this time the church had a membership of only 80 and a $12,000 indebtedness. By April 1867, when the congregation reorganized as "The New England Church" and held Installation services for the pastor, its debt was paid and the membership had grown to 122.^ Austin Abbott helped his brother by leaving the Broadway Tabernacle to become a deacon; Vaughan Abbott left Beecher's church to lead the choir; and their uncle Gorham, who had recently given up his school for girls, donated a library to the church.^ The pastor continued as secretary of the Freedmen's Union Commission during this period, but at a reduced salary and with assistants handling the details. This ministerial venture came to an end with a tragic incident which involved perhaps the most harrowing experience of Lyman Abbott's comparatively tranquil life. One of his wealthy parishioners had sent six children to Europe with a governess. While they were gone the father feil prey to z mysterious illness and became

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possessed of the idea that one o£ the children was about to die. Devoutly believing in the guardian power of bis pastor, he asked Abbott to go abroad to see them safely home. The latter, though reluctant to shirk bis responsibilities in New York, took advantage of a six-week leave from his church to sail for Europe on December 30, 1868. Overtaking the party in Paris, he found that the eldest girl had picked up either typhus or typhoid fever in Brüssels. Three others feil ill one after the other, and the first one died."* Leaving the governess with the sick children, Abbott took the winter's journey back across the Atlantic. It was a sad homecoming. He brought the dead to the dying, for the father now had no hope of recovery. The pastor himself met an invalid wife and a divided and discouraged church. Mrs. Abbott had read a newspaper report of the Brüssels epidemic; anxiety over her husband, combined with other factors, had sent her to bed, and during that spring she had three hemorrhages of the lungs. In their shepherd's absence discontented elements in the flock had determined to move to a more favorable location and to secure a more eloquent preacher, who might, like Beecher and Talmage in Brooklyn, attract crowds. Abbott's resignation permitted a trial of this plan, but the project completely collapsed within a few years.® About the same time the Freedmen's Union Commission disbanded, and Lyman Abbott found himself without a position. Looking back, he feit that his life had been a failure. He had given up a promising law practice to enter the ministry, aspiring to be a great preacher; his first regulär pastorate had been only moderately successful and his second a fiasco. He had begun a rehabilitation task which he hoped would provide a lasting occupation of genuine significance in the ethical development of the country; it had been abandoned after four years. His career thus far had been a series of experiments. He now began again, at last finding the vocation for which he was best suited and in which he was to win a national reputation—editorial work. In 1869 he settled in Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York, where he

EVANGELICAL

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53

maintained a home until his death. He had visited this lovely site in the 1850's and had written his fiancee of his hope some day to make it their country seat. Now it appeared to be the nearest point to New York City where his wife could escape the dampness of the Atlantic coast and enjoy the comparatively dry mountain air necessary for recovery from consumption.® Cornwall and Cornwallon-Hudson are twin villages picturesquely situated on the west bank of the river a few miles above West Point in the Highlands of the Hudson. For many years fashionable summer resorts, they have never had a regulär population of more than a few thousands. In the 1840's Cornwall-on-Hudson acquired renown as the home of Nathaniel P. Willis, poet, essayist, and historian. In Abbott's time its most famous resident was the Reverend E. P. Roe, best-selling novelist of the i88o'sJ Lyman Abbott's only regulär income in 1869 was fifty dollars a month for editing the literary department of Harper's Magazine, a responsibility he had undertaken the year before. The rent of the house in Cornwall exactly equaled this sum. He now undertook to earn the rest of his expenses by his pen, but if his father had not come to his rescue at times, it is likely the family would have suffered hardship during these years. The connection with Harper and Brothers was a natural one, since that Company had published the historical works of Jacob and John S. C. Abbott. Jacob Abbott had been ofJered the editorship of the magazine in the very beginning. His son now prepared for it each month five or six pages comprising "The Editor's Book Table." Mrs. Abbott read the novels and her husband based his reviews of current fiction on her reports. He himself studied chiefly religious and philosophical books, which received the greatest attention.® This experience enabled him to improve both his mind and his library. Within twenty years his reading was to revolutionize his theology. He also contributed to Harper's a number of special articles on such diverse subjects as the American railroad, glass blowing, the city of Rome, Mary Queen of Scots, Westminster Abbey, the

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Japanese, and the Y.M.C.A.® When asked to txeat ocean steamship travel, he referred the assignment to his father on the ground that he himself knew nothing about it. Jacob Abbott is said to have repUed: "Then you are just the one to write it; for the chief object o£ a populär magazine article is to give knowledge of a subject to people who are wholly ignorant of it. To do that [the author] must know both the subject and the condition o£ ignorance."^® This principle Lyman Abbott made a guidepost when he became an editor in his own right. In addition to his contributions to Harper's, he wrote for the Independent, the Christian Union, and other papers. For a time he served as New York correspondent of the Boston Congregationalist. In 1868 he edited a two-volume selection of Henry Ward Beecher's sermons, and three years later he prepared Morning and Evening Exercises, consisting of devotional materials chosen from the same source and from the Bible. In 1869 Harper and Brothers published the first full-length book from Abbott's own pen, Jesus of Nazareth: His Life and Teachings. This edificatory biography was of little significance, since it involved neither notable scholarship nor departure from orthodoxy. It represented the faith of traditional conservative evangelical Protestantism before the impact of modern science and Biblical criticism. "Believing the Bible to be the inspired Word of God," Abbott wrote in a disarming preface, "it has been enough for my purpose to assume that the Gospels are authentic narratives. The reader will therefore find in these pages no discussion concerning the authority of the Scriptures, or the authenticity of particular passages." "Christian faith in the Christian miracles" he considered "the truest rationalism."^^ The virgin birth, the star of Bethlehem, the feeding of the five thousand, the Walking on the water—these and many other episodes questioned by rationalists he accepted as literally true. The resurrection of Jesus he believed well authenticated by skeptical contemporaries. Likewise he expected the Saviour to return to earth and establish His kingdom. "The very air," Abbott warned his readers, "is füll of the portents of his coming."^^

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Harper's Magazine predicted that the work would rank as "a valuable contribution to the populär religious literature of the time."^® Old Testament Skadows of New Testament Truths, an evangeUcal treatment of the earher books of the Bible, appeared in 1870. Here Abbott asserted that the Scriptures "are what they purport to be—veritable history."^^ Such tales as those of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the flowing of water from rock at Moses' command, the fiery serpents, Samson's strength, and Gideon's miraculous victory, he took as facts, but he also gave them allegorical interpretations. He accepted the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch and affirmed his faith that the great Hebrew prophet wrote the record of his own life. In 1870 Lyman Abbott's view of salvation, as of the Bible, was quite orthodox. Mankind had "never recovered from the bite of the serpent in Eden," and consequently "disease" was wrought "in. the very fibres of our souls."^® "Reader," he admonished the public in connection with his account of Sodom, "if you are out of Christ you are living in the City of Destruction. There is but a hand'sbreadth between you and death." Every act in "the great, awful drama of life" he saw foreshadowed in this episode. "The analogy is so perfect," he wrote, "that we might almost be tempted to believe that this story is a prophetic allegory, did not nature itself witness its historic truthfulness." "Son, remember!" he continued, "—to the soul who has spent its all in riotous living there can be no more awful condemnation." But there was a deliverance— through Christ. "The irreparable past he effaces with His blood." Without shedding of blood there was no remission of sins. This doctrine, which he later repudiated, occupied a prominent place in Abbott's early theological writing, the tone of which was so thoroughly evangelistic that even Dwight L. Moody, his contemporary, might have approved of it. Thirty years afterward Lyman Abbott's Life and Literature of the Ancient Hebrews (1901) presented a striking contrast, revealing the transforming influence of time and events.^®

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The success of his first books led him to project more ambitious literary undertakings. Among these was a one-volume Dictionary of Religious Knowledge, completed in 1873. Designed primarily for laymen, it included brief articles on Biblical, theological, and ecclesiastical subjects, chiefly Condensed from larger works. Mrs. Abbott helped her husband in this research, as did T. J. Conant, a young Oberlin graduate who lived in his house and tutored his children. On controversial issues the Dictionary presented not the views o£ the editor but rather simple statements of the principal theories held by various schools of theology from rationaÜst to Romanist, though Abbott confessed his own sympathies with evangehcal Protestantism. Important doctrinal sketches he submitted to leading men in various denominations for checking. He believed that stating the lesser diflerences dividing the church was one of the best ways to obliterate them. His hope, accordingly, was that the Dictionary would exert some influenae in developing a catholic sympathy among the various sects/® A much larger work, never completed, was his Commentary on the New Testament (1875 ff.), in which Abbott endeavored, again for the layman, to call attention to the fundamental ethical and Spiritual principles taught in the Bible, without going into minute grammatical Interpretation of words and phrases. The Christian Register, a Unitarian newspaper published in Boston, blamed the author for "evasion of difficult questions" and "ambiguity of Statement, which may pass as orthodox, yet be interpreted as liberal." These volumes, it charged, were not the work of a scholar or a critic who had anything novel to say or even any vehement Opposition to what was new, but of a "populär" writer who catered to the masses and was concocting books which would have a large circulation and satisfactory returns.^® The administration of New York University, however, was so impressed with Abbott's scholarship that they granted him the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1877.^^

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By 1878 he had covered the four Gospels and the book of Acts. Not until ten years later did his commentary on Romans appear, and then the work ceased altogether. T w o factors account for this. One was the pressure o£ other duties, which will become apparent in succeeding chapters. The other was that by 1880 his reading, with the Zeitgeist, had begun to transform his attitude toward the Bible and theology. The scientific and historical studies which had already revolutionized the position of advanced religious thinkers in Europe and the United States now began to afJect Lyman Abbott and other leaders of respectable American Protestantism. While in 1876, for example, he had asserted the literal truth of Luke's account of Paul's conversion, in 1888 he was less sure. In the earlier volume, the commentary on Acts, he stated his belief that "a supernatural light shone, that an audible voice spoke, and that a real sight of the glorified Saviour was vouchsafed to Saul." In the later volume, on Romans, he had this to say: "Whether Paul heard a real voice, or the voice spoke only within his soul . . . is a question which has so slight and so distant a connection with faith in a living God and a vital religion that it is a marvel that so many hours have been wasted in its discussion."^^ His wife recovered from consumption in a short time, but since the family temperament was a nervous one, Abbott resolved to remain in Cornwall-on-Hudson. Buying a few acres of land with money borrowed from his father, he built a large two-and-a-half Story frame house which remained his home ever after. Because it stood on a hill several hundred feet in height, he named it "The Knoll." T o the north lay Newburgh Bay, a lake-like portion of the Hudson, to the east Storm King Mountain towered over a thousand feet above the river, and to the west stretched rolling open country. Abbott's favorite room was the library. Located on the second floor of his home, it was lighted from three sides through uncurtained windows. Not a place of ornament or repose, it was a Workshop. While Lyman Abbott probably owned less than a

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dozen books when he went to Terre Haute in 1860, by 1878 his collection had grown to 3000 volumes.^^ Before his death it included twice that number. The last three o£ Abbott's six children were born in Cornwall. To all o£ them he was exceptionally devoted. His four sons were all destined to enjoy successful professional careers. T w o o£ them— Lawrence Fräser (1859—1933) and Ernest Hamlin (1870-1931)— joined their father and followed him in the management of the Outloo\. Herbert Vaughan (1865-1929) became a professor o£ English at Smith College, and Theodore Jacob (1872—1951) was for many years a prominent physician in New York City. The two daughters were Harriet Frances (1860-1929) and Beatrice Vail (1875-1950). Abbott's daily schedule during the seventies was characterized by a remarkable regularity, which enabled him to discharge his varied responsibilities efficiently and yet to preserve his none-toovigorous health. Rising at hal£-past £our or five, he partook o£ cofJee and rolls, and worked upon his books until the £amily break£ast at eight. From nine until two he continued his reading and writing. Following dinner and an hou/s nap, he spent the a£ternoon out o£ doors in companionship with his £amily or in work on his lawn and garden. He took his wi£e driving or went canoeing with the children. (He was careful, however, to provide air Chambers £or sa£ety.) The four boys he taught to swim. The wooded hills of Cornwall afforded fine opportunities for hiking and overnight Camping. He was generally in bed and asleep before ten, in preparation for another busy day. If there were guests, he left Mrs. Abbott to entertain them since, unlike her husband, she had no inclination for either early rising or early retiring.^^ For the first year after going to Cornwall he attended a nearby Presbyterian church. He was thus a layman of one denomination while a clergyman of another. Lyman Abbott never cared greatly for sectarian distinctions. He was a Congregationalist chiefly because he was born and reared in that communion. "I should have

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remained contentedly in any other branch o£ the Christian Church," he declared, "which would have granted me its fellowship and allowed me to preach the truth as I understand it."^® His experience as a layman gave him an appreciation £or this point of view, his impressions of which he embodied in a series of letters to the Christian Union over the pseudonym "Laicus." He brought these together in bock form in 1872 as Laicus, or the Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish. If this life, however, had entailed a complete abandonment of the pulpit, Lyman Abbott would not have been content, for he liked to preach better than to listen. His freedom from ecclesiasticism made him all the more effective as a religious teacher. He had been in the village less than a year when the Presbyterian Church of Cornwall-on-Hudson asked him to supply the pulpit. He continued to do so for seventeen years—until he was called as Henry Ward Beecher's successor at Plymouth Church in 1887. Though he himself agreed only to preach, his wife undertook a certain amount of pastoral visiting. Sermon topics grew out of his daily study and meditation, and he did not organize his message until Sunday morning. At that time he would jot down a rough outline in his sermon notebook and then go into the pulpit to talk upon this theme to a congregation of several score in the same manner he would have addressed two or three in his parlor. The first essen tial, he feit, was that it should be an address to the audience, not an essay about a theme. It should appeal not to the intellect but to the will, and should be designed to meet the specific spiritual needs of the flock.^® Book reviewing, article writing, research work, and preaching were but four of the tasks Lyman Abbott carried on in the 1870's and afterward. In 1871 the American Tract Society asked him to edit a new paper called the lllustrated Christian Wee\ly. This agency had been organized in 1825 as a religious publishing house national in scope and nondenominational, but evangelical in spirit. It issued not only books and pamphlets but also several periodicals.

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to which it now proposed to add a newspaper differing from other religious weeklies by being illustrated and from other illustrated weeklies by being distinctly religious, The opportunity appealed strongly to Abbott, since it would give him a regulär income and a Position o£ influence and usefulness. On the other hand, Cornwall was too far from New York and too inaccessible to permit daily trips. He might come and go by a boat, which ran only in summer and did not reach the city until eleven o'clock, or by the Erie Railroad which had a Station three and a half miles from his house. This problem he met by securing in connection with the editorial ofiices a bedroom where he could spend the night whenever it seemed desirable. Another obstacle to acceptance was the Tract Society's policy of requiring unanimous approval by the advisory board for all phases of editorial policy. Jacob Abbott pointed out that if his son accepted the editorship of the JVee^/y he might be "trammelled by the old fogy notions, & the Shibboleth, which are very apt to ding to such institutions."^^ With some effort Abbott persuaded the committee to give him as editor-in-chief the power and responsibility of making independent and final decisions. Having obtained this authority, he was cautious in exercising it and customarily conferred with the secretaries respecting important articles whenever he could do so without injurious delay.^® The first issue of the Illustrated Christian JVee^ly, an eight-page paper selling for five cents, appeared on April 15, 1871. Its purpose was to employ the literary and graphic arts "to illustrate the great religious movements by which God is reconciling the world unto Himself" and to bring people into "living sympathy with human want and Christian work in the present." While excluding controversial theology, it would uphold evangelical Protestantism. Among its regulär features were editorials on both religious and secular problems, Sunday school lessons, wood engravings by Timothy Cole (later of Scribner's), stories, special articles, and literary notes. John S. C. Abbott contributed a series of moralistic

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sketches of great historical figures. An "Outlook" column, soon introduced, included a summary o£ current events. The Christian Union borrowed this idea and later took the name as its title. Another department consisted of "Letters from Wheathedge" (Cornwall), in which Abbott under the pen name "Rusticus" wrote friendly essays on such diverse subjects as his travels, ministerial libraries, the duty of rest, girls' schools, and the problem of doubt and faith. The paper carried no advertisements during the first year, and readers were advised to have nothing to do with drugs except upon the ad vice of physicians—in a day when many Journals subsisted on patent-medicine advertising. At the dose of its first tvi'elve months it claimed a circulation of 20,000 with an estimated loojooo readers.^® The lllustrated Christian Wee]{ly pursued a conservative editorial policy. The Tract Society was thoroughly orthodox, and Abbott himself had not yet gone far down the road to religious liberalism. The paper contained frequent attacks on agnostic and humanistic teachings such as were being prociaimed in the Boston Investigator and Francis Ellingwood Abbot's Index. One editorial charged that "Free Religion" exalted man to the degradation of God.®® Octavius B. Frothingham's Religion of Humanity (1872) received a hostile review. In reply to this author's assertion that the Resurrection was only Spiritual, the Wee\ly maintained that it was "as well attested as any fact in history." It could be taken from the New Testament "only by the philosophy that reduces the entire gospel to a myth."^^ Commenting on an article by John Fiske setting forth the theory of the Tübingen school of Biblical criticism, Abbott under his own name denounced "Mr. Fiske's dogmatic skepticism and its foreign origin."®® German theology, like the German Sabbath, was under a cloud of suspicion. An article by Felix Adler on "The Evolution of Hebrew Religion" in the Populär Science Monthly impressed the paper as a specimen of "what the treatment of doubtful and difficult questions in literary criticism should not be." Adler's attempt to show that the Pentateuch was written a thousand years after the

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time o£ Moses, the reputed author, "contravenes all sound scholarship," it Said.®® Two decades later Abbott himself was popularizing the new view of the Bible, The Weekly'% treatment of the evolutionary hypothesis, which Lyman Abbott in the 1890's managed to reconcile with religion, was at this time cautious and, on the whole, critical. An editorial regarding The Descent of Man pointed out that while Darwinism did not conflict with theism, since creation by evolution was as marvelous as creation by a single mandate, the doctrine did challenge traditional theology, and it would be well to know "how much of the revelations of religion its acceptance will compel us to reject."®^ Other editorials averred that science and history did not justify the assumption that there was no Fall of Man and pointed out that such distinguished thinkers as Louis Agassiz rejected the theory. John W. Draper's History of the Conflict between Religion and Science was branded "a bündle of blunders."®® Lax morals, like liberal theology, the Tract Society regarded with hostility. Although not prohibitionist, the lllustrated Christian Wee^y was avowedly a temperance organ. Its editors thought that the Prohibition Party was a hopeless movement and that the goal should be more vigorous enforcement of present laws rather than the enactment of new ones. They would devote their energy to developing stronger public sentiment for this end, since to apply one Statute efFectively was better than to enact a score and leave them all unenforced. The Wee\ly also expressed grave concern over the dissemination of sensational and licentious literature. To cards, the drama, and dancing the Tract Society was even more violently opposed: "So long," said one editorial, "as hundreds of young men are swept off to destruction by the fascinations of the gamingtable, led insensibly into habits of dissipation through the door of the theatre, made vain, thoughtless, weak, by the enervating influence of the dance, we believe that it is the part of Christian love as of Christian prudence to abstain."®® Concerning itself primarily with "religion" in the narrow sense.

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thc lllustrated Christian Weet{ly was reluctant to take an active part in political debate. It often presented both sides of controversial issues with no attempt to choose, much less persuade. The "Outlook" column at first merely summarized the week's news with little or no evaluation. The two paramount problems o£ the early 1870's—Southern policy aiid corruption in business and government—were both soft-pedaled. The Wee\ly followed rather than Icd pubhc opinion on these questions. In the campaign of 1872 it refused to take a stand for either Grant or Greeley. "It is not hke some of our contemporaries a pohtico-rehgious paper [such as the Independent and the Christian Union\. It has no poUtics."®^ Its aim was not to promote the victory of either party but instead "the triumph of truth, of hberty, of patriotism, of purity in all parties." It would oppose any group which should attempt to destroy the pubhc school system, proscribe any element on account of race, nationality, or religion, "reinaugurate" the spoils system, or demand "the abolition of the Sabbath."®® Though loath to take sides in elections, the Weekjy under Abbott's editorship developed a fairly well-defined political platform which it voiced in moderate tones from time to time. Civil service reform was the first plank. Another was "justice and equal rights" for Negrpes, Chinese, and Indians.®® The exclusion of Oriental Immigration it opposed in positive terms. "What possible right has •the descendant of an Immigrant of the seventeenth Century to debar from this continent the Immigrant of the nineteenth?"^" The paper also expressed anxiety over "the nefarious schemes of the plunderers of the unfortunate red man,"^^ but Abbott did not arrive at his Solution of the Indian problem until a few years later. A Champion of universal free public education, the Wee\ly opposed State assistance to sectarian schools, such as was then being given in New York. It also advocated resumption of specie payments, which it viewed as a moral issue: "Shall we make a currency which will stimulate speculation and foster extravagance, or one which will require habits of thrift, honest industry, and economy.?"^^ The

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final major political principle of the Illustrated Christian Weekjy was self-government for the South. "I£ we can only get a currency that is equivalent to cash, a civil service that really serves, and a wise and just administration o£ Southern affairs," said the editors in 1876, "we are quite indifferent whether the Republican or Democratic party gives them to us."^® Correspondents sometimes berated the Weehly for its hesitancy to denounce specific instances of corruption. The editors in reply denied that the interests of "public purity" were served by "the universal publication of scandal and gossip, well or ill founded." The press was often inaccurate, and in any event it had no right to render verdicts on such matters. "We deny the competence of the judges," said the religious organ. "We deny the jurisdiction of the court." The whole system of "trial by newspaper" it considered obnoxious. It believed that the acquittal of General Orville E. Babcock in connection with the Whiskey Ring scandal (actually made possible only by the questionable interference of President Grant) should be accepted as conclusive. The Weeh}y would continue to assume every person innocent until proved guilty. It would disregard rumors, wait for regulär judicial decisions, and accept them whether or not they accorded with private opinion.^^ In economics as in politics the Illustrated Christian Wee^ly lacked the crusading spirit. It showed some awareness of the social tensions accompanying the panic of 1873 and the long-range problems growing out of the rise of urban-industrial society, but it proved unwilling to espouse radical solutions. "The true principle for any workingman," said one article, "whether he labor with bis brains or his hands, is to work for market wages, until the market rises, or by his skill and knowledge he can obtain better compensation."'^® While Abbott early recognized the right of laborers to organize, he was reluctant to countenance strikes and violence. He was suspicious of any plan to collaborate in doing nothing. "I believe in industry," he wrote in one of his "Letters from Wheathedge."^® The Winter of 1876 would be a hard one, the paper pointed out,

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"doubly hard for the shiftless, the idle, or the dissolute." However, "creating public works and spending money not in the treasury will not make it any easier for them."^^ The evil o£ monopoly was beginning to interest Abbott, but he arrived at no remedy in this period. As early as 1872 an editorial commented on "the dangers that threaten the State from railroad monopolies" and the concentration of economic power creating "a despotism which the career of Mr. ['Jim'] Fisk shows may become at any time utterly unscrupulous."*® In 1874 the Wee1{ly listed among "political issues o£ the future" the question "whether the great highways o£ travel shall be public conveniences or private monopolies, whether a moneyed oligarchy, by Controlling transportation, shall control fuel and breadstu£fs, the two great necessities of national existence."^® On September 16, 1876, Abbott announced his resignation from the Illustrated Christian Wee]{ly to join Henry Ward Beecher in the editorship of the Christian Union. Though there is evidence that he was dissatisfied with the WeeJ{ly on account of inadequate salary and lack of independence, he publicly expressed "unfeigned regret" at leaving it. He had sought, he said, to serve neither himself, nor the American Tract Society, "nor any creed, sect, or church, but my Christ." "Above all eise, I have sought to bring to you that love of His which is the joy as it is the warmth and light of my own life."'"' The Society's secretaries and his editorial associate, S. E. Warner, in turn paid tribute to his character and services. Lyman Abbott's varied experience in scholarly and editorial tasks in the Grant period was but an apprenticeship for the larger work which lay before him. Passing time and changing circumstances, combined with continued study and broadening horizons, were to alter his opinions in more ways than one.

Chapter Six ''MR.

BEECHER'S

PAPER''

In a very significant sense, lije began at forty for Lytnan Abbott. He took charge of the Christian Union—diäter called the Outloo\—in his forty-first year, editing it frotn 1876 until his death in 1922, forty-six years later. This position gave him his widest influence and his greatest claim to fame. The Christian Union originated as an organ of Henry Ward Beecher, and its early history is entangled with the much disputed Tilton-Beecher imbrogho. Beecher's editorial career began in association with the Independent, a liberal Congregationalist paper founded in 1848 which played an active part in arousing among church people concern over the slavery issue. Theodore Tilton, its managing editor after 1865, emphasized politics rather than religion and took the Radical position in regard to both the war and reconstruction. When Beecher repudiated the Radicals and endorsed Andrew Johnson in 1866, Tilton turned against him and discontinued publishing his sermons. A few years later Beecher set up a rival publication, the Christian Union} In 1869 the Reverend Crammond Kennedy, editor and owner of the Church Union, offered to give his debt-burdened enterprise to J. B. Ford and Company if they would carry it on. Kennedy suggested that this firm, Beecher's publishers, might persuade the famous Brooklyn preacher to become its editor and develop "an eclectic family paper, pure, interesting, wide awake, ahead of the times, and leavened with an essential Christianity." Its object should be to promote not the consolidation of sects but rather a consciousness of "oneness in Christ.'"^ Beecher, at first reluctant on ac-

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count of the pressure of other duties, consented to accept the position when J. B. Ford offered him not only the editorship but stock in the Company.® Kennedy was retained as managing editor, but within a few months he found himself out o£ harmony with his new colleagues. The Position was oflered to Lyman Abbott, whom Beecher thought "a good worker, a pleasant fellow, with more than ordinary sense" and "an ugly habit of driving things right on to the finishing" once he had taken hold,^ but Abbott declined the o£fer at this time. George S. Merriam, son of the Merriam of Webster s Dictionary fame, held the job from 1870 to 1876. Abbott, however, was a regulär contributor from the beginning. Beecher immediately changed the journal's name. Christian Union was far better than Church Union, he feit, because spiritual unity was the only kind ever to be expected or desired. Union of churches was "as absurd as the union of families in philanstery (sie)." Religious concord could be developed while a hundred sects kept their distinctive organizations. "This is to be the marrow of our doctrine," he wrote, "—Christian union and ecclesiastical diversity."® The first issue appeared on January i, 1870, with a salutatory editorial announcing that it would be "A Family Journal, drawing materials of interest and instruction from every department of human life." It would actively discuss all questions of public interest from the Standpoint of Christian principles. According to Elizabeth Cady Stanton, it was "a dull paper that represents no new thoughts in morals, religion, or politics, that floats on the name of Beecher, in spite of Mrs. Stowe's heavy Scripture lessons and Edward Beecher's theological antiquities." ® Nevertheless its circulation rapidly rose to a peak of 132,000 by 1873, the largest ever known by a religious periodical up to that time. A steelplate engraving of Stuart's "Washington" and two chromolithographs, "Wide Awake" and "Fast Asleep," given as subscription premiums''^—along with Beecher's phenomenal personal popularity —account for its initial success. But troubles soon developed. The panic of 1873 reduced both

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its circulation and its advertising revenues. J. B. Ford's health broke down, necessitating his leaving New York. Fire destroyed part o£ the company's plant. Finally, and most important, the airing of the Beecher scandal killed public respect for the editor.® The allegation that Henry Ward Beecher had committed adultery with the wife o£ Theodore Tilton burst like a bomb on the fortress of respectable American Protestantism. Tilton's unconventional views on marriage and religion had antagonized many readers of the Independent, and that fact, together with the competition of Beecher's Christian Union, materially reduced its subscription list. As a result Henry C. Bowen, conservative publisher of the older journal, dismissed Tilton in 1870 and took the editorship into his own hands. Charges that Tilton was guilty of gross immorality were quickly followed by countercharges involving Beecher. It appears that some time in the same year Elizabeth Tilton confessed to her husband that she had had immoral relations with the pastor of Plymouth Church.® Through either Tilton or his wife the news was passed on to Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and eventually to Victoria Woodhull, an open advocate of free love, who published in Woodhull and Claflin's Wee\ly a detailed account of the alleged intimacy between Beecher and Mrs. Tilton." The renowned clergyman, after maintaining a dignified silence, finally appointed a committee of his congregation to investigate the charges. It completely exonerated him, as later did a council of Congregational ministers, on which Lyman Abbott served.^^ Tilton took no action at lirst, bat in 1874 he decided to sue his former colleague for alienating his wife's affections. The trial was held in Brooklyn City Court and lasted from January to June of 1875.^^ Austin Abbott and William Maxwell Evarts were among the counsel for the defense. By this time the distracted Mrs. Tilton had left her husband and come to the side of her pastor.^^ The result was a hung jury—nine to three in favor of Beecher—and a division of opinion which persists to this day.

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Lyman Abbott refused to believe that his friend was guilty. In the Illustrated Christian Weel^ly he explained the episode as a plot on the part o£ Tilton, "spurred on by a morbid vanity, an angry jealousy, a defeated and gaUing ambition," and by his "associates in the £ree-love school."^^ On the basis o£ careful records kept by his brother and published in two volumes, Abbott prepared a pamphlet entitled Uncontradicted Testimony in the Beecher Case, purporting to prove the innocence of the defendant. He also wrote a history of the suit for Harper's Weekly, concluding that it was "a conspiracy against a good and great, though careless, man." The key to its comprehension he found in Tilton's alleged declaration, "I resolved to smite Mr. Beecher to the heart."^® This interpretation he continued to hold throughout his life.^® It was the opinion entertained by many loyal Protestants. They could hardly admit that their most prominent spokesman was a hypocrite whose personal life repudiated a key tenet of middle-class morality. The conclusion of the New York Times was probably more impartial: "Sensible men throughout the country will in their hearts be compelled to acknowledge that Mr. Beecher's management of his private friendships and affairs has been entirely unworthy of his name, position, and sacred calling."^'^ The episode Struck his reputation a blow from which it never fully recovered. The Christian Union was threatened with ruin. The fact that it carried less and less of Beecher's writing—his troubles were hardly conducive to serious literary work—caused his friends to lose interest, for they had subscribed mainly to read his views. The trial itself sowed such widespread distrust that many canceled their subscriptions. The circulation dropped precipitately to less than 15,000. In 1875 J. B. Ford and Company, whose business had been founded on the paper and on Beecher's books, went bankrupt. They transferred the enterprise to the Christian Union Publishing Company, a small corporation organized with a new group of financial supporters.^® Beecher continued as titular editor, but Merriam resigned.

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At this juncture Lyman Abbott received an ofEer to become associate editor. Naturally enough, he hesitated to undertake such a hazardous project, but dissatisfaction with the lllustrated Christian Weef{ly and loyalty to Beecher led him to accept. His correspondence during 1875 and 1876 indicates that all was not going as smoothly on the Weel^y as would appear from his valedictory. "Cannot somebody rescue the Weekly?" Mrs. Abbott wrote him. "I hate to have it left to the tender mercies (?) of that most unnatural of parents [the American Tract Society]." She hoped things would be "bright and cheery in the Union Office," for she was weary of "so much rubbing and working against one's coworkers."^® Jacob Abbott warned his son not to allow Beecher's "wonderful personal magnetism" to have too much influence in his decision, but he expressed satisfaction when Lyman finally determined to make the change. "There is every reason," he wrote with the usual Abbott optimism, "to believe it will all turn out well in the end."^° That, taking over the journal at its nadir, Lyman Abbott was able to build it up to a position of great power and prestige, is a tribute to his courage, his persistence, and his editorial genius. The chief advantage which the Christian Union offered was greater editorial freedom. The bylaws of the Company had given to Beecher absolute authority to determine what should go into print. Its trustees now conferred this discretionary privilege on the associate editor in the absence of the editor-in-chief. On September 13, 1876, Abbott's name appeared beside Beecher's on the masthead. From the first Beecher put the control of the periodical unreservedly in his assistant's hands. The older man seldom visited the office.^^ At Abbott's accession the Christian Union announced that it was entering its seventh year with "renewed strength and bright prospects." As for its policy, in politics it would be independent but not neutral; in moral and social questions progressive but not radical; in religion tolerant but not indifferent. It would seek spiritual unity and would attempt to apply Christian principles to contem-

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porary problems. In all things it would aim to manifest "that spirit of honor, of equity, and of generosity toward those whom it opposes, which characterizes Christianity as distinguished from sectarianism." ^^ Cautious by nature, Abbott was careful not to introduce revolutionary innovations. Gradually, however, he changed the Christian Union from a weekly miscellany to a journal of opinion. He expanded and improved the "Outlook" column, which became a systematic review of the week's news and occupied the entire front page. In this department, which he wrote alone in the early days, he attempted not merely to narrate events but to interpret their broader significance for human progress. In addition there were editorials on both political and religious questions. Highly varied departmentalized material occupied the rest of the magazine, which customarily contained twenty-four pages. "Plymouth Pulpit," embracing Beecher's weekly sermon, and bis "Lecture Room Talk" were regulär features. Abbott wrote a commentary on the international Sunday school lesson. He also continued the "Laicus" letters, in which he elucidated various morals by means of stories drawn from everyday experience. A column for "Inquiring Friends" counseled those who were perplexed by religious and moral issues. Mrs. Beecher conducted a home department, contributing recipes and household hints. Mrs. Abbott directed a juvenile page. As "Aunt Patience" she was corresponding with 1300 children in 1882. The Christian Union boasted of being "a family paper." A farm and garden section included "Notes from E. P. Roe's Fruit Farms," a model project near Abbott's home. Other pages were devoted to insurance and financial news, science, art, and music. In 1879 Hamilton W. Mabie joined the staff to handle the religious notes column. Mabie, born in 1845, graduated from Williams College and then spent several years in the law, which he found uncongenial. Upon Edward Eggleston's recommendation, he was employed by the Christian Union.^^ He soon began to do

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book reviews and before long became literary, editor. He also wrote occasional editorials and articles, especially stories for children. In 1884, three years after Beecher's retirement from the paper, Mabie became associate editor. He remained a beloved colleague o£ Abbott until his death in 1916. His critical abilities were not profound, but he was an appreciative and populär Interpreter of current litcrature, a defender of romance and sentiment against the new tide of realism.^^ The third and final full-time member of the editorial staff in the early years was Eliot McCormick. In addition to editorial comment and many regulär columns, the Christian Union carried numerous stories and special articles by well-known contributors. These included, before 1881, Leonard Bacon, H. H. Boyesen, Phillips Brooks, John Burroughs, Edward Eggleston, Edward Everett Haie, Gail Hamilton, Kate Field, Sarah Orne Jewett, Abby Sage Richardson, E. P. Roe, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Horace Scudder, Charles F. Thwing, Charles Dudley Warner, John Greenleaf Whittier, and Constance Woolson. All in all, the magazine offered an extensive literary fare. Lyman Abbott always conceived of its function as, in large part, an educational one, and schools were of perennial interest. Once or twice a year entire issues were devoted to this subject. Editorially the paper advocated increased emphasis on industrial training, broader opportunities for women in education, and more home study on the part of individuals. It ran a series of articles in 1879 and 1880 which Abbott brought together in book form as Hints for Home Reading.^'^ The editor constantly urged people to build up family libraries of good literature. He served as president of a circulating library organized in Com wall in 1877, of which E. P. Roe was vice-president. Interested also in the Chautauqua movement, Abbott became a counselor in the famous Literary and Scientific Circle. He spoke at Chautauqua Lake on the opening night of the third year, 1876, and gave a course on the Bible. In 1883 he delivered the "Recognition Day" (commencement) oration on "The Democracy of Learn-

"MR. BEECHER'S

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73

ing."^® The following year he gave a series o£ lectures pubHshed as A Study in Human

Nature.

T h e Christian Union followed the advance of collegiate education, particularly women's, with much enthusiasm. About 1878 Abbott began to receive invitations to preach at various Colleges, giving his first major address at Vassar in that year. In 1879 he visited Wellesley, and President Alice Freeman became a good friend. Writing to Abbott in 1886, she said: " T h e work you did with the students last year makes it possible for you to do more for them now than any one eise. . .

When Miss Freeman married Professor

George Herbert Palmer of Harvard in 1887, Lyman Abbott was mentioned as a possible successor in her position at Wellesley.^® T h e editor often spent a week or more on a College campus, preaching, lecturing, and answering questions in public and private. T h e editorial policy of "Mr. Beecher's paper," though still essentially orthodox, was distinctly more liberal than that of the lllustrated Christian

Weekly.

Unhampered by responsibility to such a

group as the secretaries of the American Tract Society, Lyman Abbott was free to develop his own religious and political philosophy and to express independent convictions. These he generally phrased discreetly.

His father put it this way: " Y o u are evincing the very

unusual power, of explaining and defending truth, without exaggerating and so exasperating error."

T h e Christian Union stood

for free theological inquiry. T h e real issue in the religious conflicts of the time, it declared, was whether the ministry should be compelled to maintain the old faiths in the old forms and with the old arguments, simply because they were old, or whether they should be at liberty to present "the essential truths of the Christian faith" through new methods adapted to a changed intellectual and spiritual climate.®" The journal steadfastly opposed heresy trials.®^ Ministers should not be compelled to change their churches with every change of opinion, much less to form new ones to suit their individual peculiarities. T h e best corrective for unbelief, Abbott decided, was to "shut up

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all books on Evidences" and to follow Christ.®^ "The infidel skepticism which disowns the book and honors the precepts," he wrote, "is more Christian than the orthodox skepticism which honors the book and disowns the precepts."®® The religion which gave Jesse James a sainted funeral while consigning theological liberals to hell was a poor Substitute for Christianity.®^ "The remedy for the present threatened decay of faith," said the Christian Union, "is not a more stalwart creed or a more unflinching acceptance of it, but a profounder Spiritual life."®® T o profess faith in Christ one need not have clear convictions in regard to the Inspiration of Scripture, the vicarious atonement, miracles, and the divinity of Jesus, but only to see in H i m "a human example worthy of patient following, a spirit that is an inspiration, a possibility of character that exalts aspiration and enkindles hope."®® The Bible, Abbott now feit, was "not a complete and systematic revelation of all truth, nor even of all truth which bears on moral and spiritual problems."®''^ Nor did Christ demand of His followers belief in all miracles; their credibility depended on the evidence presented in each case. The resurrection of the body Abbott repudiated as "unscientific, irrational, unscriptural."®® H e was also "utterly skeptical" of literal Advent theories Although disavowing such doctrines as these, which were the essence of what came to be known in the twentieth Century as fundamentalism, he did not relax his hold upon what he regarded as the genuine essentials of religious faith. These he rested on an intuitional rather than a scriptural or theological basis. "God, immortality, Christ, pardon," he asserted, "are not hypotheses reached by laborious arguments; they are facts perceived by the spiritual sense."*° In answer to numerous inquiries regarding "difficult" passages in the Bible, he wrote: If love is not the law of moral and spiritual cohesion which the Bible represents it to be; if man has not broken it, and humanity has not come into moral chaos in consequence; if for humanity there is no helpful arm of love outstretched from the heavens to receive, then the Bible is false. But if these, its great proclamations, are verified by consciousness, ex-

"MR. BEECHER'S

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75

periencc and Observation, then the claim of the Bible on our regard as the onc book which gives a key to present mystery and a hope for its future glorious Solution is not to be rejected because theologians and

religious

leaders are not able to explain where Cain got his wife or w h y Matthew and L u k e give various accounts of the healing of Bartimeus/^

"The foundation of the Lord standeth sure," Abbott proclaimed; "and that foundation is not the Book of Genesis." ^^ The Christian Union was more sympathetic toward the Darwinian theory than the lllustrated Christian WeeJ{ly had been. A report of Huxley's lectures in New York in 1876 it commended to "the careful consideration" of readers.^® By 1882 Beecher had endorsed the evolutionary hypothesis, and Abbott followed him. The Christian Union pubUshed an appreciative editorial on the occasion of Darwin's death in that year. "Pious horror" of Darwinism, it Said, was equally "without good ground and barren of good effects." Though the doctrine was antiecclesiastical and perhaps unBiblical, it was "certainly not atheistic, nor even un-Christian."^* Ten years later, as will be seen, Abbott had fully appropriated the evolutionary philosophy and was applying it to religion. Likewise on moral questions, Abbott as Beecher's associate on the Christian Union expressed less stringent views than he had as an employee of the American Tract Society. The Puritan Sunday, loyally defended in the Weehly, was now treated as a thing of the past. "The object of the Sabbath is rest," said an editorial in 1879; "and rest carries with it the ideas of liberty and of happiness." The day ought to afford an opportunity for "the play of social life," which traditional Sabbatarianism denied.^® The Christian Union was critical of the American "gospel of work," perhaps because Abbott's own physical frailty made it necessary for him to observe frequent periods of rest. For many years the paper published special vacation numbers devoted to suggestions for recreational activity and to preaching the much-neglected "gospel of rest." In 1890 it established a recreation department which furnished free Information on travel and resorts. "Christianity," Lyman Abbott insisted, "will have nothing of

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that despotism of the moral sense, one over another, o£ which the churches have not a little."^® T o those who were troubled over whether Christians should participate in normal amusements, Abbott replied with an editorial entitled "All Things Are Yours."^'' While the Weekly had attacked the theater indiscriminately, the Christian Union said the immorality of some plays was no reason to eschew the drama altogether. People should not exclude the novels of Dickens and Thackeray from their libraries simply because Charles Reade had written A Terrible Temptation. Nor should they refuse to play croquet simply because it was a modified game of billiards on the lawn.^® The wine consumed in Palestine was not intoxicating, Abbott had declared in his Life of Christ; eight years later the Christian Union denied this sophistry and went on to insist that temperance could not be placed upon scriptural ground. Nevertheless, it held that for the American people, "overstimulated by a thousand exciting influences," the course of wisdom was one of general abstinence. The creation of sound public sentiment in this respect was of vastly greater importance than legal provisions for license or Prohibition.^® Theoretically the Christian Union was independent in politics; actually it was Republican. It supported Hayes for the presidency in 1876. Tilden it regarded as a professional politician, the Republican candidate as a Citizen who had shown "administrative talent and moral firmness." Moreover, it wanted immediate resumption of specie payments, as did the Republicans. As for civil Service reform, if Hayes were elected, the present incumbents would not be removed except for cause; if Tilden came in, the Federal offices would be "emptied" and refilled by the party which had originated the spoils system. Furthermore, the nation had "the most sacred obligation" to protect the rights of Negroes, which the Democrats would be unwilling to do.®" The paper continued to Support Hayes during the electoral dispute and took pains to

"MR. BEECHER'S

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77

point out that Southerners had excluded Negroes from the polls by questionable methods. Both Beecher and Abbott favored Grant, and the Christian Union called for bis renomination in 1880. It expressed satisfaction, nevertheless, at the selection of Garfield, a man "eminent for the Christian purity and integrity of bis life and character."®^ The new president's assassination occasioned a cogent plea for civil Service reform. Guiteau's act vi^as "a terrible indictment of the whole monstrous American system of distribution." On October 26, 1881, Henry Ward Beecher announced his retirement from the Christian Union and Lyman Abbott became editor-in-chief in name as vi^ell as in fact. Through a financial reorganization completed three years later, control of the magazine passed into the hands of Lawson Valentine, a friend and parishioner of Abbott in Cornwall-on-Hudson, who bought most of the stock as a personal favor. A successful businessman, Valentine became President of the Christian Union Company and served as a shrewd and sympathetic manager until his death in 1891. At the same time James Stillman, another neighbor, subsequently president of the National City Bank and a dose associate of the Rockefeller interests, aided the editor by purchasing a small share in the publishing concern. In the Progressive Era this "taint" of Standard Oil provided the wedge for an attack on the Outloo\ by muckrakers.®® Lyman Abbott insisted—and there is little reason to doubt it—that neither Valentine nor Stillman ever made any effort to direct the journal's editorial policy.®^ In 1891 Lawrence F. Abbott, the editor's oldest son, became publisher. The format of the Christian Union in that year came to resemble a magazine more than a newspaper. It now had fortyeight pages, of smaller size than before, and a cover. In July of 1893 the title of the paper was changed to the Outloo\, the name borne by one of its columns for twenty years previously. Thus Abbott recognized the gradual change of emphasis from religious concerns

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to public affairs and literary criticism. Churchmen had come to look upon the Christian Union as no longer religious, while nonchurchmen concluded from the tide that, like some twenty other papers bearing the name Christian, it was an ecclesiastical journal. Though a moralistic tone continued to pervade the magazine until Abbott's death, it became more and more secular as the years passed. "The Outlook," said the editor in the first issue under the new name, "is a weekly family newspaper. It is a running history of the year in fifty-two chapters. Its editorials, contributed articles, and departments deal with the things o£ today in the broadest and most dispassionate spirit."®® Its circulation, which had averaged about 20,000 during the i88o's, now rose to 30,000. Advertising revenues also showed a marked increase. Besides Abbott and Mabie, the staff consisted o£ R. D. Townsend, managing editor; Charles B. Spahr, writer on economic topics; Mrs. Lillian W. Betts, who conducted the home department; Elbert F. Baldwin, Amory H. Bradford, and James M. Whiton, the latter two ministers as well as authors.®® The policy of the paper from 1881 to 1898 will be traced topically in connection with Lyman Abbott's various interests during these busy years of maturity.

Chapter Seven

POLITICS AND ECONOMICS: THE MORAL VIEW Aftjter

Beecher's resignation Abbott resolved to mal^e the Christian Union genuinely independent in politics. In the fall of 1882 he wrote a series of editorials calling for a new political party. The decline of the sectional issue and the rise of new national Problems had convinced him that loyalty to the Republican Party on the old grounds was anachronistic. Although the G.O.P. had rendered noble services in its early days, the Christian Union pointed out, since the Civil War it had been guilty of corruption, "cowardly shufHing," and a "shameful betrayal" of the public trust.^ The first Step in political reform, the editor thought, would be to defeat the Republican Organization in New York State. Thus he supported Cleveland for governor in 1882. The Democratic nomination represented "a triumph of independency over professional politicians," while the Republican candidate, Charles J. Folger, though honest, was a machine choice.^ But favoring either of the old parties was a mistake, Abbott believed. Both were iniquitous, and the only Solution was for independents to unite under a fresh banner. As a nucleus for the new coalition he suggested the establishment of a national Citizens' committee consisting of from fifty to a hundred lawyers, educators, ministers, merchants, and any others except "professional politicians." Its three main principles should be civil Service reform, tariff reduction, and government control over the railroads. Abbott

8o

LYMATS!

also advocated

reduction of

ABBOTT taxes and nationalization

o£ the

telegraph.® While his proposal failed to evoke a response, he continued to preach the bankruptcy of the parties and to declare a plague on both houses during the rest of the eighties. Branding Blaine's nomination in 1884 a victory of "tricksters and demagogues,"^ he advocated and approved the Democratic choice of Cleveland but turned against him before the election. Having at first called him a man "of spotless reputation and admirable qualifications," ® the Christian

Union—"a

family paper"

and a champion of morality as well as honesty—had to change its tune vi^hen the news leaked out that Cleveland w^as an unmarried father. If this were true, it said, he should withdraw from the ticket or eise "the respecters of womanhood should sweep him off," for "social demoralization" was more dangerous than political corruption. T h e country would do better to postpone civil service reform for a time than to elect anyone guilty of personal immorality.® In the next issue an editorial softened this verdict: N o Christian man, no patriotic Citizen, should be Willing to vote for a candidate w h o m be believes to be leading a licentious and debauched life. But confidence and esteem are not to be withheld f r o m a man, otherwise entided to them, because of the sinful episode of a past life, w h e n he has done w h a t litde man can do to m a k e reparation and atonement for it. In our judgment, these facts, while they necessarily leave a stain upon the reputation of Mr. Cleveland, leave the voter at liberty to determine his vote wholly by political considerations.''

With these words the paper closed its columns to the scandal, having aired the matter with "the greatest reluctance." T h e Christian Union then tried to divert the campaign from Personalities to principles. During September and October a series of editorials hammered away at political issues "which the country ought to be considering to-day, instead of discussing the moral character of Mr. Blaine and Mr. Cleveland." Again it called for a new party with new leaders and a new platform: reduction of taxes and tarilTs, purer and more efficient government, national control of transportation and commerce, "honest currency," and

POLITICS

AND

ECONOMICS

8i

Federal aid to education.® Just before the election the journal declared for John P. St. John, "not because we believe in the principles embodied in the platform o£ the National Prohibition party, for we do not; but because we beUeve the larger the vote for him, the larger the hope of a new party in the near future, with a platform broader than that of the National Prohibition party, and more courageous than those of the Democratic and Republican parties."® The Christian Union lost a number of subscribers in consequence of this stand. The deflection of Republican ballots into the Prohibition Party was a factor in Cleveland's victory in New York, the decisive State in the election. Lawrence Abbott, the editor's son, voted Democratic, as did Henry Ward Beecher.^" Though Lyman Abbott was not a prohibitionist, the liquor problem was of perennial interest to him. Through the Christian Union he advocated temperance propaganda, abolition of the licensing system, high taxation on alcoholic drinks, local option, and the Organization of law-and-order leagues for enforcing restrictive laws in towns and counties.^^ In 1885 he wrote a brief history of the temperance movement and a biographical sketch of John B, Cough as an introduction to Platform Echoes, a collection of speeches by the famous crusader against "Demon Rum." This article pointed out that a change in the public conscience would have to precede any effectual change in the public law.^^ Another moral question which greatly disturbed Abbott at this time was Mormonism. In 1884 he proposed that a national commission be appointed to govern Utah and break the power of the Mormon Church. A secular school system under Federal direction was also necessary. A personal visit to the Salt Lake area in 1886 left him with impressions of "a religion more pernicious than I had even supposed Mormonism to be," of a dangerous hierarchy which had gained political power by methods "wholly un-American" and which ought not to be left in control, of a theology which was "wholly unspiritual and wholly unmoral," of a social life which destroyed "the true sanctity of marriage and the home."^® Some

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years earlier the Christian Union had denounced the Mormons as "a Community of prostitutes," whom Congress should refuse to admit to "the sisterhood of the States." ^^ While viewing Cleveland's administration critically, the Christian Union finally stamped it with moderate approval. His efforts had advanced civil Service reform, his pension vetoes were justified, and his attempt to secure a lower tariff deserved commendation.^® Abbott constantly opposed moves for an extravagant pension policy. To take care of disabled veterans vi^as right and proper, but it was absurd for the nation to adopt as its wards those who had afterwards gone into civil life on the same basis and with the same soundness of body as other men. Veterans ought not to be subjects of "political chicanery and of Congressional attempts to buy their support by opening the national treasury to them."^® Cleveland's controversial order for the return of Confederate battle flags Abbott regarded as "a mistake," since it revived war hatreds, but he held the North itself at fault for not yet having come up to the moral Standard of the Second Inaugural.^'^ Lyman Abbott during these years steadily decried efforts to revive sectional animosities. He was a guest of honor at the dinner of the New England Society of New York where Henry W. Grady gave his famous "New South" address on December 21, 1886. The Christian Union, Publishing excerpts from it, hailed it as one of great significance/® The journal also supported the Blair Bill, by which the Federal government would have given financial aid to Southern education.^® On the other hand, it opposed Henry Cabot Lodge's bill for Federal supervision of Southern elections. By 1890 Abbott had come to believe that the wisest policy was to allow Southerners to administer their own future. "The negro problem," said an editorial in 1890, "must be worked out by the negroes and the white men of the South with the aid of the North, not by the North or the Federal Government over the heads of the negroes and the white men."^® As early as 1878 the Christian Union advocated a revenue tarifJ

POLITICS

AND ECONOMICS

83

instead of protection. This was not only "unselfishness applied to national affairs" but also "the economic application of the principle that every nation is most prosperous when its neighbors are prosperous."^^ Lyman Abbott sent a special note o£ congratulation to President Cleveland "for compelling the attention of the country to the overshadowing issue of to-day" in his famous tarifl message of December 1887.22 In the election of 1888 Abbott pronounced the crucial questions to be the surplus and the tariff. "Nor have we any wish to conceal our personal predilections and prejudices," he wrote. "They are in favor of economical expenditures and a lowered tariff." ^^ Since the vast majority of subscribers to the Christian Union were Republicans, letters of protest began to flood the paper.^^ Thereafter the editor maintained a discreet silence, contenting himself with impartially reporting news of the campaign week by week. In September he gave space to articles presenting the respective claims of the Republicans, the Democrats, and the Prohibitionists. November brought a Republican victory and presently a fresh drive for protection. In 1890 Abbott charged that the new McKinley Tariff vv^ould not only raise prices but vfould "cripple commerce." Blaine's reciprocity program, on the other hand, met vs^ith praise.^® In the election of 1892 the magazine again took no positive stand for either candidate, though the editor made clear his Opposition to the protective tarifl, Federal control of elections, and steamship subsidies—major Republican planks.^^ Despite the fact that from time to time he had advocated several of the reform measures proposed in the Populist platform of that year, he gave little attention to this movement. Apparently he did not believe it met his earlier demand for a new party. Agrarian radicalism was too earthy to be greeted favorably by a spokesman of the Eastern middle class. The success of the Democrats and the making of the WilsonGorman Tarifl in 1894 gave the journal, now named the Outloof^, an opportunity to denounce the party for violating campaign

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pledges. This law, Abbott believed, was "conceived in corruption and passed in dishonor." In the general scramble for private advantage the national welfare had been forgotten, pre-election promises renounced, sound principles disregarded.^® Although he approved the inheritance tax feature of the German act, considering it just and easily enforced, he opposed the income tax on a number of grounds: it was not a necessary part of tariff legislation; it was a tax on industry rather than property; it would be harder on professional and salaried people than on manufacturers and merchants; it would promote immorality (i.e., lying),^® The Christian Union was also a persistent advocate of the international Copyright system, which it supported as early as 1884. If other industries were to be protected, it said in 1888, certainly American literary production should be encouraged. Emphasizing as usual the moral angle, Abbott declared that public book-stealing was only private theft multiplied. Book pirating was just as bad as any other kind of piracy. "The matter of cheapness," he insisted, "is subordinate to the matter of honesty." The journal hailed the passage of an international Copyright law by Congress in 1891.3« Although Lyman Abbott favored the removal of trade barriers, he had by 1890 modified his earlier stand on free Immigration. He now suggested limiting the number of immigrants to a hundred thousand a year and requiring that they be able to read English. In addition they should be obliged to take out citizenship papers within five years. "That some measures are necessary to restrict Immigration," said the Christian Union in 1892, "and especially to discriminate between diflerent classes of immigrants, has become a public conviction founded on reason."®^ On this later occasion the editor suggested that the literacy test might be in the newcomer's native language. Lyman Abbott's concern for political reform continued throughout the eighties and nineties. Cleveland's extensions of the merit

POLITICS

AND ECONOMICS

85

system met with his füllest approval, while Harrison's failures in this respect were criticized. An editorial of 1888 advocated the secret ballot and other measures for ending electoral corruption.®^ By 1897 the journal was an active proponent of the direct primary.®® Abbott opposed machine rule in both parties with almost equal vigor. If the Democrats had Croker, the Republicans had Platt and Quay, the latter representing, according to the Outlook^, "all the forces of misgovernment in Pennsylvania."®^ In the New York mayoralty election of 1897 the paper supported Seth Low, an independent Republican, over the Tammany and regulär Republican candidates and over the single-taxer, Henry George, who died in the course of the campaign. Abbott thought Low, who came in second, stood for "honest administration, and the people's right to rule."®® The magazine also gave much attention during the nineties to the Reverend Charles H. Parkhurst's spectacular Crusade against official complicity with vice in New York City.®® The Solution which Lyman Abbott proposed for the economic distress following the Panic of 1893 was a lame one. Writing an editorial on how not to solve the unemployment problem—by laissez faire ("a lamentable failure"), by day-dreams about the nationalization of land and industries, by moralizing about thrift, or by engaging in indiscriminate charity—he suggested that the answer was for individuals to practice Christianity.®'^ In a Forum article on "The Personal Problem of Charity" he urged employers not to discharge laborers and suggested that each person become the almoner of his own bounty, giving through private Visitation in the spirit of Christ instead of leaving the problem to organized relief agencies. He also warned against the kind of benevolence which degraded the worthy poor by treating them like the shiftless and the vicious.®® A little later an Outloo\ editorial blamed the current national difficulties on "unjust taxation" and "a vitiated currency." Good Citizens were under an obligation "to stop jesting about Coxey's Army, to ponder the significance of this continental

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movement, to see sympathetically the distress which alone gives it strength, and to study the causes which have led to that distress, and endeavor to ascertain the remedy."®® Of cheap-money panaceas Lyman Abbott was suspicious. In the 1870's the Christian Union had criticized the Greenback and silverite schemes as "simply and palpably a proposal to defraud everybody to whom the nation owes money," advocating instead "an honest and therefore a Christian currency."^" When the freesilver movement rose to prominence in the 1890's the paper came out for international bimetaUism. Although Abbott beUeved a dual Standard desirable, he thought it "neither honest nor prudent to make the change in disregard of other nations, and in such a way as to threaten our country with a depreciated currency."*^ He urged repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890. When the silver issue came to a head in the election of 1896, the Outloo\ favored McKinley. Although the journal desired lower tariffs and a pacific foreign policy, it agreed with the Republicans that international bimetallism rather than independent action for free silver was the Solution of the currency problem. Besides, the Democratic platform for tarifl reduction was unconvincing, since the party's effort in 1894 had been a miserable failure. Furthermore, the election of Bryan would mean overthrow of the civil service system.^^ Charles B. Spahr, an economist and member of the editorial stafi, was a strong advocate of free silver, but it was Lyman Abbott who made the final decision on all aspects of the Outlool(& policy. Düring the summer, while Abbott was absent on a trip to Europa, the magazine took a rather indefinite position and permitted debate on both sides of the question. One editorial, after proclaiming that the sanctity of obligations was a cornerstone of civilization and that nothing could be more demoralizing than permitting the payment of a dollar's indebtedness with fifty cents' Worth of silver, nevertheless conceded that the free-silver men should be given a fair and courteous hearing. Thus encouraged, various correspondents pointed out that the gold policy defrauded

POLITICS the

debtor

and

that

AND

ECONOMICS

international

bimetallism

87 could

not

be

realized.^® Upen his return from Europe, Abbott closeted himself in bis library for several days in order to study thoroughly the arguments of botb sides. T h e result was a lengthy editorial advising the doubtful voter to cast his ballot against the free and unlimited coinage o£ silver without an international agreement. Following his customary practice of making the best of his opponent's case in order to demolish it, he admitted a widespread conviction, "shared by some of the ablest economists both of Europe and of the United States, that gold monometallism has promoted falling prices and wealth-concentration."^^

There

was

no

question, he

believed,

about the integrity of the free-silver champions, but he was opposed to them on economic, moral, and personal grounds. Their program, without the Cooperation of other nations, actually would place the country on a silver Standard; it would endanger credit and produce commercial disaster. T o experiment with the traditional financial structure was hazardous. Of even greater weight in Abbott's mind was the questionable morality of the proposed monetary policy: There arc two principles by which we may well be guided in times of moral perplexity. The first is, It is rarely morally wise to do to another what he thinks unjust. The second is, It is never morally right to enter on a course of action as to the justice of which the actor is himself in doubt. These principles are as applicable to nations as to individuals. The creditors of the American Nation, almost without excepüon, would think themselves unjusdy dealt with by the American people were we first to establish free silver coinage and then to pay off our bonds in silver dollars. . . . A democratic Community may enter on a course. of action concerning the political or economic expediency of which it is nearly evenly divided. But it ought not to enter upon a National experiment if a large proportion of the people regard it as immoral or even of doubtful morality. . . . It is better to bear the ills inflicted by what half the Nation regards as the injustice of a past generation than to attempt their remedy by a policy which is regarded as unjust by the other half."

Finally, consideration of the personalities involved could lead

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to but one decision. William Jennings Bryan was a man of great humanitarian sympathy and personal courage, but he lacked "that sobriety o£ judgment and caution in action which are the foundation of a great statesman." It would be safer to trust the task of readjusting the currency on a sounder basis "to the possibly too cautious temper of Mr. McKinley and his advisers than to the certainly too eager and unhesitating temper of Mr. Bryan and his advisers."^® Shordy after McKinley's victory the Outloo\ called attention to the Republican obhgation to promote an international agreement for bimetallism. "It can hardly be doubtful," said the magazine, "that if the issue had been sharply drawn between gold monometallism and free silver coinage the latter would have carried the election by a decisive populär majority. The election of Mr. McKinley clearly means a populär vote in favor of bimetallism by international action." By 1898, however, Abbott had given up hope of seeing this goal achieved. The United States would have no choice but to submit and conform to the gold Standard like other powers. Congress, nevertheless, should adopt provisions to prevent resulting contraction of the currency.^® Despite Abbott's facile assumption that the money question could be settled on a "moral" basis without regard to power potentials and considerations of self-interest, unquestionably his glasses were clouded by his own association and that of his magazine with the Northeastern creditor element. Like those of other church people, his Standards of justice and morality tended to reflect the dominant economic concerns of his section and his social class.^® Politics was but one of the subjects to which Lyman Abbott gave his attention during the closing decades of the Century. The Indian question, the labor problem, and various religious issues, also occupied his mind. These matters will now be considered.

Chapter

Eight

CIVILIZA TION AND BARBARISM Indian question, of perennial concern to Lyman Abbott, received much attention in the Christian Union and the Outloo\. Although the editor never visited a reservation and never met more than a dozen Indians during his entire life, he played an important part in the movement which led to the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887. His journal, indeed, was one o£ the first to advocate abandonment of the tribal system. As early as 1879, when the first severalty proposals were introduced in Congress, it declared that the red men should be assimilated and given citizenship. To reserve land for "barbarism" was patendy wrong. "Sooner or later the entire territory of the nation will be given to civilization," Abbott contended, "and the sooner the better." ^ Helen Hunt Jackson's flaming attack on United States Indian policy, A Century of Dishonor, appeared in 1881. The following year saw the formation of the Indian Rights Association, and in 1883 the first annual Conference of Friends of the Indian met at Lake Mohonk, New York. Every fall from then until 1916 government officials, educators, ministers, editors, philanthropists, and others assembled at the resort hotel operated by Albert K. Smiley, a member of the Board of Indian Commissioners, and his brother Alfred. The two hosts, both Quakers, conducted their lodge with scrupulous regard for morality and religion. Cards, dancing, and drinking were conspicuous by their absence; morning prayers and Sunday services were conducted regularly.^ The comfort of the hotel, the beauty of the scenery, and the pleasant contacts made

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the sessions at Lake Mohonk in connection with the Indian problern, and later with international arbitration, something o£ an annual vacation period for Lyman Abbott. The humanitarians who gathered there became one of the most potent forces in the formulation of American Indian policy, since the conferences served as a clearinghouse for ideas and as a rneans of applying pressure on the government.® Abbott made his initial appearance at the second meeting, held in 1884 under the chairmanship of Clinton B. Fisk. The thirty-one in attendance adopted resolutions opposing any recognition of tribal sovereignty, and favoring the granting of lands in severalty as speedily as possible along with the bestowing of citizenship and the ballot.^ Beginning on May 15, 1884, Helen Hunt Jackson's Ramona, sometimes called the Uncle Tom's Cabin of Indian reform, appeared serially in the Christian Union. Laid against the colorful and romantic background of the last days of Spanish rule in California, this novel poignantly portrayed the vicissitudes of the young half-breed Indian girl, Ramona, and her lover, the full-blooded Alessandro. Interwoven with the love story was a tragic picture of the spoliation of the red man by American frontiersmen. Mrs. Jackson believed that the aborigines were basically intelligent, self-respecting, and industrious people who could stand on their own feet if given a fair chance.® Until 1884 or 1885 reformers gave little evidence of favoring immediate citizenship for the Indians. Henry L. Dawes, chairman of the Senate committee on Indian affairs, declared in 1882 that tribal dissolution was "an undertaking beyond our power" which, "if practicable," would "perhaps" be wise.® The first conference at Lake Mohonk resolved that the Indians should not be admitted to the civilized Community until they were fitted for corresponding responsibilities. Within a year or two, however, opinion underwent a revolutionary change, due in part to the efforts of Lyman Abbott, who conducted in the Christian Union columns a zealous editorial agitation for the policy of assimilating the Indians.

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The Solution o£ the Indian problem, he wrote in the issue o£ June II, 1885, was "simple, though radical." The ends to be secured were disruption of the tribes, abolition o£ the reservations, dispersa! o£ the Indians, and their subjection to the conditions, requirements, and advantages of white society. The means would be a law making them Citizens, giving them the vote (with an educational qualilication), providing £or the division o£ lands in severalty, purchasing unassigned lands and holding the proceeds in trust £or Indian schools, and thus opening the continent to white setders and "advancing civilization." ^ Five years should sufHce for this process, he thought. A little later an editorial declared, "Barbarism has no rights which civilization is bound to respect."® The reservations would inevitably go; the only question was whether they should be broken up by the government in an orderly and legal manner, er whether the Indians were to be forced off by "squatters, boomers, and cowboys."® As things worked out, unfortunately, the two alternatives were not so distinct. Upon Abbott's invitation several influential members o£ the Lake Mohonk group met at the Christian Union office on July 7, 1885, to formulate a program o£ action for presentation at the October meeting. In attendance were General Eliphalet Whittlesey and Albert K . Smiley of the Board of Indian Commissioners, General Samuel C. Armstrong of Hampton Institute, Captain R. H. Pratt of the Carlisle School for Indians, Dr. James E. Rhoads and Herbert Welsh of the Indian Rights Association, and Miss Alice C. Fletcher. Senator Dawes was unable to come. After some preliminary discussion, Abbott proposed a concrete plan providing for the appointment o£ a commission by the President to direct allotment o£ Indian lands to individuals and to devise a comprehensive system of Indian education to be financed from the sale of surplus groimd. If treaties impeded this program, they should be abrogated.^® The only one who opposed this platform was Herbert Welsh, who feit that Abbott was mistaken in his belief that the Indian treaties rather than their violation had

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caused the diflSculty. " I believe that the radical nature of his views as to how the Indian problem may and should be solved," Welsh wrote somewhat bitterly to Senator Dawes, "would be greatly modified by dose contact with the cold facts of the question, which at present do not come within his ränge of vision."^^ Abbott, he contended, was inclined to give westerners too much credit for honest and just intentions toward the red men. Sending an account of this meeting to Dawes, Abbott wrote: Without knowing much concerning the details of the Indian business, I am convinced, from m y position as an outside observer, with some facilities for knowing public sentiment, that our only hope is to propose a plan which will unite the suffrages of East and West; and to do this w e must propose one which will involve the immediate disarmament of the Indians and the early abandonment of the whole reservation system. T h e hardship to some individuals, it seems to me, will be less than the hardship to the whole Indian race necessarily involved in any policy of greater delay.^"

The Coke Bill, authorizing the President to divide reservation lands upon request of the tribe, was pending in Congress at this time. Abbott believed that allotment should be compulsory instead of voluntary, prompt instead of gradual, and that it should be carried out under the direction of a permanent commission instead of changing administrations.^® A t the third annual Lake Mohonk Conference, held on October 7, 8, and 9, 1885, Abbott played an important role as a member of the resolutions committee. While sentiment at the meeting was overwhelmingly in favor of the severalty policy, there was considerable discussion over the desirability of observing existing treaties and over the government's obligations to the Indians after allotment. Senator Dawes made a powerful plea for safeguarding reservation rights. "I beg of you," he said, "not to ask of these men in Congress, who stand before the country, committed, that they shall openly violate the solemn treaties they have made."^^ T o this Abbott replied: "If we have made a bad contract it is better broken than kept." "It is not right to do a wrong thing," he argued, "and if you have agreed to do a wrong thing, that agree-

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ment does not make it right."^® In a striking Statement Abbott openly challenged the contention that the Indians occupied this country and that the whites took it from them: T h e Indians did not ^ccupy this land. A people do not occupy a country simply because they roam over it. They did not occupy the coal mines, nor the gold mines, into which they never Struck a pick; nor the rivers which flow to the sea, and on which the music of a mill was never heard. T h e Indians can scarcely be said to have occupied this country more than the bisons and the buffalo they hunted. Three hundred thousand people have no right to hold a continent and keep at bay a race able to people it and provide the happy homes of civilization. W e do owe the Indians sacred rights and obligations, but one of those duties is not the right to let them hold forever the land they did not occupy, and which they were not making fruitful for themselves or others.^'

He went on to declare his conviction that the reservation system was "hopelessly wrong" and that it should be "uprooted, root, trunk, branch and leaf." For protection of the Indians he preferred to trust the laws of the land rather than the Indian agent, "who may be a philanthropist, or who may be a politician." T h e platform which the conference finally adopted by unanimous vote was a compromise between the conservative and radical programs. It endorsed the Coke Bill but declared that "immediate measures" should be taken to allot the reservations in severalty. Wherever necessary, negotiations should be entered into for the modification of the present treaties, "and these negotiations should be pressed in every honorable way until the consent of the Indians be obtained."

Unallotted lands should be sold and the proceeds

used to finance a broad program of industrial and educational advancement for the Indians. T h e following committee was appointed to present these proposals to the President: Lyman Abbott, Erastus Brooks, Alice C. Fletcher, Mrs. J. C. Kinney, Mrs. A . S. Quinton, and Albert K . Smiley. This group, accompanied by Clinton B. Fisk, president of the conference, and representatives from the Board of Indian Commissioners called on Grover Cleveland at the White House on

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November lo, 1885, to advocate allotment. Abbott, among those who spoke, argued that the red men must be given the rights and duties o£ manhood and citizenship, above all homes, "the center and source o£ all civilization." "We have twice the territory of Great Britain secured to barbarism," he arguSd. "It should be secured to civilization." The people of the West, he feit, were right in their demand that the reservation must go, but the end should be attained through carefully planned government policy rather than by individual action, by fraud, bribery, or force.^® The President, having listened attentively to the speakers, stated his own view: Ultimately lands must be given in severalty and the Indians thrown upon their own resources, but the question is meantime how best to prepare them for independence. . . . I should desire to do much and to place it among the achievements o£ my administratiön, yet probably I can only make a beginning. But I want that to be right, and I want to know what is the most useful thing that now can be done.'"

The reformers, next proceeding to the Interior Department, called on Secretary Lucius Q. C. Lamar. The latter admitted that destruction of the reservations was the end to be sought but expressed a conviction that the time was not ripe. In the transition stage the tribal system must be continued. The Board and the Mohonk representatives then retired to the Riggs Mansion, wehere they had met the night before, to hold another session. Fisk and Abbott were appointed to prepare a letter to the President in reply to his question, "What is the practical thing to be done now.?"^^ They recommended that Congress should pass a law giving the President discretionary power to divide up the Indian lands as rapidly as their consent could be obtained.^® When the new Congress met in December, Senator Dawes introduced a measure substantially embodying the Mohonk recommendations. It was finally passed by both houses and received Cleveland's signature in February 1887. The Dawes Act, as it came to be called, authorized the President at his discretion to allot reservation lands in severalty for use in agriculture or grazing.

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Thus the process could be either gradual or immediate. Each head o£ a family was to select 160 acres, while forty acres were to be given for each child. The United States government was to hold this land in trust for twenty-five years, at the end of which the Indian would receive füll title. All those to whom allotments were made would at once become Citizens, as would any who voluntarily abandoned their tribes and took up the habits of civilized life. Surplus land beyond the allotments was to be sold, the funds being administered in trust for Indian welfare.^® The Christian Union assumed a considerable share of credit for this reform. "Light has come," it said after passage of the law. "The definite policy, first formulated in the editorial rooms of The Christian Union, then adopted by the Gsnference at Lake Mohonk, has been accepted by the country, by the Administration, by Congress."^^ "If the Indians' friends had influence enough to change the mind of President Cleveland," Abbott recalled years later, "they had a good deal of influence."^® But eastern theorists were not the only ones behind the Dawes Act; western men wanted the Indian lands and saw the measure as a means to that end. As Secretary Lamar put it,* many of the arguments used in favor of breaking up the reservations were "dictated less by a regard for the interests of the Indian than for those of the white people who want his lands." Indeed, a study of Abbott's role in this movement reveals that the gap between "eastern humanitarians" and western landgrabbers was by no means as great as has been supposed. Actually it appears that some of the reformers were more interested in expansion of white society than in protection of the unfortunate red men. Thus, whether they knew it or not, they conspired with the land sharks who defrauded many Indians of their legacies. Lyman Abbott wisely recognized that administration of the Dawes Act would be difficult. For this purpose he suggested the appointment of a special group of trustees, amenable only to the courts and not subject to executive or congressional control. The

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Indian Bureau he considered a miserable failure. "You might as well have expected Pharaoh to lead the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt," he told the Lake Mohonk Conference o£ 1887, "as to expect the average Indian Agent to lead the Indians out of bondage." Abbott was also aware that the provision for distribution of lands was not a complete Solution to the problem. If Indians were to be eflective Citizens, they must be better educated. He made a notable speech on this aspect of the question at Lake Mohonk in 1888. The work of educating the Indians had for some years been carried on by missionary schools supported by private benevolence, with assistance from the government in the form of buildings and appropriations. This practice led to competition between the churches for Federal aid, as had been the case in the freedmen's work during reconstruction. Abbott proposed the abolition of this system and the substitution of one in which the Federal government undertook complete responsibility for maintaining Indian schools. A "non-political" commission should direct the program. The churches should handle only religious training and perhaps higher education. This address provided the basis for discussion, as had Abbott's in 1885. General Armstrong opposed his view. "If there is anything demonstrated in the past twenty years," said the Hampton principal, "it is that the missionary schools are a great deal better than the Government schools."^® He believed it impossible to remove politics from the Indian service. The platform committce, of which Abbott was chairman, drew up resolutions embodying compromise proposals. The conference asked Congress to provide a Federal educational system for the Indians under the Interior Department. School attendance should be compulsory, but the Indians should be at liberty to choose either a public or a sectarian school. The government should continue coöperating with the benevolent societies until its own facilities were established. Abbott himself, however, reaffirmed his conviction that "the junc-

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tion of Church and State, in every phase of it, has been equally injurious to the State and to the Church."^® Düring the next year he published a series of editorials in the Christian Union agitating for national direction of Indian education. Again in 1889 he appeared at Lake Mohonk to press this cause. Also in attendance was General T. J. Morgan, United States Commissioner for Indian Aflfairs, who outlined a plan for elementary schools under Federal direction. The conference endorsed his proposal. In 1894 Congress adopted the policy of gradually abandoning all assistance to denominational education, while the number of government schools for Indians and the volume of Federal appropriations steadily increased.®® The annual conferences of "friends of the Indian," broadened after 1900 to include consideration of Negroes, Filipinos, and other "dependent peoples," continued until 1916, and Lyman Abbott sustained his interest in them. "It seems to me that every time I come to Mohonk," he confessed in 1895, "it is to make the same old Speech: to reaffirm the absolute sovereignty of the American nation over every foot of American territory. . . . " He w^anted to see all the Indians subject to the same law as other Americans. W h e n we treat the red man as a man [he asserted], when w e trust in him and in his fellow-citizens, when w e give him the rights which w e claim for ourselves,—the right to hfe, to hberty, to property, to home, to education,—then, and not tili then, will the Indian problem be solved.'^

In later years Abbott advocated several specific reforms in Indian policy. These included transfer of the Indian Bureau from the Interior Department to the War Department, in the belief that army officers would be less liable to political favoritism and local prejudice than the usual Indian agent. In the second place, Indians like other wards should be placed under guardianship, with a right to sue in Federal courts. Finally, the office of Superintendent of Indian Schools should be abolished and his functions transferred to the Commissioner of Education as part of a compre-

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hensive system o£ public education in all the territories and dependencies o£ the United States.®^ Abbott opposed the expenditure of Indian trust funds to foster sectarian schools.®® The Story of Lyman Abbott and Indian reform is a good illustration of the limitations of his mind. Never a profound Student of any problem, his ideas were often superficial and his judgments hasty. His knowledge of Indian affairs was entirely secondhand, yet he played a significant role in molding and expressing public opinion in that field. While the passage of the Dawes Severalty Act was widely acclaimed as the herald of a new day for the Indian, in practice it proved disappointing. Theorists supposed that an allotment of land and a little education would cause the "barbarian" to acquire a sense of responsibility, build a home, and make himself economically secure. They forgot that the Institution of private property ran counter to Indian traditions, that the aborigines could not learn American ideals overnight. Many lost their holdings to unscrupulous whites, and as voters they feil prey to corrupt politicians. In actuality the Dawes Act, compared by contemporaries to Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence, came to be regarded as only the latest and not the least contemptible feature of America's long abuse of the Indian people.®^ It was mpdified in 1906 and repudiated in 1934, when the Wheeler-Howard Act forbade further allotments to individuals and authorized the revival of tribal organizations under Federal supervision.

Chapter

INDUSTRIAL

Nine

DEMOCRACY

Throughout a great part of the nineteenth Century, evangelical churches, following in the tradition of John Wesley, laid their chief emphasis on personal salvation. They feit that their principal duty was to prepare individuals for heaven, and consequently they tended to neglect the problems of the present World. Drawing their membership chiefly from the comfortably fixed business and professional classes, they were indifferent to most eflorts for social reform. In the great industrial conflicts of the post-Civil War years church people generally took the side of capital rather than labor. This attitude, together with the fact that religious institutions were the recipients of large gifts from capitalists, not infrequently evoked the Charge that churches were pawns of the rieh. Düring the closing years of the Century, however, an outspoken minority among the clergy began to insist that Christianity should deal with the sins of society as well as with the iniquities of individuals. The social gospel which this element preached was not, it is true, without precedent. The Hebrew prophets had dealt in large measure with man's inhumanity to man. The medieval church had prohibited usury. Reformation leaders had sought a theocratic ideal similar in its purposes to the modern religious concern with politics. In the middle decades of the nineteenth Century a number of Christian leaders had attacked the slavery evil. Nevertheless the eighties and nineties saw in a very real sense a new importance attached to the ethical teachings of Jesus. The changing economic conditions accompanying the rise of urban industrialism in

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America, combined with the changed intellectual and theological climate produced by modern scholarship, led ministers to place an unusually vigorous emphasis on social justice in the years £rom 1876 to 1914.^ The Christian Union under Lyman Abbott's editorship played a significant part in this movement. Although other religious leaders, notably Washington Gladden and Walter Rauschenbusch, were more thoroughgoing converts to social Christianity, Abbott's Position as a publicist enabled him to wield perhaps a broader influence. His magazine was the first religious periodical to open its pages to a general discussion of the industrial problem, and it must have played a not inconsiderable role in creating a more sympathetic attitude toward labor on the part of the churches. Abbott's retirement from pastoral and administrative duties in New York City to a quiet life at Cornwall-on-Hudson in 1869 gave him time £or studying not only the Bible but also economics and sociology. His journalistic work made it imperative £or him to inform himself regarding the great problems of the day; his religious background made it natural that he should attempt to apply Christian precepts in their Solution. Though books and articles gave him the bulk of his Information, he took advantage of occasional opportunities to make personal investigations. In 1878, for instance, he visited the Wyoming Valley coal fields near Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he talked with representatives of both management and labor, and wrote for the Christian Union an account of his impressions. He thought that the miners were not in crushing poverty and that protective measures for their lives and safety were honestly carried out. He also feit that they were on the whole industrious and peaceable, not led by demagogues. They made their decisions through labor unions, an "inevitable counterpoise to the concentration of capital." Labor's grievances—part-time employment and inferiority in the bargaining relation—seemed to him "real and substantial." Whether the miners were receiving fair compensation he would not attempt to decide.®

INDÜSTRIAL

DEMOCRACY

loi

About this time Abbott began to realize that the American capitalistic system was far from perfect. It permitted poverty in a land of wealth and hunger in a land o£ plenty; it begot criminals, invited disease, and multiplied death; it robbed children o£ their parents, their education, and opportunities for play. Touring England in 1882, he paid special attention to the slums and the model lodging houses being erected to replace them.® In succeeding years he undertook through editorials and speeches to arouse the American conscience over unhappy conditions among wage-earners. Düring the i88o's the circulation o£ the Christian Union was only 20,000, but it went primarily to the employing classes, who most needed to be persuaded. In 1878 it had published a series of articles entitled "Our Neighbors—the Poor." In 1883-84 came "Walks and Talks with the Working Classes." The paper offered a prize for the best essay suggesting "How to Help the Poor to Help Themselves." Among the proposals were shorter hours, high taxes on whiskey and tobacco, cheap restaurants, home missionary work, colonization in the West, industrial education, and readjustment of the revenue system.^ The Christian Union persistently advocated most of these reforms. "So far, all our legislation has been framed with a view to inviting capital into this new country," it observed in 1883. "The time has come when legislation must be framed with a view to protecting and promoting labor."° The Children's Aid Society project for resettling New York street urchins in the West greatly interested Abbott, and through the Christian Union he raised the money to send several hundred boys to new homes during the years 1882 to 1884.® Beginning a few years later, the magazine maintained a highly successful working girls' vacation fund.'^ Interest in the industrial problem led Abbott to join the American Economic Association, founded under the leadership of Professor Richard T. Ely of Johns Hopkins in 1885, Washington Gladden and twenty-two other ministers also participated in its establishment, and in its early days it was characterized by a high degree

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of evangelical fervor. In their first platform the members o£ thc association cast oif allegiance to classical economics and announced their Intention to approach the subject from a humanistic and progressive Standpoint. They likewise declared their conviction that the government should fulfill an important ethical role. "I need hardly say," Abbott told Professor Ely, "that I am cordially glad to see an organic effort made to develop a more Christian and, as I believe, a more truly scientific political economy. I shall be very glad to co-operate in any way in my power in promoting your plans and purposes."® With Woodrow Wilson, E. R. A. Seligman, Ely, and others he was a member of its first council. He also belonged to its committee for the study of transportation problems.® Abbott's editorial campaign on behalf of labor reached its climax in 1885. Düring that year the Christian Union carried Helen Campbell's serial "Mrs. Herndon's Income," depicting the misery of the wage-earner; Josephine Shaw Lowell's "The Bitter Gry of thc Poor in New York"; Washington Gladden's "A Piain Talk with Employers"; a series of articles on socialism by Richard T. Ely; and much other material relating to the economic problem. Editoriais with such titles as "Ominous Indications," "An Impending Revolution," and "The Socialistic Indictment" predicted serious labor troubles in the near future. "We can far easier prevent revolution than put it down," the editor wrote. "We must seek for and discover a Christian basis for industry . . . and must put an end to discontent by putting an end to the wrongs which produce A prominent socialist is said to have remarked that the Christian Union, by calling attention to evils needing correction, was doing more to defeat radicalism than all the other religious papers combined. We must heed the bitter outcry of our modern cities [said one editorial] and set ourselves to still the crying; not by forbidding speech, but by assuaging the pain and setting right the wrong; by substituting for laissezjaire the golden rule, for fixed wages a sharing of the profits, for employment of labor by capital a partnership between capital and labor, for chronic suppressed war a lasting because a just and righteous peace."

INDUSTRIAL

DEMOCRACY

Abbott dealt with the same theme in an

103 article

entitlcd

"Danger Ahead," published in the Century for November 1885. Expressing his fears at the signs of unrest among workers, he said the matter was especially serious because they had real cause for complaint. " A n inequality of wealth is not wrong," he wrote, "but an inequality of wealth greater than the inequality of industry is wrong." A s the Christian Union had put it a litde earlier, " N o man can earn five million dollars a year by honest industry," ^^ Abbott went on to denounce corporations as a contrivance for concentrating the wealth of many in a few hands. Wielding great economic and political power, they also engaged in

"gigantic

gambling Operations" and were engrossing national

resources.

Every year the bürden on the poor grew greater and the danger of revolt more threatening. "Repression is not the remedy," he warned. " W e cannot suppress this growing discontent; we must remove its cause." Industrial peace would come only with the final triumph of "social and organic Christianity." T h e Haymarket riot of May 1886 seemed to justify Lyman Abbott's apprehensions, Despite his sympathy with labor, he could not tolerate violent methods. T h e Christian Union, like the public generally, blamed the disturbance on anarchists "recruited

by

criminals of all classes and nationalities" and motivated by no other purpose than "to burn, kill, and destroy."^^ Since industrial conflict and nihilism were both anathema to the editor, he worked out his own Solution to the economic problem, a program which he labeled "industrial democracy." 'Abbott believed that laborers wanted four things: a chance to work, fair pay, liberty, and more leisure. T h e cause of their hardships he saw in unequal distribution of wealth, the eure in democratization of wealth. This was to be brought about through profit-sharing and coöperatives, which he thought English experience had proved feasible. T h e wage system would have to die eventually, just as slavery and serfdom had died. It would be replaced by a system under which the tool users would be the tool

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owners. The division among ownership, control, and operation was a pernicious Situation which could not last. Industrial democracy was the necessary corollary of political democracy; i£ all were competent to govern a nation, all were capable of directing a cotton mill. Its criticism of labor leaders, said the Christian Union, was not that they were "too radical" but rather that they were "not radical enough." Instead of seeking for an industrial Organization which would make labor its own master and capital a commodity to be hired in the cheapest market, they were content to leave the present industrial system unchanged and sought only to wring by battle a little more profit out of the employers or "to transfer mastership from individual capitalists to a political machine." The true Solution lay in "saving for future capital the money that is now wasted in unthrift and intemperance" and in securing an education which would give workers "the brains" to direct their own industries while they saved by self-denial and thrift the capital which would enable them to possess their own implements of industry.^® As steps toward this end the Christian Union constantly urged the introduction of postal savings and the development of industrial education. "It is certain," wrote the editor in a series of "Letters to Workingmen" (1887), "that the wages system cannot be abolished and an industrial democracy substituted in its place except the men of labor become men of wealth and men of brain; i.e., except by thrift and education."^® Lyman Abbott was Yankee to the core. Realistic enough to see that the transformation of a competitive economy into a coöperative one would require more than wishful thinking, he early recognized that government could do a great deal to promote economic democracy. Beginning about 1878, when the laissez-faire theory was in its heyday, Abbott launched an editorial attack on the doctrine and its leading American exponent, William Graham Sumner. Commenting on the $100,000,000 fortune left by Cornelius Vanderbilt at his death the year before, the Christian Union asked:

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Does anyone suppose that this represents his fair share of the profits of these railroad industxies; that this is only a fair proportion of the wealth which was added to the Community by him and his colaborers? This colossal fortune was not made under "natural law." It was the product of an artificial State of society; the harvest of an arüficial Corporation. Mr. Vanderbilt sowed and reaped his fields with a machinery made by special legislaüon.^'

Society, which had given him the power to amass such a fortune at the expense of his fellow men, could limit the amount he might take from them as his proportion of the earnings of their combined industry. The oft-quoted saying that government had no right to interfere with private property was "palpably false." "Laissez-faire is no safe pilot," Abbott concluded.^® To begin with, the government should prevent any further transfer of natural resources to private control. As early as 1884 the Christian Union called for a national forest conservation law.^® Lyman Abbott was much interested in Henry George's plan for the protection of Community rights in the land. Attracted by the "clear vision, simple philosophy, unflinching courage, and lucid English" of George, Abbott was able through a mutual friend to arrange a dinner where the three discussed economic questions.^" Reviewing Progress and Poverty for the Christian Union, he wrote: "Mr. George may be right; we are inclined to think that in his fundamental principle he is right; that land is God's gift to man; and that in a future State of society land will belong to the Community, only the right to cultivate it to the individual." But the accomplishment of so radical a change in the Organization of society and industry could not be brought about by any stroke of the legislative pen without "the grossest injustice and the greatest disorder." And when it was brought about, men would still have to study how to protect themselves from other despotisms "more subtle and quite as dangerous as the most despotic landed aristocracy."^^ Upon George's death in 1897 Abbott joined with Rabbi Gustav Gottheil, Father Edward McGlynn (a Roman CathoHc priest), and John Sherman Crosby (a radical socialist) in public tribute to his memory.^^

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Housing regulation was another modification of laissez faire advocated by the Christian Union. In connection with the articles on "Our Neighbors—the Poor" in 1878, the paper noted the efJect of environment on character and called for improvement of tenement areas. "This can only be done by statutory enactment," said one editorial. Building codes containing stringent provisions regarding such matters as Ventilation and light should be prepared by a commission of "high-minded men of practical business and legal experience and beyond the reach of political influence or the suspicion of personal interests." An elfort should be made to reduce slum population by means of an agency to help transport workers to localities where there were more jobs. A third remedy would be to diminish facilities for obtaining intoxicants through more rigid enforcement of excise laws. Jacob Riis contributed a number of articles on the tenement-house problem, and his How the Other Half Lives (1890) was summarized in the magazine at some length. Later his autobiography, The Maring of an American (1901), first appeared in the Outloof^. In 1912-13 the journal carried his "Life Stories of the Other Half." An even more important reform supported by the Christian Union was Federal regulation of the railroads and other great corporations. As early as 1881 Abbott declared that State laws were inadequate for this purpose and proposed national legislation under the interstate commerce and postal powers.^^ While ten years earlier, as cditor of the Illustrated Christian Wee\ly, he had commented adversely on the establishment of the British Railway Commission, in 1883 he declared that the American government should set up such an agency, undertake to fix rates, and if necessary operate the rail lines.^® The government had taken from the people and given to the railroad kings an area of land equal to that of the Thirteen Colonies and worth $600,000,000. "If the people of the United States are to furnish the money with which the great transcontinental railroads are built, they are entitled to both the control and the profits of the enterprise," said the Christian Union.^^

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T h e paper hailed the passage of the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 as assurance that the rails would be public highways and not private turnpikes Although he maintained an open mind about

government

ownership of the railroads, Lyman Abbott was not uncertain about the telegraph. A s early as 1882 he called for its "nationalization."^® In 1895 he proposed more specifically that the government offer to purchase the Western Union Company at the cost o£ duplicating its facilities. If the Company refused, the government should construct a telegraph system to be operated in conjunction with the post office. T h e public might then choose between the two. Abbott believed postal telegraphy would be not only constitutional but cheaper and would lead to greater use of the wires. Pointing out that this Instrument had furnished advance Information to certain speculators, he insisted that the communications system ought never to be left subject to private control.^® Writing on "industrial democracy" in 1890, Abbott endorsed government regulation of industries on which the life of the State depended and "absolute ownership and administration by the State of all such industries, in the measure in which cautious experiments may indicate that the public can serve itself cheaper and better than it can hire private corporations to serve it." Specifically this would mean municipal direction of all street-lighting facilities and trolley routes, State regulation of mines and oil wells, Federal ownership of the telephone and telegraph, and Federal regulation of interstate railroads. These were the "first steps in the forward movement" of industrial evolution toward economic democracy.®® While an early, persistent, and vigorous advocate of government regulation of big business, Lyman Abbott was always hostile to thoroughgoing State socialism and communism. Laws for the protection of the weak against the strong; [said the Christian Union in 1879] of women and children; of individuals against the greed of corporations; laws regulating and limiting the power of corporations, because they are artificial persons, are legitimate and necessary. But the attempt

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to make the poor rieh or the rieh poor by law, the attempt to make government do for men what every man should learn to do for himself, is destructive to the State beeause it is degrading to the individual. The worst enemy of the working man is he who wishes to put on him a pinafore and feed him with a government spoon.'^

Government ownership o£ all industry

would

"aggravate

the

dcspotism which we desire to destroy," the paper declared on another occasion

"If I must have a boss," the editor avowed, "I

would rather have Carnegie, the capitalist, than

Croker,

the

Tammany politician."®® Likewise Lyman Abbott was unable to follow the extreme advocates of a social gospel. In Company with most ministers he feit that the regeneration of individuals must precede any wholesale reform of society. "Rotten timber cannot make a sound ship," he insisted.®^ "Circumstances do not make men," he wrote; "men make circumstances." He admitted that the church had often, like the priest and the Levite, passed by on the other side of the road, leaving wounded humanity to the heretic's care while it hurried on to the temple service. For that disregard of humanity in a pretended consecration to God he had "no words but of Indignation and contempt." H e wished the social reformers godspeed, but he thought the primary duty of preachers was to "work for the rebuilding of men rather than the reforming of social organizations; for the change of character rather than of environment."®® Lyman Abbott the editor dealt freely with economic themes, but Lyman Abbott the preacher seldom touched them. Interested in all efiforts to prevent strikes and labor violence, Abbott in 1886 proposed the creation of a national board of arbitration for labor disputes, two weeks before Cleveland asked Congress to do this. H e believed that conciliation between employer and employee should be the first expedient, arbitration by external authority the second, and strikes the last.®® A t the time of the great street railway strike in N e w York City in 1889 he suggested a plan of arbitration which he hoped would prevent transportation strikes. O n the one hand, every rail Corporation chartered by the State should submit

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questions o£ wages and hours to a special judicial tribunal whose decision would be binding. On the other hand, the employees should be subject to prosecution for striking. This eflEort to seek the golden mean was typical of Lyman Abbott. The comments on his proposal reflect the failure o£ the middle course to please extremists. Chauncey M. Depew, president of the New York Central RaiLroad, held that the first proposition was unjust to employers. Terence V. Powderly, head of the Knights of Labor, considered the second one unjust to the workers. Professor Ely inclined to agree with Powderly, since he believed that management was chiefly to blame in the street railway as well as in other labor disputes. He also believed that the wealthy and cultured classes in general were guilty on account of their "callous indifference." "I have never heard of a clergyman or prominent lawyer in New York City or Brooklyn who has actually helped street-car employees to redress their grievances," Ely charged.®'' As a matter of fact, Walter Rauschenbusch, later the social gospel's greatest prophet, then an obscure young Baptist minister in downtown New York, took the side of the strikers on this occasion and openly ädvocated public ownership.®® Washington Gladden was also more radical than Abbott in this respect. A strong partisan of municipal socialism, he served for two years on the city council of Columbus, Ohio, interesting himself mainly in the problem of public franchises.®® Lyman Abbott again proposed arbitration on the occasion of the Homestead strike in 1892. Denouncing both sides for using violence, he reaffirmed his confidence in the principle of labor Organization and in the desirability of partnership between employers and employees. The justice of the wage reduction he thought should be decided by a disinterested tribunal. Defeat of the strike and indictment of its leaders for treason led him to denounce the "spectacle of courts serving as the defense for the rieh and as prosecuting attorneys against the poor."^° In this episode, as well as in others, Abbott criticized the use of Pinkerton detectives, which he considered immoral and subversive of good social order.

HO

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"If a Corporation may employ a private army to protect its property, private individuals may arm themselves to protect their persons," said the Christian Union in 1888; "and from this condition of things to barbarism the transition is a short and easy one."^^ In the Pullihan strike o£ 1894 Abbott inclined to the side of management. He declared that the real issue was not between the Pullman Palace Car Company and its employees but between the American Railway Union and the American people. T h e Company would enjoy pubUc support, he asserted, so long as the operation of the railroads depended on the whims of an "irresponsible Organization, formulating its decrees by secret committee and enforcing them by mob violence."^^ Writing to Richard T . Ely, he called the union "undemocratic" and the strike "illegitimate."

T h e Outloo\

ap-

proved Cleveland's action in sending Federal troops to quell the disorder. Again Abbott brought forth his two-edged remedy, holding that it should be illegal for employees to abandon trains in transit or leave their jobs without advance notice and that such disputes should be submitted to compulsory arbitration. W h e n the strike was over, the paper called attention to "a serious danger" that the law would be "stretched, if not violated, in populär passion against the s t r i k e r s . " G e o r g e Pullman's own testimony, it concluded, did "more to arouse sympathy for the striking workingmen at Pullman than the claims and accusations of their own leaders."*® T h e journal went on to attack the practice of "government by injunction," expressing disapproval of the summary judicial action in the Debs case.^® Thus during the years from 1878 to 1896 Lyman Abbott evolved a fairly well-defined labor creed. H e readily admitted that the workingmen had a real grievance; he insisted that its redress required the participation of labor and capital, church and State. His goal was industrial democracy, or partnership between laborers and capitalists, exemplified by profit-sharing and coöperatives. This system was not anarchism, for it preserved government; it was not socialism, for it divided profits according to contributions rather

INDUSTRIAL

DEMOCRACY

iii

than need; it was not individualism, for it was based on mutual assistance.^'' Temperance, postal savings, industrial education, conservation, tenement-house regulation, government control of Utilities, compulsory arbitration, shorter hours, and legal recognition of trade unions were specific reforms leading toward the goal. That industrial democracy was an intensely Christian ideal Abbott made clear in his Christianity and Social Problems (1896). Jesus, he pointed out, came as "the Organizer of a new social Order." His mission was twofold—to make men worthy to be called the Children of God and to build a State of society on earth worthy to be called the Kingdom of God. His object was not to save a few select souls from a lost world but to transform the World itself. "The only sin against God," Abbott wrote, "is inhumanity; for you can only injure God by injuring his children; the only repentance toward God is humanity, for you can only return to him by serving his children."^® Church and ritual were in vain if they did not inspire men to an enthusiasm for humanity, displayed in justice, righteousness, and Service. There was no genuine eure for labor troubles, he thought, but character regenerated and conduct directed by Christian principles. Meanwhile the application of law was a device to protect the innocent from injuries inflicted upon them by those whose character and conduct were not Christ-like. Abbott feit sure this transformation would be wrought in due time. I believe [he wrote], that the system which divided society into two classes, capitalists and laborers, is but a temporary one, and that the industrial unrest of our time is the result of a blind struggle toward a democracy of wealth, in which the tool-users will also be the tool-owners; in which labor will hire capital, not capital labor; in which men, not money, will control in industry, as they now control in government."'

Lyman Abbott was but one of a legion of pioneers of Christian social thought in America. Washington Gladden took an even more direct interest in the industrial problem, not only writing about it but actively participating in the settlement of several labor dis-

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putes. His books included Worl^ing People and their Employers (1876), Applied Christianity (1886), and Tools and the Man (1893). Josiah Strong, secretary o£ the Evangelical Alliance and author of Our Country (1885), was another prominent figure in the social gospel movement. R. Heber Newton, an Episcopal rector in Manhattan, and Francis G. Peabody o£ the Harvard Divinity School were also notable. Professor Ely, though not a clergyman, wrote an influential volume on Social Aspects of Christianity (1889). The Reverend William D. P. Bliss of Boston formed the Society of Christian Socialists in 1889. George D. Herron of Grinnell College led a Christian Socialist movement in the West. The Reverend Charles M. Sheldon's novel In His Steps (1896), read by millions, taught that Christ must reign in every realm of life. In the twentieth Century Walter Rauschenbusch of the Rochester Theological Seminary formulated the social gospel most thoroughly in his important works, Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907), Christianizing the Social Order (1912), and A Theology for the Social Gospel (1917).®^ Many of these leaders were friends of Abbott's and contributors to the Christian Union and the Outloo\. Because of its respectability and its large circulation among conservative people, this periodical played an especially significant role in permeating the religious world with concern for social issues. Illustrative of its unique Standing in this respect is a resolution passed in 1889 by the Franklin Club, a Cleveland Organization supporting the United Labor party, which praised the Christian Union for its friendship to labor and stated that it "alone of all the orthodox papers in this country places a higher value upon principle than party, upon character than wealth, upon men than property."®^

Chapter Ten

AN INSTITUTIONAL AT WORK

CHURCH

Tke new social concern of the churches involved interest in the Problems arising from urbanization as well as in those growing out of industrialism. Protestant leaders began to see that they were losing the city population to Catholicism or irreligion. Consequently they urged their wealthy parishioners not only to lend a more sympathetic ear to labor's complaints but also to inaugurate positive programs to benefit and attract the urban masses. This trend found concrete expression in greater emphasis on social Service vi^ork and in the development of the institutional church.^ In addition to publicizing the movement, Lyman Abbott exemphfied it in his pastorate of Brooklyn's famous Plymouth Congregational Church from 1887 to 1899. As early as 1881 Abbott called attention to the unfortunate migration of churches aw^ay from downtown districts where they were most needed—where tenement houses frowned upon each other across narrow streets, where children swarmed and population was denser than in a cemetery, where grog-shops did their most thriving business. As partial solutions he suggested free pews and more home missions.^ He pointed out that Jesus would probably ignore the pretentious and complacent modern churches just as He did the synagogues in ancient Palestine. "Democratic churches, where the rieh and poor meet together, are rare," said an editorial of 1884. "Indeed, we scarcely know where to find one.

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The saints go to heaven in New York in first and second class carriages."^ The Christian Union proposed on several occasions that all pastors dose their doors the following Sunday and send their congregations out to hunt up suffering to be relieved and need to be supplied—in short, to practice Christianity instead of preaching it. Thus they might reunite "social worlds that are now passing from a criminal indifference to a dangerous hostility."* The magazine accused its old rival, the Independent, now more conservative, of "optimistic illusion" in daiming that workingmen already belonged to Protestantism. "It is safe to say," the Christian Union insisted, "that not ten per cent of the wage-workers of New York City are regulär attendants upon any form of Protestant service; and there are manufacturing dties where the percentage is less."' Düring 1885 the journal carried a series of artides on "Our Home Heathen" in New York, Chicago, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Philadelphia, and other urban centers. These stories emphasized the disparity of ratio between the churched and the unchurched on Fifth Avenue and the lower East Side, in Back Bay and the North End. Abbott concluded that "heathenism" was gaining in all the great cities, which were not only centers of wealth, culture, refinement, and Christianity, but also of darkness, ignorance, poverty, and crime. He feit the churches were under an imperative Obligation to "seek and to save those which are lost" and to bridge the gap between rieh and poor.® In the same year the Reverend Amory H. Bradford wrote several artides for the Christian Union on "Why the Artisan Classes Neglect the Church." In December of 1885 the Reverend Josiah Strong, secretary of the Evangelical Alliance, called an interdenominational congress in the interests of city evangelization to meet at his church in Cincinnati. One of the most active exponents of social Christianity, Strong had just sprung into national prominence through the publication of his book Our Country, which dealt with the "perils" of immigration, Romanism, parochial education, Mormonism, in-

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temperance, socialism, wealth, and urbanization. These problems were discussed at the five-day conference attended, among others, by Abbott, Bradford, Gladden, Ely, and Thomas K . Beecher. After Strong's address o£ welcome, Abbott spoke on "The Modern City as a Menace to Civilization." Though he would have preferred a more hopeful topic, he had been assigned this one and accordingly Hsted what he considered the chief problems arising in connection with urbanization: crowding, foreign population, the unchurched, tenements, pauperism, poor sanitation, liquor, and corruption. As remedies he proposed strengthened municipal government, social and economic reforms, and more active ChristianityJ The American Home Missionary Society, meeting at Saratoga Springs in 1887, took up the same question. A report prepared by a committee including Abbott and Streng outlined the far-reaching social effects of urban growth and their significance for religion. It declared that the object of the Gospel was not to rescue from a perishing world a few select souls for heavenly bliss. Christianity was "organic as well as personal," designed for the salvation of Society as well as of individuals. Hence churches did not fulfill their duty by evangelistic services and the distribution of tracts. They should organize chapels in the poorer wards and support them generously. They should also increase the social emphasis in their preaching. Strong talked about "The Great City a Great Peril" and Abbott on "The Great City a Great Opportunity." ® As an editorial in the Christian Union phrased the latter's optimistic view, urbanization was "part of the providential plan for the building up of the kingdom of God."® The editor soon had a chance to apply the principles of city evangelization he had advocated through the Christian Union and in conferences. In March of 1887 Henry Ward Beecher died, leaving vacant the pastorate of Brooklyn's Plymouth Church. In the fall, at the suggestion of Mrs. Vaughan Abbott, Lyman Abbett was engaged as temporary pulpit supply, pending selection of a permanent pastor. The Reverend Charles A . Berry of Wolverhampton,

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England, declined a call to the position. O n May 25, 1888, by a vote o£ 400 to 60, the church asked Abbott to remain permanently, and he accepted the invitation.^" Opposition was strong. Some argued that no man could simultaneously edit a national weekly and direct a large parish. Others held that Abbott was more a literary man than a pulpit orator and pointed out that attendance had declined since Beecher's death. "The church is faUing o£E every day," said one deacon, "and D r . Abbott is responsible for it. W e want a magnetic preacher."^^ Mrs. Beecher and the Reverend S. B. Halliday, the late pastor's assistant, were particularly bitter. They recalled that Abbott had signified himself a candidate only for temporary appointment and charged him with lack o£ tact in accepting a call from only one quarter o£ the church's membership of 1600. T h e papers reported that hostility was so great that the new minister would resign.^^ They also gave currency to a rumor that, despite the financial difficulties of the church, Abbott' was demanding a salary of |io,ooo. T h e Boston Watchman

made it $20,000. Ordinarily Abbott did not

reply to malicious gossip, but in this case he feit obliged to set the public straight, declaring that he had left the amount of salary wholly to decision by the church.^^ T h e N e w York Evening which had originally

printed

the misrepresentation,

Post,

thereupon

apologized. T h e salary was eventually fixed at $8000.^^ That there was Opposition to Abbott's succession is not surprising, since Plymouth had been for four decades "Beecher's church," and the diflerence between Abbott and Beecher was striking. T h e Boston Advertiser viewed the change more optimistically than most observers: Lyman Abbott is physically the antithesis of Henry Ward Beecher [it commented]. Rather under middle height, spare in flesh, gende in voice, widi but litde gesüculation, somewhat pale in features, calm, introspective and almost mysücal, he seems whiie speaking to look through the windows of the soul rather at things not seen with mortal vision than into the human eyes that look up to his. T h o u g h totally lacking in that gift of wellnigh magical eloquence which

ACHURCHATWORK

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for forty years astonished and thrilled and held spellbound die packed thousands in diat Brooklyn meeting-house, though having none of that personal magnetism, that intuitive knowledge o£ human nature, that allcreative imagination which made their former pastor the pulpit phenomenon of his time; it may be found that he upon whom that prophet's mande has fallen is destined to de a work as great and exert an influence no less widespread and abiding.^"

Asked a few months later how the new pastor was getting on, Rossiter W . Raymond, a pillar o£ the church, replied: Admirably. Of course, in style he is nothing like Beecher. W e have no bursts of eloquence; his subject never runs away with him. H e gets on quiedy, rides it at a perfecdy controlled pace and along a delightfui road to the place he wants to reach, and then stops, des up the steed—and there you are!^°

While as a teacher he proclaimed the same liberal theology as his predecessor, Abbott made his chief contribution more along the lines o£ helpful lucidity than of emotional power. He gave Plymouth Church eleven years of peaceful Illumination after the fiery ministry of her first pastor. Nineteenth-century Brooklyn harbored many prominent preachers and was often called "The City of Churches."

Of its two

hundred sanctuaries Plymouth was the most famous. This congregation was established in 1847 under the leadership of Henry C. Bowen and John T . Howard, and Beecher was called from Indianapolis to take Charge of the new enterprise.^® T h e original building burned in 1849 ^^^^ was replaced by the present one. Cast in the N e w England meetinghouse style, it is a large barn-like structure of dark red brick, without steeple, columns, or other ornament. T h e interior consists of a well-lighted, spacious, and unobstructed rectangular auditorium seating over two thousand persons. Düring Beecher's ministry its pulpit was one of the most influential in America. Announcing in his first sermon that he would "wear no fetters" and would apply the Gospel without stint "to the overthrow of every evil," he made the church a center of antislavery Propaganda.^® H e attracted wide publicity when from its plat-

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form he dramatically made a successful appeal for funds to purchase the freedom of a young slave girl known to posterity as "Pinky." Garrison, Whittier, Sumner, and Wendeil Phillips spoke there, as did Charles Dickens and Louis Kossuth. The church was on the "must" list of visitors to New York, and Beecher's audience generally included a cross section of the American population, not to mention representatives from Europe.^° When, in the fall of 1887, Abbott suppUed the vacancy left by Beecher's death, he found a greatly diminished congregation. Strangers no longer crowded into the aisles and about the doors. Attendance, which under Beecher had sometimes risen to 2500 or more, feil to about half that number. Only the tourists, however, ceased to come. After the initial struggle over the new pastor's appointment, virtually all the regulär members gave him hearty Cooperation. They carried on despite his warning that their function would have to be transformed: F o r forty years duty has been a pleasant thing in this church [he told the congregation at the time of Beecher's death]. T h e great heart and brain and genius that are now stilled have made your duty easy for you. Düring all these years you have been getting. Hereafter you must learn the pleasure of giving. Y o u can no longer come here and have one man fill you from his fullness and richness, but you must learn to fill each other."^

Düring Abbott's ministry Plymouth became a working church in a sense it had never been before. The ambitious program which the new pastor soon projected required the services of a full-time associate. The Reverend S. B. Halliday, who had been Beecher's assistant, resigned to direct the new Henry Ward Beecher Memorial Church in the outskirts of Brooklyn. In his place Abbott secured Howard S. Bliss, a recent graduate of Amherst College and Union Theological Seminary. The two were installed together, Abbott as pastor and Bliss as associate pastor, by a special council meeting on January 16, 1890. T w o features of this occasion gave it unusual significance and attracted considerable attention in both the religious and the secular

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press. One was the composition of the installing body, which included not only delegates from twenty-three Congregational churches but also pastors representing five other Protestant denominations —Episcopal, Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, and Reformed. George A . Gordon, Amory H . Bradford, James M, Whiton, and Edward Beecher were among the Congregationalists. PhilUps Brooks of Trinity Church, Boston, one of the foremost preachers of his day, also served on the council. Afterwards, when he was nominated for Bishop of Massachusetts, several churchmen bitterly opposed his election because he had taken part in the Installation of two clergymen not episcopally ordained. Dr. E. Winchester Donald of the Church of the Ascension, New York City, another Episcopalian, predicted that if there were any adverse criticism of his attendance, it would come from "that curse of the church, the denominational newspaper."^^ The other innovation was the induction of two pastors at the same time. Abbott welcomed Bliss to "a cordial and united work, in which there shall be neither superiority nor inferiority, but a common fellowship in the pastorate of this church, and in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ."^® Later in the same year Plymouth Church received even greater Publicity when it voted to retain on its rolls the name of Albert H . Smith, a New York businessman convicted of forgery and sentenced to seventeen years in Sing Sing prison. This episode gave Abbott an opportunity to dramatize his views on penal reform, a subject in which he had been interested for some time. On September 7, 1884, he had preached the sermon at the annual meeting of the National Prison Reform Association at Saratoga, where his audience included ex-President Hayes and Zebuion R . Brockway, Superintendent of the noted Elmira Reformatory. Taking as his text Romans 1 2 : 1 ^ 2 1 , he spoke on "Christianity and the Criminal." The traditional penal system, he said, was based on the threefold idea of vindictive justice, of protection for society, and of deterrence through fear. This program could not be reformed; it was "wrong in every fiber." "The end

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of Our system should not be vindictive justice," he declared; "it should be redemption."^'^ The Christian Union advocated from time to time a milder prison discipHne, the indeterminate sentence, and the abohtion of capital punishment.^® When the forger, then, was sent to prison, Abbott persuaded Plymouth Church to pass a resolution declaring him still a member in good Standing, "in the faith that no man more needs the watch and care of a Christian church than one who has fallen into sin, but has sincerely repented of his sin and desires to return to the way of righteousness and life.'"^® Düring the next seven years Abbott's flock included an inmate of the New York State Prison, whom the pastor or his assistant visited at intervals. In consequence the church suffered not a little criticism, but many agreed with the New York Tribüne that it had done "exacdy what the Founder of Christianity would have done under the same circumstances." Christ had come not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance, and had said, "him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out."^^ Smith was pardoned in 1897. Aided by friends to resume business, he led an honorable existence until his death many years later.^s Plymouth Church is located in Brooklyn Heights, which until late in the nineteenth Century was a citadel of gentility comparable to Boston's Back Bay. The residents of its comfortable brownstone mansions were, for the most part, prosperous merchants and financiers.^® But by the 1890's this dement had begun to retreat to the suburbs, and the church found itself on the edge of one of the poorest districts of the city. Under Lyman Abbott's direction it developed institutional features, as did many other large Protestant congregations in urban centers, in order to conduct more efficient philanthropic and missionary activities among the poor and the unchurched. First Abbott strengthened the charity program of the church, appointing a special committee of ladies to administer it. He notified the Brooklyn Bureau of Charities that Plymouth Church would care for all cases of destitution in its neighborhood and would

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make periodic reports. Each impoverished family was assigned to a special friendly visitor, who ascertained its needs, the cause of its distress, and possible remedies. Securing donations o£ money and food, the ladies distributed groceries to the hungry. They sought jobs £or the unemployed and attempted to persuade prodigal husbands and fathers to give up Uquor, sometimes with success. They clothed children and sent them to school. They showed mothers how to spend their incomes economically and to use efficiently what they bought. Most important o£ all, Abbott feit, the visitors carried "the cheer o£ hope and good companionship into homes darkened by discouragement and despair."®® The church took over and reinvigorated two decrepit mission chapels—the Bethel and the Mayflower—through which it carried on an elaborate program for reaching the poor. This included such traditional methods as Sunday schools, prayer meetings, temperance and missionary societies. In addition, however, there were new activities not ordinarily undertaken by churches. T w o kindergartens were put into operation, and a Fresh Air Fund was established to enable needy children to spend a week or two in the country each year. Classes in cooking, dressmaking, millinery, typing, calisthenics, and current problems were conducted in connection with two working girls' clubs—the Earnest and the Central —which also provided social evenings once a week. T w o boys' gymnasiums were acquired to provide facilities £or the Union Athletic Club. Each of the three branches of the church was equipped with a library of something over a,thousand volumes. A Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle, meeting at the Mayflower Chapel every week, encouraged reading and discussion. A Penny Provident Fund induced saving, and a Friendly Mutual Relief Association aided those to whom misfortune came in old age. It should be noted that most of the institutional features of the church were housed outside the main building. And though the chapels were open and free to all, Plymouth, where Abbott preached, retained the pew rent system throughout his pastorate. Through

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the Mayflower and Bethel chapels, however, and the various clubs and recreational facilities, all open either free or £or dues no higher than fifty cents a month, the church reached many hundreds among the lower classes. Except for a small Moravian mission, the Mayflower chapel was the sole representative of Protestantism in the large second and fourth wards of Brooklyn, containing a population of 29,000. Within five minutes' walk were 150 saloons.®^ In 1892 Austin Abbott suggested that his brother gather around him a class of young men for training in the new methods of religious work. Several oflered their services to the church in return for Instruction and experience. One of them, Horace Porter, was soon hired as an assistant pastor. For most of the period Abbott and Bliss had two or three assistants who gave their whole time to the church. T h e ministers could not possibly have kept up the vast activity of the parish without their help and that of hundreds of laymen in lesser capacities.®^ Each candidate for

membership,

indeed, was asked whether he could take active part in the church's work, and it was made clear that all were expected to be "doers of the Word and not hearers only." Over $400,000 were raised and expended by the church during the years 1889 to 1898, despite the fact that the second half of the period was a time of nation-wide depression.®' Plymouth was not the first institutional church, nor was it the most notable one. Lyman Abbott's pastorate, as will be seen in succeeding chapters, was more significant for what he said than for what he did. William A . Muhlenburg, rector of the Church of the Holy Communion in N e w York City, and Thomas K . Beecher of the First Congregational Church in Elmira, had pioneered in institutional methods as early as the 1850's. T h e Reverend William S. Rainsford expanded the activities of St. George's Episcopal Church in N e w York beginning about 1882, and within fifteen years the membership had risen from less than 200 to over 4000. Rainsford's " A Preacher's Story of His W o r k " appeared in the

Outloo\ in 1903. T h e Berkeley Street Temple in Boston and Russell

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H. Conwell's Baptist Temple in Philadelphia were also outstanding institutional churches.®^ These and others were described one by one in a significant series of articles published in the Christian Union during 1892 and 1893 on "Progressive Methods o£ Church Work." Though the journal expressed confidence in institutional religion, it asserted that inspirational religion was of greater importance. "A church is not an Academy," the Outloo\ said in 1893, "it is not a Club, and it is certainly not a Variety Show." Its chief object was not to teach, nor to entertain, but rather to inspire, that is, to arouse conscience, reverence, faith, hope, and love.®® Despite his many departures from orthodoxy, Abbott remained evangelical at heart. Is it, then, surprising that he should have considered sermons his primary contribution? Preaching was what the church desired of him. The initial proposal, indeed, was that he continue to live in Cornwall and come down only for preaching. But Lyman Abbott did not have a collection of old sermons and, if he had, he would have been loath to read them to his new congregation. He preferred to speak extemporaneously on topics of current interest— though seldom on secular ones—and in such a way as to meet the Spiritual needs of his parishioners. He moved to Brooklyn that he might have a better opportunity to know his congregation, taking a brownstone row-house at iio Columbia Heights, where the rear windows overlooked the East River and lower Manhattan. To serve as pastor of a large metropolitan church and to direct a nationally known weekly at the same time was no little task. Düring the eleven years of his Plymouth ministry Lyman Abbott continued as editor-in-chief of the Outloo\, though the routine work devolved upon his associates. Two mornings every week he spent at the office. On Wednesday, in conference with the other editors, he discussed the subjects to be treated in the next issue, determined the stands to be taken, and assigned the editorial articles to the proper writers. Since the paper went to press on the following Tuesday, Abbott spent Monday morning writing last-minute para-

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graphs, dictating letters, reading proof, and Consulting on various matters. That evening he gave the proofs a final revision. The remainder of the week he spent in reading, writing, and lecturing. He continued, as in Com wall, to rest for an hour or two every afternoon. He was not to be disturbed, he warned his family, unless the house caught fire and the flames had reached the second Story. Saturday was his Sabbath, on which he planned to do no labor. Not until Sunday morning did he prepare his sermon, albeit the seeds of it had been germinating in his mind all during the week. Mrs. Abbott was his unordained co-pastor. I£ she studied the great religious and social issues less than he, she studied the individuals in his congregation more. More reluctant than her husband to reject the traditional, she enabled him to see the value in the older views. At night she read to him something to serve as a "nightcap." Many a problem in church detail she solved quietly without disturbing him.®® Rarely were Lyman Abbptt's morning sermons political or sociological. Nor were they merely ethical, bat rather spiritual and inspirational. They dealt mainly with the Christian life and the Power by which it might be lived. Typical titles were: "The Secret of Character," "The Hope That Is in Me," "Help Thou Mine Unbelief," "To Live Is Christ," and "What Is Religion.?"®^ Faith, hope, and love were the essence of his message. Seidom quoting Scripture, he derived his arguments not from battalions of prooftexts but from appeals to reason and the spirit of the New Testament. Having an orderly and logical mind, he piled stone on stone, anticipating and answering the questions of his hearers and Coming to a neat conclusion. Taken down in shorthand, Abbott's sermons, like those of other prominent ministers, were published in the Brooklyn Eagle. Many lesser preachers subscribed to the Mondaymorning sermon Supplement of this paper, through which they secured stimulating material and kept in touch with the thought of their more distinguished brethren.®® New York journals sometimes reported Abbott's sermons, and occasionally his utterances

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attracted the notice o£ newspapers in other parts o£ the nation. When, now and then, he took up public issues in the pulpit, he did so in order to interpret to the Community the convictions o£ his people on what he feit were crucial problems. National questions, such as the Venezuelan crisis of 1895 and the SpanishAmerican War, sometimes commanded his attention. Local issues sporadically excited him, as when application was made to the city officials to license a new liquor störe at the entrance of Brooklyn Bridge. Abbott thought that the thirty-six saloons already operating within two blocks of the site were more than enough to assuage all reasonable thirst, and a protest from the church helped prevent the opening of another one.®® Aside from concern with enforcement of the liquor laws, however, Brooklyn's ministers seemed indifferent to the inefficiency and corruption which characterized local government. Always ready to denounce politicians as a class and to favor reform in general terms, they seldom took active part in any movement to purify public administration. Brooklyn had more than its share of famous clergymen, but it never had a Charles H. Parkhurst.^" Lyman Abbott was not a crusader, but on account of his concurrent role as editor he gave more attention to political Problems than most of his fellow-preachers. He was among those who attended the "Municipal Programme Conferences" begun at Amity Church, New York, in 1894. Other participants were Parkhurst, Rainsford, Rauschenbusch, Theodore Roosevelt, Jacob Riis, Albert Shaw, Franklin H. Giddings, and E. R. A. Seligman.^^ At the suggestion of his brother Austin, whose death in 1896 he feit as a great personal loss, Lyman Abbott began the practice of using the Sunday evening service for lectures and a question period instead of exhortation. A series of talks on the life of Christ he followed up with courses of lectures afterwards rewritten and published in four significant volumes: Christianity and Social Problems (1896), The Theology of an Evolutionist (1897), The Life and Letters of Paul the Apostle (1898), and The Life and Literature of the Ancient Hebrews (1901). These discussions of

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the great religious problems of the day—the social gospel, evolution, and the higher criticism—changed an evening congregation which previously had filled scarcely more than a third o£ the auditorium into one which crowded it to capacity. Reported in contemporary newspapers and later appearing in books, they played an important part, as will he seen, in popularizing modernist conceptions. Other religious leaders took up the same themes at the notable semicentennial observance o£ Plymouth Church in 1897. The Reverend George A . Gordon of Boston's Old South Church delineated " A Theology for To-day." Washington Gladden spoke on "The Social Problems of the Future." President William J. Tucker of Dartmouth dealt with "The Church of the Future." On November 7, the climax of the celebration, the Reverend Charles A . Berry, who had been o£fered the Plymouth pastorate in 1887, preached on "The Influence of Henry Ward Beecher's Teaching on Religious Life and Thought in England" and on "The Secret of the Power of the Christian Church." These, together with two earlier addresses by Abbott and the Reverend Amory H . Bradford on "The New Puritanism," were published in a fiftieth-anniversary volume bearing the latter title. It was typical of Abbott to make the meetings practical and prospective rather than merely memorial and retrospective. Düring his ministry Lyman Abbott was not absent from a single Sunday service because of sickness until the illness leading to his resignation in 1899, despite the fact that he was not blessed with an exceptionally strong physique and was holding two important positions. He fractured his left arm in a fall from a horse in 1895, but the injury was not serious.^^ His good health he attributed to a resilient nervous system, conscientious observance of regulär rest periods—before and not after work—and the care given him by his wife and the family doctors.^® In addition to his daily and weekly cessations from labor, he kept the two sumnier months as a vacation, rarely preaching or lecturing. He spent them either in Cornwall or abroad. In 1888,1890,1895, and 1896 he went to Europe. Several attacks of acute Indigestion in the fall of 1898 lad him, ön

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the insistence of his physician, to give up his parish. On November 27 he read his resignation to the morning congregation, making it effective April 15, 1899. Dr. Newell Dwight Hillis of Chicago succeeded him.^^ Plymouth

Church

members were not alone in

considering

Abbott's retirement from the pulpit a great loss. Said the N e w York

Tribüne:

The determination of Dr. Lyman Abbott to retire from the pulpit will be regretted by thousands outside the circle of Plymouth Church. The ränge of his influence as an editor has been great, but it is as a preacher that he has occupied a unique place and given a new vitality to the Christianity of many people who found difficulty in reconciling the religion of their traditions with the secular thought of their time. The great body of Christians, perhaps, need no such reconciling. Others find satisfaction in the most radical departure from orthodoxy. But there is a middle class who wish to hold the old faith, but who are bound to face its problems rationally and frankly. To them a man like Lyman Abbott is a tower of strength, a conservative force, and at the same time an intellectual stimulus. Not to have his regulär teaching will be a serious deprivation to those who gathered from week to week to hear him, and it will also be a loss to others who believed in him, and were more serious and reverently thoughtful because of him, even though they did not often come under his personal ministrations.*®

Chapter Eleven

ARE THE HEATHEN DOOMED? J. heologically spea\tng, Lyman Abbott is important as a representative of the movement known as "Progressive Orthodoxy" or "the New Theology" developed by Congregationalists in the latter part of the nineteenth Century.^ One authority has called this the tradition of "romantic Hberalism" in theology and has suggested that Abbott may be regarded as "almost its complete incarnation."^ He was not, however, its founder. The pioneer in the movement was Horace Bushnell (1802-1876), Congregational minister in Hartford, Connecticut, for many years, and author of the famous work entitled Christian Nurture, published in 1847. Bushneil, in turn, was much influenced by Coleridge's Aids to Refiection (1825). Reacting against the Calvinist theology which had previously prevailed in New England, Bushneil emphasized the goodness of God, His immanence in the world of nature and of man, the importance of gradual "Christian nurture" as opposed to spontaneous regeneration, and the evolutionary nature of truth.® The ideas of Bushneil were not unlike those of Emerson and the liberal Unitarians, but it was Bushneil who domesticated them in the orthodox churches. Among his disciples were Henry Ward Beecher, Theodore T , Munger, Washington Gladden, James M. Whiton, and—indirectly—Lyman Abbott. It was natural that Congregationalists should take the lead in the liberalization of theology. The absolute freedom of the local congregation and its minister, as well as the New England

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tradition o£ hospitality to learning, gave them an unusual opportunity £or religious innovation. Though a relatively small denomination, through their numerous writers and educational institutions they have exerted an influence upon the course of American religious thought quite out of proportion to their numerical strength. In the late 1870's a renewed concern for doctrinal matters became evident in Congregational circles. T o the Savoy Confession o£ 1658, generally accepted in colonial New England but now utterly antiquated, few were willing to subscribe. Each parish being independent, there was no ecclesiastical authority to establish the common faith o£ the denomination. Not until 1871 was the National Council of Congregational Churches formed, and this was only an agency to encourage Cooperation. Meeting in St. Louis in 1880, it provided, after considerable discussion, for the appointment of a committee of twenty-five to draw up and publish a Statement of doctrine.'^ The result was to be not a test but a testimony—that is, not a Standard to which Congregationalists must conform, but simply a declaration by certain prominent ministers of what they thought most of their followers believed. The commission included representatives of various schools of thought. Seeing on it both Lyman Abbott and George Leon Walker, a conservative theologian, someone remarked, "Whatever those two can agree upon we can certainly all assent to."® Despite the paucity of progressive representatives on the committee, the creed it evolved after three years of study was a document of comparative breadth and liberality. The traditional Calvinist dogmas of predestination and Biblical infallibility were eliminated. The essential elements of evangelical orthodoxy, however, were retained. Christ was declared to be "of one substance with the Father." His death was "the sole and sufficient ground" of reconciliation with God. The Scriptures were "the record of God's revelation of Himself," written under "the special guidance of the Holy Spirit." The Congregational leaders also expressed confidence in

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the influence o£ Providence over all events, in the Historie fall of man, and in the resurrection and ascension of Christ. In conclusion they declared: "We believe in the ultimate prevalence of the kingdom of Christ over all the earth; in the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; in the resurrection of the dead; and in a final judgment, the issues of which are everlasting punishment and everlasting life."® "We wish ourselves," said the Christian Union, "that the creed had departed both in matter and form more radically from the creeds of the past.'"^ Notwithstanding his dissatisfaction Lyman Abbott signed the document in his usual accommodating manner, as did all the other commissioners but two. One declined because he had been unable to attend the meetings, the other, Dr. Edmund K. Alden, because he feit the creed was too loose. It failed to State that all persons dying impenitent were forever lost, that there was no possibility of repentance beyond the grave. The majority were unwilling to make such a declaration because they saw no clear Scriptural support for it; the minority held it essential to orthodoxy. Out of creed revision grew a conflict over "second probation" or "probation after death" which distracted the Congregational world for almost a decade. "Any new Statement of theological doctrine at this time," Abbott had foreseen while working on the commission, "will be more likely to provoke controversy than to allay it." ® As his father had told him many years before, nine-tenths of religious disputes were about words. Creeds were always theoretical rather than factual. Instead of trying to construct a whole new science of religion—the time was not ripe—or restating the old faith as the Congregationalists were doing, ministers should abandon efforts to make dogmatic explanations of religious experience. The business of preachers was not to devise new theories of sin but to develop consciousness of it, not to afford a new psychology of Christ but to bring men into deeper fellowship with Him. The church's object was not to

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rewrite creeds but to regenerate men; her energy should not be diverted from "spiritual work to intellectual pastime."® While offering this common-sense advice, Abbott was also taking bis own stand on the great question of the future life. His study o£ the New Testament convinced him that fire was the emblem of destruction or purification, not of punishment, that the earthly Ufe was not one of probation but of preparation, and that judgment was postponed until after death. He concluded that there was no future torment, either long or short, and that the Scriptures provided no grounds for behef that God's mercy for any man ended on this side of the grave.^® When, in 1878, Beecher was accused of being a Universalist, the Christian Union declared: "All that is essential in the doctrine of retribution is that penalty will last at least as long as persistence in sin."^^ The journal carried articles presenting various points of view regarding hell and asserted the right of men to differ on the subject without being refused Christian fellowship. It ridiculed the Congregationalist for calling an Oberlin Theological School endorsement of the doctrine of endless punishment "refreshing and instructive." "For ourselves," said the more liberal Christian Union, "the thought of it gives us shuddering, and the last word in the English language we should ever have thought of selecting respecting it would be 'refreshing.' The conflict over the doctrine of judgment is generally called "the Andover controversy" because the outstanding proponents of the idea of a "second probation" were professors at the Andover Theological Seminary. They evolved a theory which retained the orthodox insistence on a knowledge of the Gospel as essential to salvation, but suggested that those who did not hear it in this life would have an opportunity after death to know of God's love as revealed in Christ and to be saved through faith and repentance. God would judge men only after each one had occasion to accept or reject Him.^® This was the central hypothesis of a volume of essays by Andover men entitled Progressive Orthodoxy

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(1885). The Christian Union gave it a favorable review but Heid that the whole discussion was extra-Biblical. "Where the Scripture is silent, we prefer silence."^* A little later the paper expressed a conviction that "few, if any, intelligent Christian men any longer believe in the damnation of the heathen without an ofler o£ a Saviour." While some held that the heathen might be saved without a knowledge of Christ and others believed that an occasion for showing faith in Hirn was essential and would be afforded hereafter, neither of these opinions was "a part of the message which any earnest Christian minister desires to preach at home and abroad."^® By this time the conflict had become a threat to missionary activity. Alden, the dissenting member of the creed committee, was an official of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, an independent self-perpetuating corporation created in 1810 but almost entirely dependent on Congregationalists for its missionaries, funds, and administrative leadership. Thwarted in his effort to win endorsement of the idea of the decisive nature of this world's probation for all men and the consequent doom of those who died without hearing the Gospel, Alden undertook to make the Board a bulwark for this harsh dogma. For Alden, who had to approve all candidates for mission service under the A.B.C.F.M., it was the supreme test of fitness for evangelistic work.^® To deny that the unrepentant were destined for everlasting punishment, he believed, would "cut the nerve" of missions. Others held that the principle was itself "cutting the nerve" of missions. Intelligent Orientais cried out against its brutality. If no man could be saved who had not heard of Christ, and if death were the limit of probation, then all their ancestors were in irremediable misery. They positively refused, missionaries reported, to accept a "Gospel" of which this was a cardinal doctrine.^^ Furthermore, Alden's exclusion policy demoralized the missionary spirit in the United States. The first person refused on this basis was not a graduate of Andover Seminary but a young woman

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just completing her course at Wellesley College and planning to go to Japan as a Christian teacher. "I have been too long thinking on the views o£ such men as Dr. McKenzie, Dr. Duryea, and Dr. Abbott," she wrote to a friend in regard to her interview, "to say with Dr. Alden that I was as sure there would be no probation after death as I was of the existence of God."^® After she had declined to make such an affirmation, Alden suddenly discovered that she was not in sufficiendy good health to undertake the work, and this ended her candidacy. Angry over the havoc wrought in the College by this paralyzing refusal of the opportunity for missionary service to graduates whose spirit of unselfish consecration was the admiration of their classmates, President Alice Freeman of Wellesley immediately protested. Professor Egbert C. Smyth, one of the Andover liberals and a member of the Board's executive committee, likewise insisted that volunteers who believed in future probation should not be barred. Dr. Nathaniel G. Clarke, another ofiicial, and Mark Hopkins, its President, agreed. But by custom all appointments had to go through the hands of Alden, who was adamant.^® Lyman Abbott, who frequendy preached at the College, learned of the unfortunate Situation through Miss Freeman and, confident of the reforming power of public opinion, resolved to air it. In June 1886 he began an editorial attack on Alden's policy: N o one can long be permitted to shut the open doors of opportunity in the face of those eager to obey their Lord's summons to his service. Men and women consecrated to Christ, blessed with sweet consciousness of his love, eager to proclaim the glad tidings to others, fully equipped with all intellectual resource for the work, must not, shall not, be shut out, in the name of the churches, from the Lord's service, for no other reason than their declination to accept an idiosyncratic creed which has never received official endorsement, and which it is safe to say could not survive public discussion. . .

If necessary the matter should be appealed to the entire Board or to the churches. It was certain that those who had contended for liberty of faith in the home churches would not hesitate to fight

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for the same freedom for missionaries. Abbott continued to pound away on this issue during the following months, presenting the facts of various rejections for foreign service. As a Solution he proposed that the doctrinal soundness of mission candidates be determined by a council of churches, not by an executive officer, and after public examination, not as the result of private conference.^^ This expedient he urged before the general meeting of the Board at Des Moines, Iowa, October 7, 1886, where the whole matter came up for discussion. About 70 of the 250 corporate members of the Board were present, and in addition a huge audience which packed the opera house for the occasion. "I have heard many debates in my life-time," Abbott recalled, "but never one characterized by so high a degree of uniform eloquence—the eloquence of profound earnestness, and therefore of great simplicity and directness of Speech." ^^ After speeches by Secretary Alden, Professor Smyth, and others, the editor-preacher took the floor. Assuming his customary role of mediator, he attempted to State the points of agreement and of difference. It seemed to him that two questions were involved. One was how the theological qualifications for missionary service should be determined, and the other was what these Standards were. "For my part," he declared, " I believe the right and true and wise, and Congregational and Christian method of determining the soundness of every one of these candidates is the method of open examination in open council."^® Applause greeted this utterance. He went on to press his contention that opinions about future probation should not be conditions for missionary service. "Must Congregationalism split into three denominations," he asked, "one of which is sure of a future probation, one of which is sure there is no future probation, and the third of which is "simply sure that God is good and love is love, and all things are in His hands?" In such a contingency he would belong to the third group. He begged the members of the Board to find some way by which "all that hold to the love of the Lord

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Jesus Christ as the saving grace of a perishing and lost world, can work together to carry the gospel to those lost ones."^^ The action of the assembly was an effort to satisfy all parties. The delegates voted down a resolution to appoint a special committee to ascertain the facts and to receive suggestions for report at the next meeting—in other words, to postpone decision. The conservatives prevented the reelection o£ Egbert Smyth to the executive committee and secured the passage of a resolution expressing "grave apprehension" at the doctrine of probation after death, which was declared "divisive and perversive and dangerous to the churches at home and abroad."^® At the same time the progressives won the adoption of a recommendation that "in difficult cases, turning upon the doctrinal views of candidates for missionary service," a council of churches be called to pass on the theological soundness of the person in question.^® Abbott recalled that at the dose of the discussion one of his conservative friends greeted him with the lament, "To-day makes me very sad." "Why so?" asked Abbott. "You have carried a resolution indorsing your theology." "I know," he replied, "but it was quite evident from the meeting how the current is running."^''^ Abbott himself believed that the Des Moines meeting "indicated progress" and expressed his confidence that public sentiment was on the side of "Christian catholicity."^® Nevertheless, at the next meeting of the Board a year later in Springfield, Massachusetts, the old orthodoxy again triumphed. Speaking at Plymouth Church shortly after this occasion, Abbott denounced the Board's practice of asking contributions from those who believed in a future probation and yet refusing them any voice in its counsels, charging that the executive committee in Boston was assuming the authority of a pope in Rome.^® In 1892 the church decided to send foreign mission contributions directly to the field rather than through the American Board.»" The theological argument continued, and the Christian Union kept up its fight for religious liberty in this respect. One reader,

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renewing his subscription for 1888, expressed the hope that he would not be harassed widi quite so much about die American Board diis year, or eise he would be a "bored American." ^^ At his installation as pastor of Plymouth Church in 1890, Abbott reiterated his own view: "the decisive nature of this world's probation for every man I repudiate as unscriptural." He believed no soul would be left in darkness which God's mercy could call to light. His associate, Howard Bliss, went further, supporting the Andover theory and asserting his belief in an intermediate State—"a purgatory, if you will"—which would provide an opportunity for the heathen to accept Christ.®® Yet Lyman Abbott was not a Universalist. As the Christian Union put it, to say that God has mercy equally for all was not the same as saying that all would finally accept His mercy.®^ Invited to address a Universalist Convention in Boston in 1899, Abbott told why he disagreed with their main tenet. "If I were a Calvinist," he argued, "I should be a Universalist." "If I believed that God could make all men righteous I should be sure that he would. . . He thought that the final decision of every man's destiny depended upon the man himself. Whether all would eventually accept God's grace he did not know. The conservatives met defeat at the meeting of the American Board in Worcester in 1893, when the Board's position as a selfperpetuating body was greatly modified. Congregational churches were given a share in the election of corporate members. The executive committee was increased from ten to fifteen members and their term cut to three years. Secretary Alden declined to stand for reelection.®® After this event mission candidates were no longer rejected because they refused to affirm that all heathens were condemned to everlasting punishment. In 1896 Lyman Abbott was elected a corporate member of the Board.®'^ While he was unwilling to be dogmatic regarding the fate of those who knew not Christ, Abbott never developed a very keen appreciation of other religions. His loyalty to the Protestant heritage

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was too great, his knowledge of other faiths too superficial. A t the Wbrld's Parliament of Religions held in connection with Chicago's Columbian Exposition of 1893, Abbott reaffirmed his confidence in the superiority of Christianity: We welcome here to-day, in this most cosmopolitan city of the most cosmopolitan race on the globe, the representatives of all the various forms of religious life from East to West and North to South. . . . We are glad to know what they have to teil us, but what we are gladdest of all about is that we can teil them what we have found in our search, and that we havf found the Christ."

T h e Outloof{ remarked editorially that while the Parliament of Religions aflEorded a useful corrective to "the opinion too often entertained, and sometimes even sedulously cultivated, that all forms of religion but our own are a mixture of ignorance and superstition," it would also convince "all thoughtful Christians" that what other peoples were seeking "the religion of Jesus Christ" provided.®® Düring 1897 the magazine carried a series of articles on "The Message of the World's Religions." Various authorities discussed Judaism, Buddhism, Brahmanism, Mohammedanism, Confucianism, and Christianity. "Each religion . . . has had a message for some epoch and some portion of the human race," the Outloo\ conceded; "in every one has been some resplendent truth, though dimmed—as, alas!—Christianity has also been dimmed—by human ignorance and s u p e r s t i t i o n . " A b b o t t concluded the series with an analysis of the distinctive quality of Christianity. While other religions, he feit, were greater than their founders, Christ was greater than Christianity. T h e spirit of the western faith was embodied in a Person who conferred ever-new power on his followers, enabling them to partake of the divine nature and to translate previously unattainable ideals into realities. Christianity was the only major religion emphasizing the transformation of individual character known as conversion and the improvement of national character effecting progress.*^

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Giving a sermon in Plymouth Church on "Hinduism versus Christianity," Abbott set side by side what he considered the characteristic features o£ the two systems: God the A l l ; and God sending forth the all that He may love those whom H e hath created. God absorbing all into Himself; and God creating Personality and enlarging it with His own personality that from eternity to eternity H e may love and be loved. Religion, meditation; and religion, life and love and Service. Heaven, eternal, unconscious rest; and Heaven an eternal life of splendid and ever-increasing activities.*"

His preference was obvious.

Chapter Twelve

EVOLUTIONARY

THEOLOGY

Tne liberal religious movement which challenged traditiond doctrines of salvation and judgment in die i88o's found its füllest expression in the wholehearted acceptance o£ evolution during the 1890's. It was to diis aspect o£ the "New Theology" that Lyman Abbott made his most significant contributions. "We may perhaps select the date 1892," one Student of this development has concluded, "as that at which evolution was fully recognized by leaders in the liberal movement, for it is the year in which Lyman Abbott published his Evolution, of Christianity and Gladden his Who Wrote the Bible? Charles Darwin has been many things to many men. While for some he offered merely an explanation of biological data, others utilized his work to give a scientific stamp to a variety of philosophies having only the remotest connection with principles of organic heredity. In the hands of Herbert Spencer and his American disciple, William Graham Sumner, Darwinism afforded a new bulwark for competitive capitalism. Ardent nationalists used it to prove racial superiority and to defend imperialism. For still others the evolutionary theory, loosely construed, gave a powerful boost to humanitarianism and optimism. In the religious realm, Darwin's work led certain thinkers to reject theology and adopt a materialistic philosophy. It caused others to spurn modern science and set up a fortress of religious conservatism. For a third and perhaps the largest group, it resulted in efforts to reconcile science and religion or even to develop a new theology based upon science.^

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An important representative of this middle position was Lyman Abbott, and not the least of his varied spiritual services to thc American people was his success in persuading many thoughtful Christians that the theory of evolution, far from demolishing genuine religion, actually purified and strengthened it. The initial reception of Darwin's books by clergymen, however, was not so favorable. Professor Charles Hodge of Princeton, a leading Presbyterian theologian, expressed the common religious verdict in his volume What Is Darwinism? (1874). His answer was the blunt—but unjust—assertion, "It is Atheism." Thousands who had never read The Origin of Speeles or The Descent of Man reached this conclusion, and multitudes of the pious became convinced that evolution was the great enemy of Christianity. Indeed Darwinism did question traditional theology in several respects. It upset the theory of special creation; the wondrously varied forms of life, far from being each the product of divine fiat, seemed now to have come about through "purposeless changes eflfected by unconscious force."® Evolution also exploded the orthodox concept of sin; if man had evolved from the beasts, how could he have been created perfect and "fallen" into sin? And evolution damaged the authority of Scripture by discrediting the Genesis account of man's origin. In a larger sense the evolutionary idea produced a feeling of insecurity because it banished absolutes of every kind. Reconcilers soon appeared. Among the most important of these was John Fiske, whose views were formulated most fully in Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy (1874). To him evolution was simply "God's way of doing things."^ Joseph LeConte gave the rising concept of Christian evolutionism a scientific stamp in his Religion and Science (1874) and Evolution and its Relation to Religious Thought (1888). LeConte beÜeved that the great contribution of American thinkers to evolutionary theory was to show that it was "entirely consistent with a rational theism and with other fundamental religious beliefs."® Particularly influential on Lyman Abbott were the writings of Henry Drummond, whose 'Natural Law in the

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Spiritual World (1883) drew analogies between the principles of biology and those of religion, purporting to show that such processes as birth, growth, decay, and death characterized the spiritual as well as the physical life and followed the same laws. In The Ascent of Man (1894) Drummond argued that the struggle £or survival was being replaced by a struggle for others, a providential device for securing perfection. Henry Ward Beecher, taking his stand with the evolutionists about 1880, was probably the first prominent American minister to accommodate himself to the newer view. Elaborating his conclusions in Evolution and Religion (1885), he declared that science was merely "the deciphering of God's thought as revealed in the structure of the World."® Under Beecher's sway Lyman Abbott joined the ranks of theistic evolutionists. By means of sermons, editorials, and several notable books, Abbott played an extraordinary part in stating and propagating a conception of Darwinism acceptable to orthodox Protestants. In 1882 the Christian Union announced confidently (rather too confidently, the twentieth Century was to reveal) that "the time when ministers scoffed and derided Darwin and his disciples has forever passed."'^ The great scientist's death in the same year was the occasion for a sympathetic editorial. Abbott's journal praised Darwin for "his acute, careful and absolutely unprejudiced observations, and the influence which he has exerted in liberating and shaping theological thought, and in giving a new impulse and a new direction to practical philanthropy."® The Darwinian hypothesis that man had developed from a lower order of animals was not necessarily more degrading or blasphemous than the ancient opinion that he had been formed from the dust of the ground into which life had been breathed by direct creative act. "I would as soon have a monkey as a mud man for an ancestor," said Lyman Abbott.® A little later the Christian Union criticized "the insane attempt to use the Bible to prevent scientific investigation," and condemned

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those who insisted upon regarding die first chapters of Genesis as "a literal, audioritative, and infallible history o£ die origin of diings." T h e theological premise that they were a revelation from God was "pure assumption" and not even claimed by die writer of Genesis. " T h e theology which assumes it," said this editorial, "is responsible for the skepticism which its enormous assumption creates."^® Abbott from an early day opposed efforts to suppress the teaching of evolution. It was foolish to d i n g to the "false foundation" of "medieval theories of BibUcal interpretation and of man's origin and history." ^^ By the i88o's Lyman Abbott had come to rest his proof of God and immortahty on inner consciousness and on the concurrent testimony of many witnesses rather than on logic, on the Bible, or on creeds. This he made clear in a litde volume enüded In Aid of Faith (1886), originally a series of lectures delivered at Wellesley College. Taking issue with "the fundamental assumption of modern unbelief, that we know only the visible and the tangible," he maintained the validity of spiritual intuitions. " T h e child cannot teil why he believes in his mother," Abbott wrote; "neither can I teil why I beUeve in Christ; I can only say, 'come and see.'" ^^ For such faith science held no terrors. His fear of evolution having evaporated in the eighties, Abbott began in the nineties acüvely to exploit the idea for evangelical purposes.^® In The Evolution of Christianity (1892), which grew out of a course of lectures for the Lowell Institute in Boston, he undertook to show that the historic Christian faith, when stated in terms of an evolutionary philosophy, was not only preserved but was presented "in a purer and more powerful form."^^ Borrowing LeConte's definition of evolution as "continuous progressive change, according to certain laws, and by means of resident forces," he contended that each of these elements characterized religious development. "Resident forces" he chose to identify with the immanent God. Herbert Spencer had spoken of an "Infinite and Eternal Energy from which all things proceed." Though

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Spencer considered it unknowable, Abbott, like John Fiske, called it God. Deity, then, was the secret and power o£ evolution/" True, development was not always onward and upward. Life and institutions, like trees, sent branches in various directions. The whole, however, grew ever taller, larger, and more diversified in structure. This was true of religion, "the life of God in the soul o£ man."^® With these definitions Abbott went on to apply the evolutionary principle to the Bible, theology, the church, society, and the soul. The Bible he considered inspired literature but not an infallible book. It was the product of centuries of growth and was constructed by a "process of natural selection."^^ The "New Theology" he regarded as an advance over Calvinism. The church he compared to a "tree, rooted and grounded in Christ."^® He pictured the progress of society under the impetus of rcligious ideas, and saw the Christian social order as the "one far-off divine event to which the whole creation moves." The soul, too, evolved. Redemption was not restoration of man to an original State of innocence but rather "the entire process of intellectual and spiritual development in which man passes . . . into the condition of virtue."^® Christ came "not merely to show divinity to us, but to evolve the latent divinity which he has implanted in History was but the record of "this evolution of the divinity out of humanity." Abbott believed that "imder the inspirational power of the divine spirit" man's spiritual nature was growing stronger, his animal nature being stamped out. The individual, the church, and society were all Strange intermixtures of paganism and Christianity, in which Christian love was steadily displacing pagan selfishness and transforming the earth into the Kingdom of God.®^ Public reaction to the lectures in which Abbott expounded this rosy philosophy was generally cordial. The Boston Transcript commented on "the quiet but deep excitement" they evoked.^^ The Herald called them "the best sympathetic and reverent Statement of the new way of looking at Christianity which has yet been made in this country."^® The Advertiser remarked that probably

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no two men were doing more to win skeptics back to the Christian fold than Lyman Abbott and Boston's own Phillips Brooks.^^ Extremists on both sides, however, assailed Abbott for taking the middle of the road. T h e Reverend Minot J. Savage, a prominent Unitarian, criticized him for clinging to the supernatural birth and resurrection of Jesus.^® T h e Reverend Edward M. Gushee, on the other band, pointed out that, according to Christian evolutionism, "an untenable and unproven theory," Luther should be superior to Christ.^® Joseph Cook, famous for his "Boston Monday lectures" at Tremont Temple, charged that Abbott had inherited many of Beecher's "fancies and foibles." He was merely following the footsteps of his master in trying to harmonize evolution and religion, and it was "generally conceded" that Beecher had failed in this attempt.^^ A few years later Francis M. Bruner of Des Moines, Iowa, wrote The Evolution Theory, as Stated by M. LeConte and Applied by Dr. Lyman Abbott, with special reference to Abbott's Evolution of Christianity, which was branded as "one of those dangerous applications of an unsettled question that ought not to pass unchallenged." Six thousand years had shown that there was no such thing as "continuous progressive change." God was "wholly separate from his material creation." T h e view of life assumed in Abbott's work was "not the Apostolic conception and, therefore, not Christian."^® Undaunted by critics, Lyman Abbott continued his "dangerous application of an unsettled question" in The Theology of an Evolutionist (1897), which originated as a series of lectures in Plymouth Ghurch. Abounding in felicitous phrases, albeit many of them were borrowed from other writers, this work moved almost epigrammatically from point to point, setting forth the author's optimistic philosophy in persuasive style. Repudiating the traditional view of creation by manufacture, Abbott adopted the position of creation by evolution, "God's way of doing things." And the consummation of evolution, the consummation of redemption,— the one term is scientific, the other theological, but the process is the same, —the consummation of this long process of divine manifestation, which

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began in the day when the morning stars sang together, will not be until the whole human race becomes what Christ was, until the incarnation so spreads out from the one man of Nazareth that it fills the whole human race, and all humanity becomes an incarnation of the divine, the infinite, and the all-loving Spirit, W h a t Jesus was, humanity is becoming.'"

Abbott also rejected the old explanation o£ sin. Labeling the Genesis account of man's fall "a beautiful fable," he treated sin as a lapse into the animal nature from which man had risen. Lyman Abbott spoke not with Darwin of the descent of man but with Henry Drummond of his ascent. Greed, pride, and selfishness were brutish characteristics not yet eliminated. Man's hope was "in the power that shall lift him up and out of his lower seif into his higher, truer, nobler seif, until he shall be no longer the son of the animal, but in very truth a son of God."^" T h e cross of Christ, Abbott feit, illustrated "the consummate fact of human life,—suffering for others."®^ It was part of the divine order of nature that the birth of a new life should be through the pain of another. Christ, however, did not lay down his life to appease the Creator. Abbott disowned the orthodox position which he himself had held in the early days of his ministry that Christ paid the penalty for the sins of men that they might be released from punishment. T h e Lamb of God took away not the punishment but the sins of the people. T h e one transcendent truth, Abbott declared, which distinguished Christianity from all forms of paganism was that it represented God as appeasing His own wrath or satisfying His own justice by an expression of His own love.®^ Discarding the common definition of miracles as violations of the Order of nature or as marvels or wonders, he held that they were simply "unusual manifestations" of divine power. T h e opinion that God had manifested Himself in unusual ways, he wrote, was not inconsistent with belief that H e was always manifesting Himself in all conceivable ways in the ordinary processes of life. Thus Abbott repudiated the usual distinction between natural and supernatural. Some of the miracles recorded in the Bible he accepted; others he doubted. T h e destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah seemed

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to him quite credible, as did die passage o£ the Hcbrews across the Red Sea, That Joshua made die sim stand süll he did not bclieve. Regarding the more dehcate matter o£ the New Testament miracles he was equivocal, except for the resurrection o£ Jesus, which he continued to call "one of the best attested facts o£ ancient history."®® To deny the resurrection, Lyman Abbott feit, would be to annihilate Chrisüanity. Under Abbott's skillful direction, evolution became a bulwark for faith in immortality. "I do not see," he declared, "how one can be a consistent evolutionist and think that 'death ends all.'"®^ He could not believe that a process of continuous growth would end in nothingness. In his view, God was developing through the ages "creatures that could think as He thinks, will as He wills, love as He loves, and carry their independence and their personality into a future life to love and be loved."®® In conclusion Abbott expressed the hope that by the new theology Christians might "hold fast their faith in God, their consciousness of sin, their fellowship with Christ, their experience of pardon, their hope of eternal life."®® He had merely put the old wine into new bottles, evangelical conceptions into evolutionary patterns. Nevertheless his work aroused a storm of protest from religious conservatives. The Opposition included his brother, the Reverend Edward Abbott, for many years rector of St. James Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Disturbed by the liberal theological currents stirring in Congregational circles, Edward Abbott had abandoned the family ties to this denomination and become an Episcopalian. In 1890 he addressed a letter to the Christian Umon, criücizing the editor's loose doctrine of the atonement.®^ "Your view of your brother Lyman's course," a correspondent wrote him in 1897, "tallies exactly with mine. I told your brother that changing from 'Christian Union' to 'Outlook' was backsliding in tide. . . . I mourn his Spiritism and rejection of the resurrection of the body."®® The editor of the Episcopalian Church Standard complained to Edward Abbott that The Theology of an Evolutionist

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was "a dreadful book," and that the Outloo/(s religious influence was "pernicious." Regarding Lyman Abbott this critic continued: I do not think that he is either a clear-headed or a sober-minded man: but if he had more humility, and if he had the safe guidance of the creeds, he has populär talent and personal attraction enough to do any amount of Building up instead of that dreadful work of pulling down, which I feel confident that he himself does not so much as know that he is doing.'*

T h e Reverend A . C . Dixon, a Baptist preacher in Brooklyn, gave a series of sermons answering the Plymouth Church pastor, accusing him of having adopted a theory which robbed Christ of His divinity.^® T h e Inferior, a Congregational journal published in Chicago, said of the Theology:

"It is scarcely necessary to inquire

where this leaves Christianity—we will not say evangelical Christianity, but religion of any type or form."^^ A n d so it went. Others, however, praised Abbott for making science an ally rather than an enemy of religion. A s the N e w York Tribüne put it when he retired from Plymouth Church, he held a unique place among ministers in giving renewed vitality to the faith of many people who found difficulty in reconciling the religion of their traditions with the secular thought of their time.^^ Washington Gladden congratulated him on "a very great Service to theology" and observed that critics had not made any serious break in his reasoning. " A t any rate," he wrote, "it is perfectly clear that our theology must adjust itself to the evolutionary conception; we cannot now think in any other terms." Theistic evolutionism was a soothing doctrine, a source of comfort and strength to those who feared the revolutionary changes of the nineteenth Century. It enabled men and women to d i n g to their faith despite the uprooting impact of modern learning and the

new

urban-industrialism.

It

invested

its

adherents

with

boundless hope. Evolution, said Lyman Abbott, tended to make every day better than the one before. " W e know that there is physical order, and a moral order, and that order means progress."^^ Likewise Christian evolutionism must be distinguished from social

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Darwinism. "Evolution is not to be identified with Darwinism," Abbott wrote; "it is not the doctrine o£ struggle for existence and the survival o£ the fittest." It was simply "the doctrine o£ growth applied to life."^® Its goal was the Kingdom o£ God on earth, a coöperative society based on sel£-sacrifice. Abbott's repudiation o£ laissez-faire economics has already been discussed. His roseate interpretation o£ evolution encouraged a humanitarian and idealistic view o£ li£e quite in keeping with the American democratic £aith. "The object o£ Christianity," he once declared, "is human wel£are; its method is character-building; its process is evolution; and the secret o£ its power is God."^® Evolutionary theology was a companion to ethical religion.^^ The religious Version of evolution is, o£ course, open to many objections. Thomas Henry Huxley expressed some o£ them in his famous lecture "Evolution and Ethics." I£ the cosmos were the eflect o£ an immanent, omnipotent, and infinitely beneficent cause, Huxley suggested, the existence in it o£ real evil would be inadmissible. Yet the universal experience o£ mankind testified that, i£ anything were real, pain and sorrow and wrong were realities. Furthermore, change was o£ten cyclical rather than progressive. The theory o£ evolution, he insisted, justified no millennial anticipations. The cosmic process bore no relation to moral ends, and the ethical improvement o£ society depended not on imitating nature but on combatting it.^® The great English evolutionists diflFered £rom their lesser American counterparts in being agnostics. Popularizers o£ evolutionary theory knew little about its technical aspects. Lyman Abbott's use o£ the term "evolution," like that o£ others who attempted to apply it in nonscientific fields, was a very lax one. His reconciliation o£ evolution and religion was vague and superficial, theological rather than scientific. Insensitive to the deeper implications o£ modern science, Abbott and such contemporaries as Beecher, Fiske, LeConte, and Drummond were far too hasty in proclaiming the victory for religion. Furthermore, the movement known as the "New Theology" or "Progressive

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Orthodoxy" was essentially conservative. Though more independent in his thinking than most of the pious, Lyman Abbott was actually an apologist £or certain foregone conclusions arrived at during half a Century of Christian experience. He failed to meet the füll challenge of the more radical forms of modern thought to the Bible and the church.^« Superficial and dubious though it was, Christian evolutionism served several useful purposes. It contravened obscurantism and encouraged a friendly attitude toward science. It preserved spiritual values in a new world where old moral sanctions were being removed. It encouraged a humane and progressive social outlook. It reconciled conservatives to the idea of change.

Chapter

Thirteen

THE BIBLE AS LITERA TÜRE Tke "New Theology" of liberal Protestants involved not only a more generous view of salvation and a hospitality to the findings of modern science but also a willingness to accept revolutionary teachings regarding the origins and development of Scripture. In the early nineteenth Century most Christians considered the Bible the inspired, infallible, and literal word of God. It had been furnished with a supporting apparatus of dates and authors which was held as sacred as the text. A man might more safely violate the Ten Commandments than question the account of their proclamation. Toward the end of the Century currents from abroad began to disturb the inherited faith. German scholars in particular developed the "higher criticism" of the Bible, showing it to be a profoundly human and fallible bock which had grown up through natural processes over long ages of time.^ By 1890 American religious leaders found they had to take seriously the historical approach to the Bible which had already assumed an established place in Germany and Great Britain. Lyman Abbott never regarded the Scriptures as authority on scientific questions, but in 1860 he still held that they provided an "authoritative and infallible rule of religious faith and practice."^ Those were the words he used before the council in Farmington which ordained him. The moral difficulties which this position involved bothered him increasingly as he continued his studies. How was he to accept such episodes as the sacrifice of Isaac, God's hardening of Pharaoh's heart, the massacres of the Canaanites, the

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imprecatory psalms? What was he to make of the Biblical arguments for slavery and polygamy? By 1878, if not before, Abbott had come to the conclusion that all parts of the Bible were not equally valid. The teachings o£ the New Testament, said a Christian Union editorial of that year, were "higher and nobler than those of the earlier and less cultured ages." The Bible was a record of the experiences and conduct of men in whom was "variously developed and variously manifested a divine life."® The Christian Union praised the Revised Version of 1881-1885, and Abbott habitually used it instead of the King James in later years. Of the Old Testament the journal declared, "Its divineness is not in its letter, but in its spirit." ^ A new translation which made clearer the spirit behind the words was to be welcomed. Many devout persons, an editorial of 1884 claimed, had found the Bible "an infinitely richer and more sacred book since they abandoned all theories of its verbal or mechanical Inspiration and began to read it as literature."® Lyman Abbott refused to make it an arsenal of proof-texts and in his sermons seldom quoted Scripture verses out of their context. On May 12, 1889, he preached on the new view to his Plymouth Church parishioners, warning them against using the Bible as a textbook for "geology, or chronology, or physiology, or even theology."® It was not a scientific treatise and did not purport to be such. A landmark in the popularization of the higher criticism in America was the famous Briggs heresy case. A professor of Hebrew in Union Theological Seminary, Charles A. Briggs became in 1890 the first incumbent of a new chair of Biblical theology. In his inaugural address he argued that reason and the church as well as the Bible should be consulted in eflorts to arrive at religious truth. This contention deeply offended conservatives, who already distrusted him on account of his work in Old Testament criticism. The Presbyterian General Assembly vetoed his appointment in 1891 and the following year suspended him from the ministry.'^ The Christian Union followed these happenings with the keenest

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interest. The editor took a courageous stand from the first, utilizing every opportunity to make a spirited defense of intellectual freedom. "The real issue," declared an editorial of 1891, was whether it was heretical "to make a thorough study of the Bible."® The paper simultaneously carried a series of articles by Briggs setting forth the results of the higher criticism. The accused cleric addressed a meeting of the State association of Congregationalists in Plymouth Church on the same theme.® The Christian Union asserted that his final suspension had done "more to bring the Christian religion into disrepute in this country than could be done by a hundred Ingersolls."" That the higher criticism and the evolutionary philosophy were closely related Abbott made abundantly clear in his Lowell Institute lectures of 1892. The new method was simply a study of the evolution of the Bible. The collection of sixty-six books making up the Scriptures, Abbott recognized in T/ie Evolution of Christianity, developed gradually over a period of many centuries. Likewise a progressive development was evident in the teachings of the Bible. Its later portions presented higher ideals of character arid conduct, nobler conceptions of God and His requirements than the earlier parts. Inspiration and revelation took place step by step through the Spiritual experience of good men, who gained ever clearer perceptions of the Infinite. The result was a work of great power and helpfulness, Abbott feit, but not an infallible one: A n infallible book is an impossible conception, and to-day no one really believes that our present Bible is such a book. . . . A n infallible book is a book which without any error whatever conveys truth from one mind to another mind. . . . Whether the original writers infallibly understood the truth, or not, they had no infallible vehicle of communicating it: their manuscripts were not infallibly preserved or copied or translated; and the sectarian differences which exist to-day afford an absolute demonstration that w e are not able infallibly to understand their meaning.^^

Public interest in the authority of Holy Writ, nourished by the excitement attending the Briggs case, continued strong throughout the nineties. In the winter of 1896-97 Lyman Abbott devoted a

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series o£ Sunday evenings in Plymouth Church to a course o£ lectures on the Bible as literature. Crowds filled the auditorium £or nearly every address and some were turned away. Young people from other churches flocked to hear the exponent of modern learning. The Brooklyn Eagle published the addresses in füll, an interested hstener reprinted them in pamphlet form, and fragmentary reports appeared in newspapers in various parts of the country. One lecture, somewhat garbled by the press, caused a minor tempest. In his talk on the book of Jonah, Abbott declared that while some scholars regarded it as history, some as an ancient legend, he beHeved it to be a satire on the narrowness of the Hebrew people, similar in quality to Lowell's Biglow PapersP The next day Joseph Pulitzer's sensational New York World reported that the venerable Dr. Lyman Abbott had given a comic sermon on Jonah and the whale, which had aroused great mirth and loud guflaws throughout the hour. The Biglow Papers became the Pic\wic\ Papers. Several members, the report went on, were so greatly displeased that they planned to abandon Plymouth Church.^® This misleading account found wide circulation in papers all over the country, arousing a storm of criticism among the orthodox and giving the series of lectures a prominence somewhat out of proportion to their real importance. "It is distressing," said the Living Church, an Episcopal journal, "to think how many minds have been strengthened in unbelief, and how many more have been turned aside from supernatural truth, by the frivolous and vulgär treatment of sacred things with which the press has teemed in the wake of this preacher's utterances." ^^ The Publicity resulting from this episode, uncomfortable as it was, may well have served a useful end. "I am sure all this silly newspaper clatter does not disturb you," W. S. Rainsford wrote by way of comforting Abbott. "It has got to come. In no other way can you bring on general discussion and I have come to the conclusion that no other way exists for reaching the masses."^® That the common people were interested in the higher criticism,

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and that they could understand it, Abbott concluded for himself when a Negro working in the yard o£ one of bis neighbors in Brooklyn stopped him one day to inquire: "They say, sir, that you say there were two Isaiahs. Did you, sir?" The preacher answered affirmatively and went on to ask the laborer whether he thought the same prophet who had written, "Comfort ye my people," could have called them also a people filled with iniquity. "No, sir," the laborer replied. Dr. Abbott continued: "Nor do I think so, I think the first Isaiah warned Israel of the condemnation that was Coming upon them because of their sins; and the second Isaiah, seventy years later, after they had paid the penalty of their sins by their long and dreary captivity, brought to them the message of pardon." "Yes, sir, I see sir," concluded the inquirer.^® Abbott took the same theme for a series of Lowell Institute lectures in the winter of 1899-1900, and in 1901 he embodied the results in The Life and Literature of the Ancient Hebrews. Announcing in the preface that he accepted "frankly, fully, and without reserve" the conclusions of the higher criticism, he undertook to expound them for the general reader and to show that they did not imperil spiritual values. While the modern scientific approach to the Bible would destroy confidence in the letter which killeth, it would promote faith in the spirit which keepeth alive.^''^ After a brief definition of the literary approach to the Bible, Abbott went on to take up the various Old Testament books group by group. The historical books, he wrote, were compilations from previously existing materials, like any other history. They were not factual and philosophical but rather epic and literary. To recognize that Genesis was a collection of legends and myths did not stigmatize it as worthless, since it was a vehicle for many spiritual truths. Likewise the Mosaic law when viewed as an attempt by a primitive people Over a long period to embody in institutions the essentials of justice, liberty, and humanity, was far more eloquent than when seen as the ideal of a single prophet, never put into practice. This Position was quite diflerent from the one Abbott had held in 1869,

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when he had written that the Hebrew laws were "fraxned and propounded by Moses, but under the inspiraüon and guidance of God."^8 The Ubrary we know as the Bible, Abbott admitted, contains much fiction. But the question whether any narrative was history or fiction, he hastened to add, was not identical with the question whether it was true or false. The literary Classification of a narrative depended upon the motive of the author, not upon the accuracy of the narrative. Fiction was intentionally imaginative; history was supposedly factual. Yet there was much fact in fiction, much falsehood in history!^® The value of the Old Testament stories hinged not upon their historical accuracy but upon their ethical significance. In the tale of Ruth and Boaz, for instance, Abbott saw a powerful witness against race prejudice, as well as illustrations of "the deep fidelity of a woman's heart," of "spiritual appreciation of a higher and better religion," and, best of all, of "the love of one faithful man to one faithful woman."^® Proverbs and Ecclesiastes provided "a school of ethical philosophy," according to Abbott. He denied that Solomon wrote or even compiled the Proverbs and also rejected the hoary claim that David wrote most of the Psalms. The latter were a collection of lyrics expressing the experiences of a devout people, "to be studied that we may escape their doubts, their despair, their hate, their tumultuous trouble, and may secure their faith, their hope, their love, their peace."^^ The most fundamental truth shown in the Psalms, he believed, was divine immanence. The psalmists portrayed Jehovah Standing by them in all the commonplace incidents of life, a God who cares for His children. The prophets were "preachers of righteousness." They undertook to "forthtell" rather than to foretell. The prophecies should be read for their moral principles, not in an effort to find predictions strangely fulfilled in later history. "The prophet speaks to fear, warning men of danger," Abbott wrote; "he speaks to hope, inspiring them to life; but he does not to any great extent give detailed Information

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respecting events to come."^^ The niessage of the prophets, he concluded, and die message o£ Israel herseif was "that God is a righteous person, who demands righteousness of his people and demands nodiing else."^® The Life and Literature of the Ancient Hebrews was not a product of original research but a work of popularization. This Lyman Abbott freely admitted. "What I am saying to you," he told his Plymouth Church congregation, "may be found in the literature on this subject on the shelves of all well-equipped clergymen." ^^ If he ever obtained any reputation for originality, it was because he assumed that what was safe for a theological scholar to know was safe for church members to know, that all truth was safe and all error dangerous. Among his chief sources were Julius Wellhausen's History of Israel, Renan's History of the People of Israel, Ewald's History of Israel, Stanley's History of the fewish Church and Prophets of the Old Testament, and S. R. Driver's Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament. Since Abbott read German poorly, he availed himself of the products of German scholarship only in translation. As a matter of fact he seems not to have used any German works in preparing this book. Driver's he recommended as the best work in English summarizing the results of modern Old Testament scholarship. He also suggested to an inquirer two populär summaries written prior to his own, G. G. Moulton's The Bible as Literature, part of which had appeared in the Outloo\, and Washington Gladden's Who Wrote the Bible? ^^ Abbott's book, said a reviewer in the Hartford Seminary Record, was "in no sense a contribution to the criticism of the Old Testament." Nowhere did the author show evidence of having grappled personally with the problems of Hebrew literature er of having reached independent conclusions. Lacking mastery of the subject, he had followed the opinions of various authorities, some good and some bad. While "not up to the scientific Standard," the book would nevertheless serve a worthy function in initiating many people to critical study of the Bible.^®

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Conservative Christians thought, on the other hand, that Abbott was all too scientific. Professor Williani Henry Green o£ the Princeton Theological Seminary expressed regret at contentions "so erroneous and so slenderly supported" as that the Pentateuch was a compilation from two or more different documents which were themselves produced several centuries after Moses. He thought evangelical leaders were embarking on a most hazardous experiment when they accepted "a ready-made critical scheme" which was "infected through and through with anti-supernaturalistic assumptions." A Hebrew-Christian tractarian assailed Abbott and Briggs for "the iconoclastic method o£ pulling down the old interpretations and putting new and unwarranted ones in their place." They and others were trying to bring about the "destruction of the Bible."^® A Baptist minister in Syracuse, New York, is said to have remarked, "Lyman Abbott is doing more for the devil than Ingersoll." He expressed the opinion of many. The Nation perceived, quite correctly, that the book was symptomatic of a change in the populär attitude toward the Bible. This critical journal accused the editor of the Outloo\, one of its rivals, of accepting Biblical criticism "with the reserves and hesitations of a mind naturally conservative and a temper extremely sensitive to populär inclinations." An Arena reviewer charged Abbott with exalting certain facts and suppressing others in the interest of preconceived theories. "As a master of style, Dr. Abbott is great," said this critic. "He is a rhetorician, but not a profound scholar, an original thinker, or a safe logician."®^ Not in the vanguard of Old Testament scholars, Lyman Abbott took virtually no part in the application of critical methods to the New Testament. He cherished the Gospels too dearly to question their authenticity. Mrs. Humphry Ward's novel Robert Elsmere was the sensation of 1888. Her contention that Christianity would be revitalized by discarding its miraculous dement and emphasizing its social mission, the Christian Union refused to admit. In several articles dealing with this controversial book, Abbott re-

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affirmed his confidence in tbe reliability of the New Testament: All that Christian faith demands of the Rationalistic school is that they should explain how the narratives of miracles became incorporated in these contemporaneous records by writers whose honesty never has been impugned, and whose opportunities for Observation are not questioned, if the events did not occur as they are narrated in the evangelical histories.'"

Belief in particular miracles, the journal conceded a little later, was not necessary to being a Christian, but belief in "a supernatural Christ and his supernatural life" was essential Abbott's new Life of Christ (1894), consisting of a series of Sunday school lessons reprinted from the Outlook^, revealed that he still maintained the fundamentals of orthodoxy. He believed heartily and sincerely, he wrote in the preface, in what was "infelicitously termed 'the supernatural.'"®* The key to his unshaken conviction was his confidence that the Gospel of St. John was written by t"he disciple John, "a pre-eminently honest, fair-minded, and impartial" eyewitness.®® This is not the view of modern scholars. "The method of the divine incarnation and the simplicity of the Gospel narrative" seemed to Abbott inconsistent with the idea that miracles were "mythical additions or the creations of a wonder-working fancy."®® "The foundation of my faith in the Gospels," Abbott wrote, "is not the works He did but He Himself; and I believe the works because I can believe anything good and great of Him."®^ It was not unnatural that Jesus should have manifested His power and love by stilling tempests, curing lunatics, conquering disease and death. In The Life and Letters of Paul the Apostle (1898), which grew out of a course of Sunday evening lectures at Plymouth Church, Abbott continued his attempt to apply the principle of evolution to the elucidation of spiritual truth. Attacking the assumption that the Epistles all represented a fully developed theology, he pointed out that Paul's views changed over the years. "Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face," the Apostle himself had said. Abbott admired Paul and asked people to lay aside the idea that he

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was "the first o£ that long line of theologians who have corrupted the simplicity of Christ's teaching by scholastic refinements" and the impression that he was "the founder of a school of thought rather than a minister to noble living." Paul was a worthy "Interpreter of Christ's spirit to the world."®® Two traditional doctrines Lyman Abbott took issue with in this work and on various other occasions: the literal second advent and the resurrection of the body. Though he held that Christ probably returned from the dead and reanimated His physical body after the crucifixion, he did not believe that other bodies would rise again after being laid in the grave. Abbott declared that Paul passed, as others should, from materialistic conceptions of death and the resurrection to a higher "faith in the continuity of the spiritual life and its independence of all physical conditions." ®® Within another decade Lyman Abbott perceived that historical criticism of the New Testament was an inevitable process. The higher criticism had freed the Old Testament from "hurtful and superstition-breeding literalism," said an Outloo\ editorial of 1906. "It can free the New Testament likewise."^" In 1910 the editor wrote a signed article in reply to a correspondent who asked him whether he believed in the virgin birth, the feeding of the five thousand, and the physical resurrection. At the outset Abbott insisted that one might be an equally sincere and devoted disciple of Jesus Christ whether he believed in these miracles or not. Then he went on to State his own opinion: I formerly believed in the Virgin Birth. I am now uncertain. My State of mind is neither belief nor disbelief, but doubt. I am unable to conceive the multiplicaton of five loaves and two fishes to such a quantity as would feed five thousand people. The various hypotheses which rationalistic critics have proposed are interesting but unconvincing. I think this incident has some historic basis, but what it was I do not know. What interests me in this incident is not the multiplication of the loaves, but the spirit of consideration and helpfulness which is manifested. I believe that the Disciples had ocular evidence that Jesus Christ was still living. Whether this ocular evidence was given by an appearance to them of Christ in his spiritual body or by the reanimation of

i6o

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his physical body by bis spirit I do not know, but I hold die latter opinion to be more probable.*^

Such was Lyman Abbott's position in his later years, Hesitating and conservative as his presentation o£ the higher criticism appears to rationaUsts, it represented a valiant attempt to reach the pious masses with the spirit o£ modern learning. The magazine Puc/^^ carried a cartoon in 1899 depicting Abbott along with Charles A. Briggs, Minot J. Savage, and FeHx Adler arrayed under the banner "Think or Be Damned" and armed with historical and scientific facts, attacking the fortress o£ medieval dogmatism bearing the inscription "Beheve or Be Damned." The cartoon was entitled "The Last Stand—Science versus Superstition." ^^ And it would not be proper to dose this chapter without again calHng attention to Abbott's emphasis on deed over creed. "Profitless Debates" was the heading o£ an Outloo\ editorial reproving the Congregationahsts £or their concern with £uture probation, the Presbyterians £or their fight over BibUcal in£alHbiUty, and the EpiscopaUans for unfrocking a rector who doubted the virgin birth. It showed "a lamentable deficiency in spiritual sense of proportion," said Abbott's organ, to insist on the miraculous birth as an essential of Christianity, since on it depended "no practical ethical question, no essential Christian doctrine, no vital spiritual experience."

Chapter Fourteen

THE IMPERIALISM

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JSlowhere are the flexible and optimistic implications of Lyman Abbott's evolutionary philosophy more striking than in the remarkable transformation of his views regarding American expansion in the late 1890's. On the whole he was critical of the rising tide of chauvinism in the United States until the crucial year 1898, when he yielded to the ground swell of pubhc opinion and became an active supporter of the Spanish-American War. "Steadily, it seems to me," he wrote his brother Edward in explanation of his change of heart, "events have forced us forward; events which are God's way of teaching men their duty."^ The "Infinite and Eternal Energy from which all things proceed" could not be wrong. The pastor had been short-sighted, he confessed to Plymouth Church in May 1898, when three months previously he had argued against American interference in the affairs of other countries. "Dr. Abbott," said the Brooklyn Eagle, "is but a type of the awakened nation."^ Among God's promises, the preacher-editor told Wellesley girls in 1886, was the achievement of peace and good government through the diffusion of intelligence and virtue. "Our army is a living skeleton," he proudly announced as if to prove that the millennium was at harid, "and our navy is a dead one."® When the Chilean crisis arose suddenly in 1891, the Christian Union warned against jingoism and confidently proclaimed that there seemed to be "not the slightest desire for additional territory"- and "not the slightest interest in parading a navy about the ports of the world for the sake of making an Impression of military strength."^ Talk of America's

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"manifest destiny" the Outloo\ in 1895 called "tawdry and barbaric."® Although the journal favored Hawaiian annexation following the revolution o£ 1893 and opposed restoration of Queen Lihuokalani, it did not press the cause with any vigor.® Lyman Abbott strenuously deprecated Secretary Olney's "Twenty-Inch Gun Dispatch" to Great Britain in connection with the Venezuelan boundary dispute o£ 1895. Interviewed by a reporter from the New York Tribüne the day after Cleveland presented the matter to Congress, he expressed the opinion that interference in this case would lead to the assumption of a protectorate over all of South America, "which neither our interests, our duties, nor our abilities Warrant." Moreover, an English colony was "more really republican" than the Latin-American republics. The United States might properly rejoice if all the latter were put under British control.'' On Sunday evening, December 22, the largest crowd since Beecher's death packed Plymouth Church to hear Abbott make a plea for peace. Though England was wrong in refusing to arbitrate, he asserted, it was not up to the United States to play the part of an international supreme court. Probably both parties were at fault, and it was not our function to apportion the blame. Then he read a cable he had just received from the Reverend Charles A. Berry of Wolverhampton, England, to whom Plymouth Church had ofFered the pastorate m 1887: "Queen Street Chapel sends greetings, and prays for perfect concord between England and America." The Brooklyn group replied: "The great congregation of Plymouth Church, by unanimous rising vote, returns greetings. We join in prayers for peace with kin beyond the sea."® Dealing with the same theme the following night, Lyman Abbott had his first and only experience in addressing a hostile and tumultuous audience. With Henry George and the Reverend William D. P. Bliss, he spoke at Cooper Union before what had been announced as "a peace meeting." The gathering included a number of rather boisterous Irishmen who aimed to turn it into a war meet-

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ing. The initial disorder was so great that the presiding officer doubted Abbott's ability to get a Hearing. Seeing that many of his auditors were laboring men, the Speaker appealed to them by arguing that there was more honor in a Workshop than in an armory. "The glory is in producing, not in destroying." Continuing, he pointed out that, if war came, poor men would have to do the fighting while speculators and politicians fattened. These remarks won applause from his converted audience.® The Outloo\ gave careful attention to the crisis and took a clear stand. It suggested that Christian and pacific souls should no longer content themselves with the delusion that the war fever would die out, but should by pen and voice endeavor to check the military passion before it involved the nation in "irretrievable calamity."^" Abbott believed the government would do much better to concern itself with the loss of American lives and property as a result of the Armenian massacres.^^ The Outloo\ campaigned throughout 1896 for public and private aid to the oppressed Christians in Turkey, collecting funds for relief work there. Three circumstances may explain Abbott's position in the Venezuelan episode. One was his Christian desire for peace, Another was his invariable readiness to find fault with a Democratic administration. Most important was the growing idea of Anglo-Saxon solidarity. A war with Great Britain would be like a civil war, the preacher asserted in his "Plea for Peace." " I join hands with Puritan England," he proclaimed, "for the conquest of the world—not by war, not by armed men—but by ideas, truth, rectitude, honor... ." America and England could "enwrap the world with liberty and fill it with peace." ^^ Anglophobia was "an unreasonable prejudice," said the Outloo\. England and the United States had one history, one faith, one language; they should be one in aim. Their common destiny was to give Christianity and democracy to all peoples. Whatever policy estranged these two nations was inimical to both; whoever inflamed hostility between them was "an enemy of the human race."^»

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In 1871 Abbott had applauded the Treaty o£ Washington because o£ its Provision for arbitration o£ the Alabama claims.^* When at the dose of the Century a general Anglo-American arbitration treaty was proposed, it received his active support. He himself wished to go further and set up a permanent Anglo-American arbitral tribunah^® He was greatly disappointed when the Olney-Pauncefote Treaty was rejected by the Senate in 1897. Düring the Spanish-American War he urged an Anglo-American understanding involving not only an arbitral board but also commercial reciprocity and a mutual defensive alliance. Such an arrangement, he thought, would bring economic, political, and moral advantages to both countries and to the rest of the world. Anglo-American leadership would carry with it "a tendency toward Christianity in the ethical spirit of the society created, and a tendency toward that energy, that intelligence, and that thrift which are the characteristics of the Anglo-Saxon race in the life promoted." Abbott believed that from the combination of these three elements—political liberty, Christian ethics, Anglo-Saxon energy—"what we call civilization proceeds."^® Abbott was interested not only in plans for Anglo-American justice but also in the movement for a general international court of arbitration. Such a tribunal was included in the Christian Union'% list of "What We Would Like to See in 1886."" The editor attended most of the annual conferences on international arbitration which the Smiley brothers inaugurated at their Lake Mohonk resort in 1895. Although he was unable to participate in the first one, where Edward Everett Haie made a notable speech on behalf of "A Permanent Tribunal," he was chairman of the business committee of the 1896 meeting. Endorsing Hale's proposal, he denounced increases in the armed forces as unnecessary and retrogressive. "The issue is between the animal and the spiritual," he asserted. "It is between the child of the tiger and the child of God. It is between reason and brüte force. It is the issue between Christianity and barbarism."" In his Christianity and Social Problems (1896) Abbott also urged

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the establishment of "a Supreme Court of Christendom." Christ's law for the settlement of controversies he found in Matthew 18: 15-17: Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and teil him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. A n d if he shall neglect to hear them, teil it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.

In the settlement o£ international disputes this meant first, diplomacy, second, mediation, third, an international tribunal. Christianity had already taken the bowie knife from the belt and the pistol from the hip pocket. The individual Citizen walked unarmed and addressed his complaints to an impartial court, trusting for protection to disinterested police. When Christianity had achieved its mission, nations would also go unarmed and would submit their causes to an international agency, trusting for protection to the cooperative power of all countries.^® While stating that Christianity and war were "absolutely inconsistent,"^® Abbott took pains to qualify his view in a paragraph which served as a loophole to justify his attitude toward both the Spanish-American War and the World War. Recalling that Christ had driven the traders from the Temple with a whip of cords and had defended his disciples from the Temple guard, he generalized as follows: Christ used force to defend others, but never to defend himself. T h e fundamental principle in Christ's teaching is this: Love may use force; selfishness may not. There is, says the Book of Revelation, a wrath of the Lamb. There is a combativeness of love which is legitimate. If a highwayman demands my purse, I may give it to him rather than take his life. But if he assaults my wife, or m y children, whom G o d hath put in m y keeping, that is another matter; then, if I do not defend those w h o m G o d has intrusted to m y defense, I shall be recreant and a coward.^^

Until March of 1898 the Outloo\ advocated a cautious, pacific course in the Cuban crisis. It opposed the Cameron resolution of

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December 1896, for recognizing the independence o£ Cuba.^^ It was "not inclined to take seriously" the suggestion that the sinking o£ the Maine on February 15, 1898 was due to an attack from without. This hypothesis was fathered by "the evil-minded journals which live by the sensations they produce, and which would not be unwilling to bring on a war, because then they could seil more extras." As late as March 5 Abbott's paper carried an editorial urging the public to "Wait!" for more and truer Information about the Maine disaster and about conditions in Cuba. On March 9 Congress appropriated $50,000,000 for national defense. Abbott took for his sermon topic at Plymouth Church March 13 the question "Is It Peace or War?" His text was Romans 12:18— "If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men." The time might come, said the preacher, when it would no longer lie in us to "live at quiet while murder is being done across our borders," The Bible stood for peace but not for peace at any price. Christ brought "not peace but a sword," and "when Christ puts the sword into our hands, we are not to refuse it." The Cuban atrocities had been going on long enough, Abbott feit; it was America's duty to demand their cessation. "I am not arguing for war," he assured his parishioners, "nor for national aggrandizement, but I am for this: that we as a nation share in the responsibility, not only for our own national affairs but for the order and peace of the whole world."^^ The next day William Randolph Hearst's war-hawking New York Journal ran a front-page spread reporting the sermon and picturing "Dr. Lyman Abbott who believes with the Journal that this country should free Cuba."^® Thus Abbott became a tool of the very sensational press which he constantly denounced in the columns of the Outloo\. He must also have been influenced, at least indirectly, by the atrocity stories which the World and the Journal had taken the lead in circulating. In the ensuing issue of the Outloo\ Abbott again considered the

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question "War or Peace." With the spirit that rejoiced in conflict for its own sake, that thought it necessary for the development o£ heroism and patriotism, he had no sympathy. War was a terrible evil, But there were worse evils. T h e United States might find herself obligated to put an end to "the horrible barbarism which is devastating Cuba." W h e n the President decided that the time had come to say, "This shall not go on," the pubHc would support him.^® Senator Redfield Proctor's report of March 17, detailing conditions in the island, further convinced Abbott that the nation should take a streng stand against the reconcentration policy, even at the risk o£ wär.^'^ About April i he went to Washington to confer with President McKinley, O n April 4 he led a meeting at Plymouth Church in discussion o£ the Cuban question. I, for one, shall trüst the President [he told his audience], sure that hc will not say "war" if war can be avoided, ready to follow him if he calls on US for that last and awful resort, and hoping and praying, as I believe he hopes and prays, that Cuban relief, Cuban succor, Cuban liberty, if not literally Cuban independence can be secured by pacific means."'

T h e next Outloo\ carried an editorial headed "Support the President," classifying public opinion in three groups. One extreme wanted peace regardless of conditions in Cuba, another welcomed war, while a middle group wished peace but recognized moral obligations which might make war necessary.^® Lyman Abbott belonged, as usual, with those in the center position. T h e war party won. Although Spain conceded American demands for an armistice in Cuba and for ceasing reconcentration, McKinley on April 11 recommended armed intervention. O n April 19, the anniversary of Lexington and Concord, Congress authorized the President to employ force to secure Cuban independence. The United States was going to war "with extreme reluctance," the Outloo\

insisted, "and with hatred of the barbarous method of

settling disputes deep in its heart." T h e country could dispense

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with "inflammatory oratory" and "the sordid ycllow journalism which welcomes the most appalling national disasters for the sake of selling extras."®® As the weeks passed," however, Abbott's heart warmed to the contest. "It is a Crusade of brotherhood," said the Outloo\ of May 7. "It is the answer of America to the question of its own conscience: Am I my brother's keeper?"®^ In two sermons Abbott explained to Plymouth Church "The Meaning of the War" and "The Duty and Destiny of America." It was not a campaign for revenge, he maintained, nor for territorial gain, nor for military and political glory. It was a struggle for Cuban liberty. America was playing the knight-errant. Mrs. Abbott was reported to have expressed her desire to have one of the populär sofa pillows covered with an American flag and embroidered with "1898." Her husband thought this and similar extravagances indicated "a true feeling of patriotism»82 The Outloo\ for 1898 consisted chiefly of war news. George Kennan covered the Cuban expedition in a series of special articles written at the front. The editor was not unaware of the material advantage of reporting the war completely and enthusiastically. The Independent, he told Hamilton W. Mabie, was a formidable competitor with a lower subscription price (two dollars a year compared with the Outloo](s three dollars) and a longer list of contributors. It might soon surpass the Outloo\ "unless and except we emphasize our leadership all along the line." The war and their attitude toward it, Abbott went on, had given a fresh impulse to that leadership.®' In December of 1898 the magazine reached a circulation of 100,000.®^ Outwardly it was becoming more and more secular as the years went by, though it continued to reflect the editor's moralistic point of view. The current specialization in periodicals, as in nearly everything eise, demanded that the paper become either an out-and-out religious organ or a journal of public opinion. It had already chosen the latter course. In 1899 the religious and home departments were

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discontinued, while the space devoted to a review of the week was proportionately enlarged. "Setting the Religious World oflE in a department by itself is not consistent with the spirit of this paper," Abbott argued. He considered religion "a Standard by which all life is to be measured, a principle by which all life is to be governed, a spirit by which all Hfe is to be imbued—the spirit of hope and faith and love."®® Shortly before the war the Outloo\ had made a significant change in format, taking on the appearance of a magazine rather than a newspaper, It had reduced its page size to octavo, making the first issue of each month (later the fourth) an "illustrated magazine number" of about 160 pages, while the other three or four issues of the month carried no illustrations and consisted of only 68 pages. Abbott's books appeared in serial form during succeeding years. Mabie wrote special articles on "Literary Worthies" and contributed his William Shakespeare, Poet, Dramatist, and Man, a major feature of 1900. Justin McCarthy's The Story of Gladstone's Life appeared in 1897, and Edward Everett Hale's James Russell Lowell and His Friends in 1898. The novels^ of lan Maclaren added to the magazine's literary appeal. While the Outloo](s support of the war may have boosted its general popularity, it greatly distressed many readers, and some protested. At least one remonstrant asked the eminent Christian editor how he reconciled his current position with his earlier Statement in Christianity and Social Problems that war and Christianity were "absolutely inconsistent." The Outloo\ replied: "Read all the chapter."®® The same issue contained two significant editorials. One upheld "the legitimacy and necessity of war in certain cases." The writer, probably Abbott, documented this conclusion by the example of Jesus who, " . . . when he found legalized robbery in the temple of God, did not propose arbitration, nor resort to 'the orderly process of diplomacy' but drove the robbers out by the terror of his presence. The whip of small cords was the symbol of the rightful use of force in a rightful cause." Again he set down his premise:

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"Love may use force; selfishness may not." The other editorial condemned war for economic gain. T o commence a war for humanity and end it by a demand for profit was "not consonant with honor." Hence the United States should ask no indemnity from bankrupt Spain.®^ "I cannot think that all war is wrong," Abbott told the Lake Mohonk Arbitration Conference in 1899. "I cannot think that the universal instinct of mankind plays false." War that emancipated, war that defended, might be "the very war o£ God Himself."3« Returning the Philippines to Spain was unthinkable, Lyman Abbott declared after Dewey's victory at Manila Bay. "We do not want more territory, but God does not permit a choice. Events are stronger than men. We have entered upon a new phase of our National hfe."®® The Outloo\ early advocated protectorates over Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines so that America might give them free schools, a "free" (that is, non-Catholic) church, and equal justice under law. The United States was to show forth "the new imperialism—the imperialism of liberty." It was now quite clear to him, Lyman Abbott wrote his brother Edward in August, that the policy of national Isolation should be replaced by a policy of participation in international aflairs. "And I believe the more clearly we see our new duties and the more courageously we enter upon them, the less will be our dangers and difficulties." ^^ The Outloo\ approved the Treaty of Paris but at first urged a disclaimer of Intention permanently to retain sovereignty over the Philippines. Then came the revolt led by Aguinaldo, whom the paper branded "a blackmailer, if not a bandit."^^ By the end of the year Abbott advised against promising independence to the Filipinos, who were so irritatingly unappreciative of the prospect of free schools and free churches. Reports of atrocities committed by American troops in the Philippines he was not inclined to take seriously; he was still supporting the administration policy, he assured President McKinley in May 1899.''® In the election of 1900 the Outloo\ supported the Republican candidates and the imperialist program.

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For a great republic to undertake the education o£ "a childlike people such as the Filipinos, help them organize their institutions o£ self-government, and guard them against assault, while the process is being carried on, both from within and from without," seemed to Abbott a "noble stage in the development of human brotherhood."^^ There was a distinction, he insisted, between liberty and independence; and the first was more important than the second. Canada was free though not independent, he argued, while Russia was independent but not free.^® Even optimistic Lyman Abbott began to wonder whether imperialism was wholly beneficent, however, when the Foraker Act of 1900 levied a tariff against Puerto Rican goods. As you know [he complained to Theodore Roosevelt], I am an expansionist, and have believed heartily that w e should take up the work of civilization in Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Philippines. On die whole I have feit that the Administration was dealing with the complex problem in a wise and success£ul w a y ; but I think the attempt to maintain the tarifl between Puerto Rico and the United States is a serious mistake, both of principle and policy."

Such discrimination was "clearly wrong, both ethically and politically." Either we ought to leave Puerto Rico to govern herseif and take her chances, or eise we ought to govern her in her own interest, not in Ours. H e had not yet been able to find any argument in favor of the tarifl except "the lame and impotent one that it is necessary to secure the support of protected interests." This issue had brought the country to the parting of the ways, "where we must decide whether expansion means the use of our National power to exploit governed communities for our benefit, or the use of National power to extend over our governed communities the privileges which freedom has given to us."^^ Roosevelt passed the letter on to Henry Cabot Lodge with the prudent comment: "I have not answered him because I shall keep out of the matter until I know more about it; and not give in then unless you say so!"*® In the OuÜoo\ Abbott attacked the administration for yielding to pressure of the tobacco, sugar, and fruit interests, calling the discriminatory tariflf "abso-

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lutely indefensible," and asked pointedly, "Shall conscience or commercialism rule?"^® Lyman Abbott defended British imperialism as readily as American. Though in earlier years he had been critical o£ Britain's colonial policy, hailing Gladstone's defeat of Disraeli in 1880 as a victory for the cause o£ justice and humanity over "national selfishness and love of aggrandizement,"®" by 1898 he took a more sympathetic view. The Outloo\ openly favored the British in the Boer War. Their notorious concentration camps in South Africa evoked only the mild comment that the representatives o£ Anglo-Saxon civilization were showing themselves "singularly deficient in chivalry."®^ Abbott refused to let such difficulties dampen his general enthusiasm for the civilizing mission of the Anglo-Saxons: I do not know whether General Kitchener has carried on his campaign with all the humanities with which it ought to be carried on. I do not know whether it has been justified in the details of administration or not. But this I know, that when his work is done, and the great railroad runs from Cairo to the Cape . . . the "Darkest Continent" will be dark no more. W h y not put the College first and the soldiers afterward? Because you cannot found a College unless you have a law to protect it; because first is law, and under law force, and, built on law and maintained by force the whole fabric of civilization rests."

It had been the judgment of the Outloo^ from the beginning, said an editorial regarding the end of the war, that the establishment of English sovereignty in South Africa would mean greater freedom for the Boers than they had previously enjoyed, the opening of another door of opportunity for the world at large, and the laying of the foundations of a great society in the wilderness.®® Through a course of Lowell Institute lectures in 1901, subsequently published as The Rights of Man, Abbott gave his expansionist views a systematic formulation. The five basic and inalienable rights of all men, he held, were the protection of person, property, reputation, family, and liberty.®^ Government had arisen from the need for mutual defense of these rights. Abbott took pains, however,

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to refute the principle o£ government by consent, branding the social contract theory as fiction and denying that populär approval necessarily meant a just administration. Napoleon's empire, he pointed out, was founded on a plebiscite giving him overwhelming public endorsement. In more recent times he would have had a new example in Hitler's Third Reich. T h e burning of Negroes in the South was no more a justifiable act because it was done by a massmeeting than if it were decreed in star chamber. Majorities could not make wrong right.®® T h e important thing, Lyman Abbott insisted, was not government by consent of the governed but government for the benefit of the governed. Applying this premise to imperialism, he declared that wherever "the Anglo-Saxon race" had gone in America, in Africa, in Asia, and in the South Seas, there persons, property, family, reputation, and liberty were safer than they had ever been before. He went on to question the right of a barbarian people to retain possession of any quarter of the globe. What he had already proclaimed in connection with the Indian problem during the i88o's he now reaffirmed with reference to the insular territories: Barbarism has no rights which civilization is bound to respect. Barbarians have rights which civilized people are bound to respect, but they have no right to their barbarism. A people do not own a continent because they roam through its forests, travel across its prairies, and hunt on its hillsides; no people own a continent unless they are using the continent. The World belongs to humanity, not to the men that happen to be in one quarter of the globe. And the people who are living in a place and not utilizing the place have no right to warn all other people ofl as trespassers. The dog has not a right to the manger, even if he is a barbaric dog and the ox is an AngloSaxon ox.'°

Apparently the preacher echoed President McKinley in regarding the Filipinos as "barbarians" who would have to be uplifted, civilized, and Christianized. Again misquoted, Abbott found himself the center of another newspaper storm. On the day after the lecture the Boston carried the following headline:

Herald

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BARBARIANS HA VE NO RIGHTS Dr. Abbott Denies Them the Land Christians May Want Says the Anglo-Saxon Ox Comes before the Dog of the Desert"

Widely circulated, this Version evoked violent denunciation of the eminent divine. Though he often ignored journalistic inaccuracies, here he feit obliged to make a correction, insisting he admitted the rights of barbariäns though not of barbarism. But the damage was done. The dog-in-the-manger analogy w^as infeUcitous because it led to the accusation that he had called our colonial subjects "barbaric dogs." Benjamin F . Trueblood, secretary of the American Peace Society, w^as reported to have charged a few^ days later that "a great tide of materialism, brutality, commerciaUsm and coarseness is passing over the civiHzed vi'orld at the present time, and in this vv^e find as prime movers, Bismarck, Cecil Rhodes, Dr. Lyman Abbott and Kiphng."®« Abbott summed up his imperialist theory in a letter to Edward W. Ordway, secretary of the Philippine Independence Committee, early in 1902. Whether a Community was prepared for democracy or not, he wrote, depended on whether it was sufEciendy advanced to exercise the fundamental functions of government by protecting the rights of person, property, reputation, and family. If it had not attained such development, then it would either remain in barbarism or would have to be governed by some stronger power which would prepare it for self-government.®® He opposed the movement for Philippine independence, believing that most Filipinos would be "eager to maintain their relation to the American people and share the benefits which American sovereignty has conferred on every people who have come under the protection of our flag."®® He demanded, however, that we fulfill our obligations to establish a just government, a democratic land system, universal education, and an ethical religion. The duty of the Federal administration to direct

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public schools in all the territories o£ the United States he persistently urged through the Outlool^ and at the Lake Mohonk Conferences o£ Friends o£ the Indian and other Dependent Peoples. He feit this work should be entrusted to the United States Commissioner of Education.®^ Trips to the West Indies in 1906 and 1909 convinced him that the Puerto Ricans, at least, were vastly better off under American rule than under Spanish rule. He marveled at what our representatives had done in so short a time to develop "just and equal laws, sanitary and economic advantages, populär education, and liberty founded thereon." "I am stirred to Indignation," he reported, "when I read in American newspapers political diatribes that accuse them and the Nation which they represent of imperialistic spirit and tendencies."®2 The anti-imperialists, Lyman Abbott charged, were isolationists. He himself believed that changes in the circumstances of the United States and of the rest of the world had rendered our traditional policy of no foreign entanglements inapplicable. The time had passed when America could go her own way indifJerent to other peoples. "We are entangled with all the nations of the globe," he wrote in 1898, "by commerce, by manufacture, by race and religious affiliations, by populär and political sympathies."®® The United States had come, he feit, to a conscioUsness of manhood and to a sense of the responsibilities of manhood. It was now obliged to take its place in the Community of nations and to assume its share in safeguarding the oppressed and promoting the universal welfare. Intervention on behalf of Cuba, adoption of the Filipinos, interest in international arbitration, Cooperation with our natural ally Great Britain, Hay's policy of the Open Door in China—all these the Outloo\ supported as instances of the maturing world position of the United States. Its editor saw clearly that the Spanish-American War marked a turning-point in our history. " W e can no rpore return to the old policy of Isolation," he said in bis Lowell lectures, "than we can return to be but thirteen colonies along the Atlantic coast."'^

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The Outloo\ once summarized Abbott's rosy view of the Spanish-American War by means of a clever parable, in which Uncle Sam was Walking down the street one day with a boy and a girl and saw a crowd o£ hoodlums maltreating a defenseless child. "Come on, Uncle Sam," said the boy, "you can thrash them. Go in and win!" "Come away, Uncle Sam," said the girl, "this is none of your business, and you will get hurt." Uncle Sam hesitated a moment, then rushed to the aid of the helpless one. His clothes were a little torn and he received a bloody nose, but otherwise he was unharmed. "What shall we do with him?" asked Uncle Sam. "Take him home with us," said the boy; "I want a fag to run my errands and black my boots." "Leave him alone," said the girl; "you have done enough in rescuing him. It is none of your business to provide for him now that you have set him free." "You are both wrong," said Uncle Sam; "I have not rescued him to make a fag of him, nor to leave him to fall again into the hands of the same hoodlums or another lot no better. I must see him provided with food, shelter, and education." "Are you going to take him home to live with US?" asked the girl. "Ah! that is another question," replied Uncle Sam. "But, Uncle Sam," added the girl, "look at your clothes; aren't you going to make the hoodlums buy you a new suit?" "No!" said Uncle Sam; "I can afiford to buy my own clothes."®® The providence of God, manifest destiny, the course of events, our own blunders, Abbott wrote on a later occasion, had put millions of people into our keeping. Was it nobler for us to turn them over to some other nation because we confessed our own incompetence ? To sail away from them because we mistrusted the itching of our own fingers ? Or was it better for those who had a conscience, who had patriotism and love of humanity, to say: "In the name of Almighty God, we will hold these people under our authority until we have developed in them a conscience and a reason which shall enable them to sail their own ship across the future seas"? There were those who said Americans could not be trusted to do so great a work; if we governed those Islands, we would rob their inhab-

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itants. "If I thought so meanly o£ my country as that," avowed Lyman Abbott, "I too would say, Let us sail away." ® ® Andrew Carnegie, arguing with him in a railroad Station about our Philippine policy, disagreed: " Y o u lie and you know you lie. T h e truth is not in you!"«^ It is possible that Abbott too readily identified American aims with divine aims and was too easily persuaded that Yankees were "an elect people o£ God" who were to be "a light to the nations of the World and a salvation £or all humanity."®® "The Anglo-Saxon race," he once wrote, perhaps under the influence of his friend Josiah Strong, was the noblest specimen o£ mankind, while the Puritan was the noblest specimen of the Anglo-Saxon race. America's intellectual leaders, he went on, were "of Puritan and Anglo-Saxon stock." Those who read the story of God in history as he read it could not view "the panorama of evolution from the Roman Empire to the American Republic, and doubt what God means to do for and with humanity, or doubt that he is doing it successfully on this continent."®® A n English visitor, hearing him preach in Boston in 1902, accused him of "outbursts of spread-eagleism" which made him appear as "a sort of cultivated W . R. Hearst."''" Like most of his contemporaries, as Professor Ralph H . Gabriel has made clear, the prominent clergyman-editor believed implicitly in the superiority of American institutions and in our mission to spread them to other lands. This confidence was intimately related, in Abbott's case, to the theory of Christian evolutionism. Evolution would not be complete until democracy and Christianity enveloped the globe. God—"the Infinite and Eternal Energy from which all things proceed"—was directing the course of events. So w e are a part of the great movements o£ history [he asserted]; we do not make them; they are made by a power greater than our own; we may call it manifest destiny, or Providence, or God—call it what we will, it exists. It is for US to understand, to interpret, and to conform our lives to its commands.'^

This Lyman Abbott attempted to do. Through the Outloo\ he tried to discern and make known the signs of the times.

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has called Theodore Roosevelt "a combination o£ St. Paul and St. Vitus." In his concern for righteousness, if not in his restless energy, he had much in common with Lyman Abbott, who became a member of his "kitchen cabinet."^ The Outloo\ followed the kaleidoscopic course of his administration with enthusiastic approval, almost invariably acclaiming his actions. "The Outlook could not do otherwise than support what are popularly known as the Roosevelt policies," Abbott declared, "without repudiating the political principles which it had been advocating for more than a score of years."^ The President, in turn, corresponded frequently with the editor and often conferred with him on questions of State. "I always want your advice," he vowed, "even though I am sometimes obliged to act differently from the way you advise me."® Abbott read many of Roosevelf's addresses before they were delivered. Conversely, Roosevelt contributed to the Outloo\ and, upon his retirement from the White House, joined its editorial staflF. He thoroughly sympathized with its high moral tone and remarked that it was the only journal the opinions of which he regularly noted.* In 1884 the Christian Union had hailed Roosevelt's rise in New York politics as an augury of triumphing civic honesty and good government.® The paper had also supported him for the governorship in 1898, and thereafter Abbott was in touch with him from time to time on various issues. Less than a month after his accession

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to the presidency, Roosevelt invited the editor to visit him at Washington in Order to go over "certain questions of my general policy." The resulting interview and the opportunity of meeting Roosevelt's cabinet gave him "a new pride in America, a new faith in Democracy." ® Lyman Abbott was particularly hopeful about the prospect of achieving "industrial democracy" under the new President, who borrowed this expression from the Outloo\. "If you do not object," he wrote the editors, "I am going to work into one of my speeches your admirable Httle thesis on adding democracy in industry to democracy in pohtical rights, education, and reUgion. You have exactly hit upon my purpose, but you phrase my purpose better than I have ever phrased it myself."'^ The President himself contributed a more picturesque term—the "square deal." The Ouüoo\ suggested compulsory arbitration as the ans wer to the questions dramatically raised in the great anthracite strike of 1902. It denounced the mine operators for their refusal to submit the dispute to an arbitral board. On October 5 Abbott personally urged the President to appoint a committee of nationally known men, unconnected with either side in the controversy and uncommitted by public utterance, if such could be found, to go to the coal fields, investigate conditions, and report their judgment on the issues involved. The miners could be asked to call off the strike in the meantime. Albert Shaw, editor of the Review of Reviews, concurred in these suggestions, which provided substantially the Solution adopted.® Lyman Abbott agreed with Theodore Roosevelt that the remedy for the trust problem was not extirpation but regulation. It was neither possible nor desirable to prohibit combinations whether of capital or labor, because the trend of evolution, "of the divine Order of human development," was toward larger and larger units. "The movement from individualism to organism," said an Outloo\ editorial, "is irresistible because it is beneficent." ® Both corporations and unions, however, should be held strictly accountable to the

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people through the Federal government. Commending an article setting forth these views, the President wrote his editor-friend that "though it sounds a bit demagogic for public utterance, we must make it definitely understood that the State is master of the Corporation and not the corporation the master of the State." The journal published a selection £rom Roosevelt's speeches under the title of "The Big Corporations Commonly Called Trusts." Abbott proposed laws prohibiting overcapitalization and requiring publicity regarding corporate finance as partial solutions to the evil in trusts.^^ He supported nearly all the regulatory legislation of the Progressive era—the Hepburn Rate Bill, the meat inspection and pure food acts, the measures for restricting child labor, and others. He also approved State laws providing for minimum wages and workmen's compensation, criticizing courts which held them unconstitutional. He recognized, furthermore, that regulation would not sufEce in all cases. Where combination meant monopoly or commercial despotism, it might have to be destroyed. The Outloo\, ordinarily not greatly interested in antitrust suits, upheld the dissolution of the Northern Securities holding Company in 1904. The magazine gave much attention to the industrial problem during these years. It carried several articles by Henry Demarest Lloyd before his death in 1903. Mrs. Lillian W . Betts, who conducted the home department in an earlier day, wrote on the evils of child labor. The editor himself belonged to the New York and National Child Labor Committees. The year 1906 brought a series of articles by John R. Commons and others on trade unionism, mining conditions, stockyard labor, the Australian labor movement, and the like. In 1911 Washington Gladden contributed a new series on labor and trade unions. Lyman Abbott gave systematic expression to his theory of industrial democracy in a course of lectures at the Philadelphia Divinity School, published in 1905 as The Industrial Problem. Hailing corporations and unions as desirable steps toward Organization, he

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declared that all attempts to revert to economic individualism were vain and wrong. T h e problem was not to destroy combinations but to make them servants of the people. Remedies for the evils of monopoly he divided into three types—political, economic, and ethical. T h e political Solution was regulation; the economic Solution was reorganization; the ethical Solution was regeneration.

More specifically he favored conservation, inheritance taxes, broader education, the development of profit-sharing, and the preaching of a social gospel. The number of stockholders and the number of employees of the Pennsylvania Railroad, he pointed out, were about the same. If the employees were the stockholders, the contest between tool owners and tool users would no longer exist; the tool users would be the tool owners. This he considered the ultimate industrial Solution of the labor problem.^^ Being a minister, Abbott naturally considered ethical regeneration the most important factor. The evils of society, he insisted, were inherent in the individuals making up society, and individuals would have to change before social evils would disappear. Only the transformation of life by a new moral spirit could radically alter economic conditions and bring industrial peace.^® That the preacher did not always practice his precepts appears from the contrast between a Statement in The Industrial Problem and his attitude in the "tainted money" controversy of the same year. Public opinion, he wrote in his theoretical discussion, should "pillory every man, however great his wealth, if it has been accumulated by dishonest, underhand, and corrupt methods."^^ In the spring of 1905 the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions announced that John D. Rockefeiler had donated $100,000 to the missionary cause. Later investigation revealed the Board had solicited the money. A group of liberal ministers, led by Washington Gladden, then moderator of the National Council of Congregational Churches, launched a vociferous protest, declaring that the funds thus bestowed had been iniquitously gained and that the Board could not accept them without becoming participants in the crime.

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If you persuade a man to invest one hundred thousand dollars o£ his capital in your business [Gladden argued], is he not, to all intents and purposes, a partner in your business? W i l l he not be, in his own eyes, and in yours, and in the eyes of the whole Community, associated with you in your business? A n d can the moral teachers of the Community afford thus to associate themselves with men w h o are setting the laws at defiance, and trampling on all the principles of justice and humanity in their ruthless spirit of gain?^°

Abbott, pursuing as usual a sweetly reasonable, common-sense approach, replied with a series o£ editorials defending acceptance of the Rockefeiler money. Refusal of such gifts would convert all boards of trustees into judicial tribunals passing judgment not merely on isolated acts, which was all any earthly court ever attempted to do, but on the totality of an individual's character, a judgment which no man was competent to pass upon any of his fellow men.^® Furthermore, it was unfair to make a scapegoat of the oil magnate. Gladden replied tartly: "It is not only my right, but my duty, and the duty of every American Citizen, to sit in judgment on Mr. Rockefeller and upon the thing which he represents." The Outloo]{, in turn, refused to "condemn his good deeds because of his evil deeds," and denied that receiving the money implied an endorsement of dishonest methods of gaining it or, as Gladden put it, a condition of "partnership with plunderers." Actually Lyman Abbott was quite charitable toward capitalists. "Where riches are used, loyally and personally, to render large and far-reaching service, beyond the power of ordinary men," the Outloo\ Said of Carnegie's benefactions, "there should be none so foolish as to object to the fortune or its possessor."^® Jesus did not condemn the accumulation of wealth, Abbott wrote in The Ethical Teachings of Jesus (1910), but only the making of wealth an end in itself, rather than using it for the benefit of society. The true principle was that he who was greatest should be the servant of all.^® The spirit of Service Abbott considered the essence of Christianity. Upton Sinclair, ardent muckraker and socialist, denounced this work as "the most ingenious and masterful exhibition of casuistical legerdemain" and "the most amazing piece of theological knavery" he had ever encountered.^®

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The Outloo\, conversely, frowned upon muckrakers. A reader inquired why it had ignored Thomas W. Lawson's articles on "Frenzied Finance." The latter's charges, it replied, were "so violent, so sweeping, so undiscriminating, and so irresponsible," that they could justly be said to give readers the Impression that all great financicrs and financial institutions were untrustworthy. The author was fanning the flames o£ class hatred. The Outloo\ called muckraking "a curious social and journalistic phenomenon."^^ Writing to Abbott in 1906, Roosevelt flayed "these make-believe reformers, these preachers of rabid hatred, these ranters against corruption and in favor of social reform, these socialists who preach the creed o£ envy."^^ The same year the magazine published Roosevelt's famous speech on "The Man with the Muck-Rake Although objecting to the more sensational exposes of the day, the OuÜoo\ itself in one or two cases played a muckraking role. George Kennan wrote a series of articles attacking Edward Addicks, the Republican boss of Delaware, for "Holding Up a State." Galling Roosevelt's attention to them, Abbott suggested that it would be better not only for the country but for the RepubHcan Party to have two Democratic Senators from Delaware rather than to have anyone elected with the taint of "Addicksism." The President, who had been much criticized for appointing a henchman of Addicks as United States attorney for Delaware, finally confessed: "The more I have studied what you have been instrumental in bringing to light in Delaware, the more I have been inclined, though reluctantly, to accept your view of Addicks." ^^ The Outloo\ again distressed Roosevelt by referring to his good friend Henry Cabot Lodge as a "boss," and the President feit called upon to write several letters defending the Massachusetts leader. The exigencies of party politics likewise account for another of the few instances in which the chief executive and the editor disagreed. While Abbott persistently urged him to work for tariff reduction, Roosevelt remained cautious; tariff tinkering was political dynamite. "I believe I shall be able to get tariflE revision, but I am not sure," he wrote; "and do remember that is primarily a legisla-

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tive function." While he would battle for better regulation of interstate commerce, which he regarded as "a matter of principle," he was not Willing to break with his party on the tariff, "a matter of expediency."^® The Outloo/^ also opposed ship subsidy bills, which Roosevelt favored, considering them reprehensible catering to special interests. On foreign issues, like domestic, the magazine generally championed "My Policies." It had earlier considered Nicaragua a more promising possibility than Panama for an isthmian canal, yet it steadfastly upheld the dubious transactions whereby Roosevelt secured the Panama route instead. "Of course all reports as to any present connection of the United States Government, directly or indirectly, with secession in Panama may be disregarded," it said lightly six weeks before the revolution of November 3, 1903.^® The Outloof^ chanted a hearty "amen" to the President's argument that American Intervention to prevent suppression of the uprising was justified by our treaty rights, our national interests, and the needs of the world. Observers with less faith, hope, and charity were more critical. Said the Reverend Newman Smyth of New Häven in regard to the Panama episode: "We are not to be satisfied with hypocritical explanations or pretenses, or with any such easy justification of it, superficial in reasoning and with large spaces in it vacant of facts, as has appeared in papers representing the religious sense of the Community, like The Outlook." ^^ Lyman Abbott was unmoved by such attacks. When, in 1914, President Wilson negotiated a treaty compensating Colombia for the loss of her province and expressing regret for our action, the Outloo\ opposed it as an "admission of wrong-doing never committed."^® At that time Roosevelt himself was one of the editors. The Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine and its application to the Dominican Republic in 1905 the Outloo\ called "absolutely just." We could not deny to others the right to intervene for the purpose of redressing grievances or punishing wrong unless

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we ourselves undertook to setde such matters. We should either abandon the Monroe Doctrine er assume the responsibilities which its maintenance involved.^® "What men have called the policy of imperialism, sustained as it is by an adequate naval force, if rightly directed," said Abbott's journal in connection with American interference in the RussoJapanese War, "can be made, as in this case it has been made, efEcacious for the world's peace."®" It was at Japan's request, Roosevelt confided to the editor, that he offered to mediate.®^ Both these men, hke the American people in general, favored the Japanese cause. Abbott adjudged the conflict one "between the twentieth Century and the sixteenth," in which absolutist Russia represented the forces of reaction.®^ George Kennan reported it for the Outlook^. The magazine followed the Russian revolution of 1905-06 with interest, predicting that "in the near future" a great political hurricane would sweep the steppes, uprooting the Czar.®® Abbott's interest in international arbitration, like the nation's, revived after the Spanish-American War. In 1903 he addressed the Lake Mohonk Conference on "Arbitration as an Ideal and its Präsent Limitations." The following year he took for his topic "The Work of the Individual in Promoting Arbitration," and in 1905 he asserted "The Power of the Government to Make a General Arbitration Treaty." Denouncing the Senate for emasculating the arbitration agreements which Hay had negotiated, Abbott declared, "The Senate has no constitutional power to amend a treaty."®^ Its refusal to agree to submit any dispute to the Hague Court without its approval in each case, said the Outloo\, transferred the United States from the vanguard to the rearguard of civilization. Its action was tantamount to a proclamation that in the twentieth Century this nation would adhere to nineteenth-century practices.®® "We have created the Tribunal," he told the Mohonk Conference in 1906; "the next step is to come to a universal international agreement to use the Tribunal."®® Lyman Abbott hoped that the Hague Conference of 1907 would frame a general arbitration treaty to

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which all the powers would subscribe. In case o£ diflerence of opinion on whether vital interests were at stake, the arbitrating board should have the right to decide whether or not this was true. Such was "The Next Step for Peace."®'^ Instead, the conferees contented themselves with adopting rules mitigating war horrors and endorsing the Drago doctrine, which held that debts owed by one nation to Citizens of another nation should not be collected by force. Abbott, nevertheless, did not concur with cynical commentators who spoke of "The Farce at The Hague," "The Peace Bubble," or "Posturing and Mouthing at The Hague." Always disposed to look for the silver lining, he held that the meeting would have been worth while even had it resulted only in an exchange of ideas.®® The OutlooJ(s stand in regard to the Japanese immigration crisis of 1907 was equivocal, It decried talk of war, yet argued that racial and economic factors justified Japanese exclusion. Abbott had by this time abandoned the principle of unrestricted immigration. A few subscribers protested. "What right have we," asked one, "to wall off a part of God's earth and say to others who need its opportunities worse than we do that they shall not come in?"®® Twentyfive years earlier the editor himself had used substantially the same logic in opposing Chinese exclusion. He had also scolded Indian and Filipino "barbarians" for attempting to wall off God's earth against advancing Anglo-Saxon civilization. It was the duty of the United States, advised the Outloo\ in 1908, to Support a navy adequate to protect our Citizens and to preserve the peace. Whether naval increases were necessary, the administration should be free to determine.^® " W e need to get rid, not of the implements of war," Abbott held, "but of the causes of war."^^ Weakness, not strength, would provoke aggression. From 1898 tp 1917 the Outloo\ was a persistent advocate of preparedness. In 1903 it carried a series of articles on the new navy written by John D . Long, who had been Secretary of the Navy from 1897 to Abbott refused to join the chorus of newspaper criticism at Roosevelt's sending the fleet around the world, considering the effects of this action wholly beneficent.^"

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The years from 1906 to 1908, which saw American relations with Japan dangerously strained, witnessed a notable instance of our benevolent policy toward China—the remission of almost half our share in the Boxer indemnity. In this commendable proceeding Lyman Abbott played at least a minor role. While various persons had suggested remission earlier, it was not until 1906 that the movement took concrete shape. In that year Dr. Arthur H. Smith, long a Congregational missionary to China and a loyal Outloo\ reader, was home on leave. He came to the editor's office to enlist his interest in a plan for releasing China from $12,000,000 of the indemnity on the understanding that she would use the money to send her young people to American Colleges. Abbott procured for him an interview with the President, who liked the idea.^® In June Secretary of State Root announced the intention of the United States to forgive the payment; in December Roosevelt asked Congress for authority to do so. By joint resolution on May 25, 1908, the indemnity was remitted, with no strings attached. China voluntarily decided to use the money for educational purposes.** Lyman Abbott's boundless admiration for Theodore Roosevelt and for progressive Republicanism found its most direct expression in the presidential elections of 1904, 1908, and, as will be seen later, 1912. On the whole he believed both in the policies and the personnel of the Republican Party, he wrote to Roosevelt during the campaign of 1904, while he distrusted the Democrats and could not feel sure that as a party they had any clearly defined and tenaciously held principles. In the Outloo\, however, he would give an Interpretation of the issues, only indirectly advocating the Republican cause. Through this "non-party attitude" he could more eflectively influence political independents, of whom probably no other journal in the country had so many among its readers.^® The issues, according to the Outloo\, were "individualistic democracy" versus strong government and isolationism versus assumption of our international responsibilities.^® Abbott dissented from the Republican tariff policy but pointed out that the Democrats had bungled reduction in 1894. Shortly before the clection he wrote a personal sketch of the

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President, in which he insisted that Roosevelt was "temperamentally an Anglo-Saxon" and thus "by temperament an evolutionist" or gradualist: "He has little respect £or the reformer who disregards the facts of life and expects to reform the world by a resolution. But he has less for the man who has no ambition to leave the World better than he finds it." Denying that the chief executive was impulsive, opportunistic, and bellicose, Abbott held that, as in the Panama episode, he was governed by "celerity o£ mental action, disregard of temporary consequences, and adherence to fundamental principles."^^ Roosevelt was not unappreciative of an admirer's glorification of his administration: Of all that has been said about me in this campaign [he wrote Abbott], I am inclined to prize most highly what is said about me in the Oudook of this week. Y o u have stated just my posidon as regards organized labor and organized capital; just my position as regards war and peace. In your personal sketch you gave my morives and actions in the Panama business just precisely as they were, and in better shape than I could possibly have given them myself."

Jacob Riis' Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen, which appeared serially in the Outloo\ for 1904, was also an eflective campaign contribution. The following year Abbott undertook to explain to readers of the Ladies' Home Journal "Why the President Is So Populär." Americans believed in "Teddy," he concluded, because of "his idealism, his courage, his self-control, his patient, practical temper, his democratic sympathies."^® Lyman Abbott hoped that Roosevelt would run again in 1908, and editorially he decried "The Third Term Bogie."®" He readily gave his support to Roosevelt's choice for the succession, William Howard Taft, declaring that "no candidate for the Presidency has ever been better prepared by temperament and training for that great office."®^ Although he invited Edward M. Shepard to write in his columns on behalf of the Democrats and James Graham Phelps Stokes for the Socialists, the editor under his own name urged subscribers to vote Republican.

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The "paramount issue," he asserted, was the moral one of whether the nation would continue Roosevelt's campaign against political corruption.®^ Notorious city machines were Democratic bulwarks, he pointed out. More specifically, he noted that the treasurer of the Democratic National Committee and Bryan's righthand man was Charles N. Haskell, first governor of Oklahoma. On a Visit to the new State shortly before the election, Abbott had learned that Oklahoma's professors and educators were much disturbed over Haskell's management of the school system, which they feit he was perverting to partisan ends.®® The Outloo\, nearly always a defender of academic freedom, gave considerable publicity to this Situation. In September Roosevelt managed to obtain documentary evidence reflecting adversely on Haskell's administration. This he submitted to the Outloo\. Lawrence Abbott replied: "How astonishing it all is! And if Mr. Bryan is elected president how is the country to be protected from the Haskellization of the diplomatic Service, the Interior Department, the Bureau of Corporations, the Commissioner of Education, etc., etc., etc. It is too deplorable to think o f ! " " There were other factors. The "fundamental issue," Abbott feit, was industrial democracy: "The party which overthrew slavery, or the ownership of the laborer by the capitalist, is on the way to abolish by peaceful measures the wages system, or the ownership of all the means of production by the capitalists."®® The Republicans also stood for strong government. Any who thought the greatest danger to the nation lay in Federal usurpation of power Abbott advised to vote for Bryan. "I think the peril lies in the other direction. . . Finally, there was the personal equation. The Democratic nominee was a man of "oratorical" rather than practical temperament and would not make a good administrator.®^ Theodore Roosevelt admired the Outloo\ no less than the Outloo\ admired him. "You know how I swear by the Outlook," he wrote the editor."® It is not surprising, then, that Lyman Abbott was able to persuade him to become a contributing editor upon his retire-

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ment from the presidency. In the summer of 1905, shortly after Roosevelt had announced that he would not run for a second elective term, the Abbotts began to wonder what "tireless Teddy" would do after leaving, at the age o£ fifty, the highest ofiice the republic could bestow. He was not a lawyer, as so many ex-presidents had been, nor was he interested in going into business. It appears that he hoped for the presidency of Harvard, his alma mater; instead, A. Lawrence Lowell feil heir to Eliot's mantle in 1909. Nothing came of suggestions that he become a Senator or mayor of New York. In the end journalism seemed to offer the best outlet for Roosevelt's talents. Being both a political leader and a man of letters, he was abundantly equipped for this sort of work.®® Abbott broached the matter to Roosevelt at the White House early in 1906, and the two discussed it several times during the course of that year and the next. In July of 1908 arrangements were completed. Roosevelt would become a "special contributing editor," under Obligation to supply twelve signed articles a year, at a salary of $12,000. He was to write exclusively for the Outloo\ on all current politico-social topics.®® On November 7 the magazine announced proudly that the retiring President would join its staff on March 5, 1909. Welcoming him officially in the number for March 6, Abbott wrote: Unconsciously co-operating, we have pursued a common end, which in the future w e shall pursue in conscious co-operation. Our object is to bring the industrial institutions of democracy into harmony with its political and educational institutions. Our resolve is that the money power in America, as its political and educational power, shall come from the people, be exercised for the people, and be controlled by the people. Our motto is, Special privilege for none, equality of opportunity for all.'^

Roosevelt replied with "Why I Believe in the Kind of American Journalism for Which the Outlook Stands." He praised its independence and its integrity; unlike other papers it was not used by men of wealth for sinister purposes, nor did it pander to the masses by sensation-mongering. Jt had shown "a fine scorn of untruth in every form, or unfairness and injustice to any man or any cause." It had stood

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£or righteousness but it had never been self-righteous. It emphasized things o£ the spirit but it remembered the needs of the body. It believed in lofty ideals but it knew that common sense was essential above all other qualities to the Idealist.®^ Certain elements of the public, however, were not convinced that the Outloo\ was independent. Rumor had it that Roosevelt had associated himself with a journal under the control of Standard Oil.®® The basis for this charge was the fact that James Stillman, President of the National City Bank and a dose associate of John D. Rockefeiler, held stock in the Outloo\ Company. As was noted earlier, Stillman and Lawson Valentine, neighbors of Lyman Abbott in Com wall, had aided him in purchasing the Christian Union from Henry Ward Beecher many years before. This was "a simple act of oldtime friendliness," Lawrence Abbott explained to Roosevelt. Stillman now owned less than 10 per cent of the company's stock, while those who were actively engaged in editing and publishing the magazine held 90 per cent. The powerful banker had never attended a stockholders' meeting, either in person or by proxy, nor had he ever intimated either approval or disapproval of its policies. That "journalistic prostitutes" should twist these facts was "an exasperating Illustration of the vicious side of American newspaper publishing."®^ Roosevelt replied: "I wanted very much to issue a Statement that if the Standard Oil really controlled The Outlook, I thought they must have experienced a change of heart when they hired me to write editorials for it."®® The former President did not, of course, resume active work with the magazine until after he completed his African and European tour of 1909-10. But before he left the White House he had prepared a number of articles which appeared in the Interim: "Socialism and Individualism," "National Character and the Characters of National Statesmen," "Quack Cure-alls for the Body Politic," "The Thraldom of Names," and "Give Me Neither Poverty nor Riehes." Because of a contract with Scribner's he was not able to contribute anything to the Ouiloo\ regarding his African experi-

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ences. Lawrence Abbott, however, met him when he emerged from the jungle at Khartoum in March 1910, and accompanied him as secretary for the rest o£ the trip.®® The Outloo\ had advance copies of the addresses he gave at the University o£ Berlin, the Sorbonne, and Oxford and distributed them to American press associations.®'^ The journal's circulation increased markedly in consequence of Roosevelt's connection with it. Now for the first time it appeared on the newsstands ®® Gaius Glenn Atkins recalls that the Outloo\ was likely to be found on the "center table" of respectable parlors in this period, "flanked by the Ladies' Home Journal, Robert Louis Stevenson's Essays and a novel by Edith Wharton." ®® For ten years, indeed, it had floated on the tidal wave of "Teddy's" immense popularity. Other features also contributed to the Outloo1(s appeal in the Roosevelt era. It carried three notable autobiographies in serial form during the years 1900 to 1902—Booker T. Washington's Up from Slavery, Jacob Riis' The Maring of an American, and Edward Everett Hale's Memories of a Hundred Years. Each magazine number included a short stdry, while other literary material, under Hamilton W. Mabie's direction, occupied an increasingly prominent place. Lyman Abbott continued occasionally to answer the queries of those perplexed by metaphysical questions, but the religious aspect was no longer paramount. These were great years for the Outloo\, years of prosperity, of influence, of respect—and of happiness for the editors: W e celebrated Christmas in good old Outlook fashion [Mabie wrote in 1910], and D r . Abbott's 75th birthday at the same time on Monday evening, H e is stepping lightly and radiantly along with a clear, strong mind, a beautiful spirit of peace and faith, and a gentleness and courtesy of manner which make him very dear to us. Mr. Roosevelt is great f u n ; a warm-hearted, aflectionate, companionable giant, who makes everybody that knows him his friend. . . . N o ofSce could be more interesting than ours, and none filled with a finer atmosphere of mutual devotion to the higher things of life.^°

Chapter Sixteen PREACHER

OFDIVINEIMMANENCE

I get my recreation by going jrom the editor's chair to the pulpit and from the pulpit to the editor's chair," Abbott wrote to Roosevelt in 1908. "And I hardly know which I enjoy the most."^ Retirement from the pastorate of Plymouth Church did not mean the end of his career as a preacher. Nor did the fact that the Outloo\ became increasingly secular mean that its editor was becoming less religious. Instead he expanded the activity as an itinerant College pastor which he had begun in the seventies. His editorial associates were always glad to relieve him of administrative details, which he left to them more and more as the years passed, so that he was free to preach or speak in public. The message he had developed for his Brooklyn flock he now carried personally to widely scattered parts of the country. In 1909 he estimated that during the preceding ten years he had given religious addresses to College audiences aggregating about 240,000, including probably 100,000 different students.® His preaching schedule during the session 1911—12, when he was seventy-five years old, may serve as an Illustration. In November he visited the campuses of Smith, Vanderbilt, Fisk, Wisconsin, and Yale and addressed a meeting of the New York State Teachers' Association at Albany. During December he preached three sermons in the Central Congregational Church of Boston and one, just before Christmas, at his old church in Cornwall. January brought several engagements in New York City, including an address for the annual meeting of the American Peace Society at the Hotel Astor, and two sermons at Cornell University. During most of

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February he was ill, and March he spent on a trip to Bermuda, but he preached both on the steamer and on the island. In April he spoke before the Hackley School at Tarrytown, New York, the University of Chicago, the Chicago Sunday Evening Club, and the Milwaukee Civic Club. May saw him at Vassar for two Sundays, June at the Hill School, and July back at Cornwall.® Düring the years 1889-1893, 1900-1902, and 1903-1909 he served on the board of preachers at Harvard, a group consisting of a chairman who had regulär charge of the University's religious services and five outstanding ministers from other centers. Each of the latter spent a month or six weeks in Cambridge, dividing his time into two periods, one before and one after Christmas. The visiting preacher conducted daily morning prayers in Appleton Chapel, vesper services on Thursdays and Sundays. Every weekday he held conference hours for students in the preacher's room in Wadsworth House. Some callers inquired the way to heaven and others to the bursar's oflSce, said Phillips Brooks, who served on the board for some time. Many came distressed by the impact of higher learning on their childhood faith. They raised theological questions for the most part, but they also discussed problems of conduct and vocation. Abbott often followed his talks with "question drawers," answering queries written out and submitted in anonymity. Contact with serious-minded young students convinced him that in a materialistic era an appreciable portion of American youth was still genuinely interested in things of the spirit.^ That Lyman Abbott should have appealed to College students is not surprising. His outlook was modern, his views generally clearheaded and broad-minded. Talking little of dogma, he welcomed a critical approach to religion and recognized that there was more faith in honest doubt than in half the creeds. Nor was his teaching sectarian in flavor; he drew his materials from the Bible and from representatives of modern learning, frequently quoting Spencer, Arnold, Tennyson, and Mill. Always speaking extemporaneously, he gave the Impression of an informal tete-ä-tete. "We were reason-

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ing together," recalled one who heard him at Harvard, "aided by a quiet assurance beyond reason—an assurance that glowed in his face and flowed perceptibly through his voice. It was a voice low-pitched, mellow, not carrying very far, but heard by all because all were closely attentive." His serene personality was a living testimony to the faith, hope, and love which he advocated. " H e did not need to recommend the religion he had acquired. What was the secret, we asked oursclves, of this mastery over the petty cares o£ a petty life?"® I wonder if you students in Harvard will understand me [Lyman Abbott Said quiedy from the pulpit of Appleton Chapel on the evening of December 18, 1904, his sixty-ninth birthday] w h e n I say that I no longer believe in a great first cause. To-morrow the newspapers will get hold of this and brand me as a heretic. M y G o d is a great and ever-present force, w h i c h is manifest in all the activities of man and all the workings of nature. I believe in a G o d w h o is in and through and of everything—not an absentee God, w h o m w e have to reach through a Bible, or a priest, or some other outside aid, but a G o d w h o is dose to us. Science, literature and history teil us that there is one eternal energy, that the Bible no longer can be accepted as ultimate, that many of its laws were copied from other religions, that the T e n Commandments did not spring spontaneously f r o m Moses, but were, like all laws, a gradual growth, and that m a n is a creature, not a creaüon.'

Thus, proclaimed the Boston Transcript, Dr. Abbott had broken away from orthodox theology and sounded the keynote of a new religion founded "not on the Bible, but on science and the outreachings of the human heart." Actually he had only presented a summary of the views he had been propagating for more than a decade. He had recently given virtually the same sermon at Wellesley College and at a meeting of the Congregational Council in Des Moines. But for some reason—^perhaps because of the prominence of the pulpit, perhaps by chance, or perhaps on account of the shocking effect of the Statement, "I no longer believe in a great first cause," when taken out of its context—this particular deliverance created a great sensation. T h e renowned Outloo\ editor and former pastor of Plymouth Church was reported throughout the country, in some papers with display headlines, to have espoused atheism.

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Interviewers and letter-writers swamped him. A book agent tried to seil him a complete set o£ Ingersoll's worksJ Public reaction was varied. Said the Reverend Minot J. Savage: "We Unitarians have been preaching just this sort of thing year in and year out." Universalists also claimed him. Religious conservatives, on the other hand, were vitriolic. "That is simply going back to Hinduism," charged a Methodist minister in Boston. The Reverend P. S. Henson of the Baptists' Tremont Temple called Abbott "the most extraordinary instance of retrogressive evolution I have ever known." He had turned himself inside out and was still turning. "When the last turn is complete I doubt if anything will be found inside." An Episcopal bishop in Chicago charged him with "renunciation of Christianity," while a Pittsburgh Presbyterian declared bluntly, "Lyman Abbott is an infidel."® Newspaper comment was, on the whole, favorable. The New York Tribüne and the Springfield Republican, among others, pointed out that Abbott was helping men to retain faith in God through adjusting conceptions o£ divinity to modern thought. Several papers, however, ridiculed his prediction that the press would brand him a heretic. "Either the venerable doctor of divinity misunderstands the importance of his own confession, or he misunderstands the interest of the newspaper in his up-to-date conclusion," sneered the New Häven Register. A pining to be made a heretic was "a sheer anachronism today," according to the New York Evening Post.^ It seems quite likely, however, that Lyman Abbott would have been tried for heresy if he had been a Presbyterian or an Episcopalian. Little more than a year later the Episcopalians suspended Dr. Algernon Crapsey from the pulpit because he had expressed doubt regarding the virgin birth.^" But Abbott was a Congregationalist, responsible to no one but his congregation, and at this time he was a Congregationalist without a congregation. Hence, as a New York Times editorial pointed out, he was subject only to the Constitution and the penal code, neither of which he had violated.^^

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Many thought Abbott's philosophy pantheistic, or at least inconsistent with belief in "a personal God." This he vehemently denied. True, the notion o£ an absentee God—an imperial Caesar sitting in the Center of the universe ruling the course o£ events—was gone. But science, history, and literature had brought a far grander conception. Science, personified by Herbert Spencer, taught that "we are ever in the presence of an Infinite and Eternal Energy from which all things proceed." History, speaking through Matthew Arnold, showed that "there is a Power not ourselves that makes for righteousness." Literature, represented by Tennyson, advised: "Spirit with Spirit can meet; closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands or feet." This Energy, this Power, this Spirit, was the Christian God, Abbott insisted.^^ Actually the idea of divine immanence, as opposed to divine transcendence, brought God nearer to men. This Lyman Abbott made clear in several devotional books which have had a wide appeal. The first of these was The Great Companion (1904). "It is because I believe that God is the Great Companion," the author declared, "that we are not left orphans, that we may have comradeship with him, that I have written these pages. Not to demonstrate any truth, but to give expression to a living, inspiring, dominating faith."^® One critic charged that the preacher believed God was as much with him as He had been with Abraham. The accusation was well-founded. God might be seen in all the common places and everyday experiences of life. "The secret and source of all life is God; he is over all and in all; in him we live and move and have our being."" Just as some men were blind to their physical surroundings, so many were blind to divinity. They had lost their spiritual vision through disuse or through reliance on creeds and rituals. Others could not find God because they refused to subject themselves to a superior will or because they wanted God only for the peace, joy, or prosperity He might give them here or hereafter. Finally, God was infinite, while we were finite. These were some of the hin-

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drances to cukivation of spiritual perceptions, Abbott wrote in Seef(ing After God (1910). Nevertheless, everyone might find God, for He was in all nature —the scientists were thinking the thoughts of God after Him, whether they knew it er not; in all humanity—every man was a child of God; in all history—"forgiving and redeeming"; in all human experience—"inspiring, uplifting, life-giving."^® Prayer Abbott defined as communion with the deity. It was not always asking for things, not always worshiping. It was an expression of gratitude and of readiness to receive life. Sometimes it was simply listening. "Listening to God is as truly prayer as speaking to Him," Abbott affirmed.^« Like the Transcendentalists, he replaced the older anthropomor; phic conception of God with the idea of a Universal Presence, animating all life as man's spirit animates his body and inspiring life as a father inspires his children or a teacher her pupils. That even youngsters might grasp this truth Abbott concluded when one of his grandchildren, sitting next to him at the table one day, asked him, "Grandfather, how can God be in Com wall and in Newburgh [a neighboring town] at the same time?" The great preacher touched him on the forehead and responded, "Are you there?" "Yes." Then on the Shoulder, "Are you there?" "Yes." And then on the knee, "Are you there?" "Yes." "That is the way," he continued, "that God can be in Com wall and in Newburgh at the same time."^'' While the child seemed readily to understand him, when he attempted to set forth this faith to older hearers, he found himself subjected to every kind of misapprehension and criticism. God dwelling in the body he topk as his subject for The Temple (1909). All one's faculties, he argued, should be subject to the soul. "The laws of health," he wrote, "are the laws of God." To know the laws of health—of body and of spirit, of the individual and of Society, of human life and the world we live in—this was the sum of all knowledge. To obey them was the whole of religion.^®

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Lyman Abbott's most populär book has been The Other Room (1903), a short volume in which he gave expression to his views on immortality. "The universe is God's house," he declared. "In his house are many rooms. Death is only pushing aside the portiere and passing from one room to another."^® He had long since repudiated the resurrection of the body, though he admitted that many passages in the Bible supported it and continued to hold that there was "ocular demonstration" o£ Christ's resurrection. "Death is the Separation of the soul from the body."^° The message of Jesus, Abbott feit, was one of a continuous spiritual life. "Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die." Immortal life was the life which pain, sickness, and death could not terminate—the life of faith, hope, and love. A fundamental postulate in Lyman Abbott's thinking was that we live in two worlds —the visible and the invisible, the material and the spiritual. The invisible world he considered the real, the important, the lasting one. "Burn the organ, music remains; burn the book, literature remains; burn the picture, beauty remains; burn the body, life remains." ^^ Abbott's interest was always in the spiritual. He remembered not the faces of his friends but their souls. "If I were an artist, I could not draw from memory even the most familiar and most loved face. But I could draw the lineaments of the spirit, and I often do,"^^ Visiting the Florentine gallery, he looked not at Raphael's "Madonna" but rather through it, at motherhood—^"its indomitable courage, its unconscious self-sacrifice, its strong gentleness, its peacegiving benediction."^® Immortality could not be demonstrated, like a problem from Euclid, on the blackboard. But then how could one prove the beauty of Beethoven's symphonies to one who never cared for music? Immortality, like God, had to be experienced. Faith in it did not come as a reasoned conclusion but as a habit of mind. Though skeptical in some ways, Lyman Abbott never doubted the survival of the soul. His mother had seemed scarcely less real after her death than before.

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The fictional characters o£ Dickens, the historical figures of Macaulay and Hume and the Red Histories, which he had read in his youth, provided him living companionship. Immortality, he made clear, did not depend on any theological opinion, or church connection, or mystical conversion. It was contingent simply ori the possession of life that was "more than merely animal, on a life that is faith or a vision of the invisible, hope or an aspiration for the future, and love or good will to others, and enough of this life to appreciate it in Him who is the supremest manifestation of it in human history."^^ Immortality was living the life that could not die because it was the life of the spirit. If one wished to possess such a life hereafter, he must possess it here and now. "If we live here and now the immortal life, then, if we are mistaken and there is no life after the grave, still we shall have been immortal."^® One should strive first to make his life worthy of being eternal. While of little significance in the literature of philosophy or theology, these volumes played an important role in modernizing and spiritualizing the religious notions of many. Gast in the simple, direct, and lucid prose which characterized most of Lyman Abbott's writing, yet expressed in sometimes poetic phrases, they won the hearts of thousands who no longer could be satisfied with old doctrines but were struggling to retain some semblance of piety. Their need of God led many to faith in divine immanence simply because no other faith seemed possible. And as Sabatier remarked, "man is incurably religious." If you are to succeed in the ministry [Abbott advised a beginning preacher] you must believe that God is in his world, comforting, strengthening, guiding, forgiving, cleansing, inspiring, upHfting man and working out through all the turmoil and confusion of life a Kingdom of God, which is righteousness, and peace, and joy in holiness of spirit; and that this—not the Ten Commandments or the Golden Rule, or the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount—must be the bürden of your message."*

Christianity, he contended, was more than a new theology, more

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than a new ethics. It was a new life, the secret o£ which was die perpetual presence o£ a great Personality, providing power for die practice of faith, hope, and love. This belief Abbott developed in The Christian Ministry (1905), a book growing out of the Lyman Beecher lectures on preaching which he gave at Yale in 1903 and the Earl lectures at the Pacific Theological Seminary in 1904. Lyman Abbott regarded as axiomatic Max Müller's definiüon of religion, which he frequendy quoted—"the percepdon of the Infinite under such manifestations as are able to influence the moral character of man." It was essential to have "a perception of the living God, not merely a conception of a theoretical God."^^ Religious liberals, Abbott was convinced, would retain the interest of the masses only by holding fast to the great evangelical doctrines of Inspiration, incarnation, atonement, and regeneration. Otherwise men would desert liberalism for fundamentalism, Romanism, or materialism. Whenever a minister forgot the age-old message of pardon, peace, and power derived from faith in Christ, whenever he substituted literary lectures, critical essays, sociological discussions, theological arguments, or even ethical interpretations of the universal conscience, he ceased to be a Christian minister. He should be much more than a moral reformer or a teacher of theology, Did an ailing person send for a doctor in order to be lectured on hygiene.? Similarly, did people go to church for a discourse on religion?^® They went to receive life. Christianity, the author concluded, was such a perception of the Infinite manifested in Jesus as tended to produce Christ-likeness of character; a Christian minister was one who, inspired by that perception, imparted "the fruits of the spirit" to his people.^® That Lyman Abbott himself enjoyed the peace and power which came from companionship with God is shown by the unusual serenity of his life. "Father is well and is bearing the shock with his characteristic calmness and spiritual strength," Lawrence Abbott wrote to President Roosevelt upon his mother's death.®" With their children Herbert and Beatrice the couple were vacationing in the

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Hartz Mountains o£ Germany when Mrs. Abbott died on July 20, 1907, after a brief attack of pneumonia. She was buried at Hildesheim She had shared the great ad venture with her husband for almost fifty years; in October they would have celebrated their golden anniversary. "With my life-Iong faith that death is only the Separation of the spirit from the body," Abbott wrote the next year, "I do not believe that she is lost to me and I like to think that she is not £ar absent

Chapter

Seventeen

THE NEW NATIONALISM VERSUS THE NEW FREEDOM Inotice

that—li\e the older German theologians—you are

winding up with political and social science. It is the natural outcome o£ genuine theological thought and study. What eise can it be but the New Jerusalem come down from God out of heaven?"^ Thus Theodore T . Munger wrote to Lyman Abbott in 1901. In his later years democracy itself became a kind of religion for Abbott and his fellow proponents of the "Social Gospel." It should be noted, however, that Lyman Abbott's Version of the American democratic faith was patterned after Theodore Roosevelt's "New Nationalism" rather than Woodrow Wilson's "New Freedom." In his political theory order took precedence over liberty. American democracy, he suggested, had two conflicting roots—the Puritan tradition of law and the French tradition of freedom. "One looked forward toward realizing the kingdom of God on the earth, the other sought to return to the State of nature." Social democracy was preferable to individualistic democracy, Abbott believed. The first involved government founded on the moral law and regarded as a divine organism to be carried on coöperatively for the common benefit; the latter was government founded on mutual consent, considered a necessary evil, confined in its functions to protection of person and property, and leaving each individual free to pursue his own interests regardless of his fellows. America's danger, he insisted, lay not in the centripetal but in the centrifugal force, not in too great but in too little cohesion. Only a strong State could cope

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with the two great foes o£ free institutions, "plutocracy and mobocracy, lawless wealth and lawless passion."^ Since he did not believe that a government resting on consent of the governed was necessarily a just government, he did not beheve in universal suflfrage. "Suffrage, or participation in the government, is not an end, it is only a means to an end," he declared in The Rights of Man; "it is not a right, it is only one means to the preservation of rights."® Thus he approved the Southern suffrage amendments and opposed the movement to confer the franchise on women. Long since having abandoned his Reconstruction concern for regenerating the South on a basis of racial eqüality, by 1900 Abbott was attempting to conciliate this section. The Outloo\ remarked that not least among compensations from the war with Spain was "the final obliteration of the traces of the civil strife, the final fusing together of all parts of the country into one indivisible Nation."^ A few years later, observing the centenary of Robert E. Lee's birth, this Northern journal which had originated under the direction of Henry Ward Beecher, an antislavery man, carried a cover picture and a series of articles relating to the Confederate leader. "In his harmonious and beautiful character," the Outloo\ eulogy said, "his stainless life, his true chivalry of nature, the Nation has a hero to place beside her greatest. . . Despite his changed viewpoint, Abbott's interest in Southern education again found reflection in this period. His brother Edward, on a visit to the Capon Springs Hotel in West Virginia, suggested that the proprietor call a conference to consider education in the South, especially for Negroes and the mountaineers, in the same way that the Smiley brothers had called the Indian conferences at Lake Mohonk. Out of these conclaves, beginning in 1898, grew the Southern Education Board and the philanthropic work of Robert C. Ogden. At the latter's invitation Lyman Abbott, with a group of about sixty other national leaders, made a tour of South Atlantic schools in 1901 and attended the education conference of that year in

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Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He returned with extremely charitable sentiments toward the South. Southerners, he reported, had less prejudice against the Negro and more interest in his welfare than Northerners. The South desired Negro education but feit, reahstically, that it should be industrial rather than hterary. Attempts to force either pohtical or social equality would inflict "incalculable injury" on the Negro and on the nation.® Two years later he gave the closing address at the sixth annual conference, held in Richmond. He took the occasion to defend the Southern suffrage amendments, asserting that "manhood suffrage means manhood first and suffrage afterwards" and that "no man has a right to govern his neighbor who has not the intelligence and conscience to govern himself."''^ A few months later, in a Fourth of July Speech at Montclair, New Jersey, he declared that "the African race" was "at present inferior to the Anglo-Saxon" and that equality before the law did not mean universal suffrage.® He reiterated his Position while speaking at Boston's Tremont Temple early in 1904. "Any man can vote, black or white," Abbott said, "if he can read the English language, owns $300 worth of property, and pays his poll tax. . . The new restrictions he considered an honest endeavor to limit the franchise to those who possessed the eminently desirable qualifications of intelligence, thrift, and patriotism. For these statements and similar ones in the Outloo{, Northerners sharply rebuked him, accusing him of trying to nullify all that had been gained by the Civil War. The Boston Transcript thought that Abbott was carrying Christian charity to "a dangerous extreme" when he refused to believe the real purpose of the disfranchisement laws, "notwithstanding the fact that the men who made them have broadly and with brutal frankness proclaimed it."^" His optimism had got the better of his judgment. The Boston Herald and others charged that he was playing into the hands of James K . Vardaman, "Pitchfork Ben" Tillman, and similar Negrophobes by his disinclination to recognize that the Southern laws

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excluded on the basis not of competence but o£ race. Abbott's determination to see no evil led him into what the Transcript called "cultured sophistry."^^ Qualified Negroes not allowed to vote, Abbott feit, should appeal to the State courts "and so to the conscience and sense of fairness in the people of the State." ^^ He opposed reduction of Southern representation in Congress in accordance with the Fourteenth Amendment, using the argument that this would be to recognize Negro disfranchisement as an accomplished fact.^^ Instead Congress should follow the example of the House of Commons by annulling every election, Northern or Southern, in which fraud or violence was used or any eligible voters excluded.^^ As in most reform programs, Lyman Abbott stood for gradualism in protection of the Negro. "It is generally wise to capture a hostile Position by a flank movement rather than by direct attack," he advised the impetuous Roosevelt.^® Hence he doubted the expediency of appointing a colored man to the collectorship of the port of Charleston, which he thought would do more to arouse race prejudice than to conquer it. Shortly before the election of 1904 Abbott suggested, as he had earlier, that the RepubUcans send a good stump Speaker into the South to "stand there vigorously for the principles of Abraham Lincoln" and to show that, still the principles of the Republican Party, they were not those of Garrison and Stevens.^® "The negro question can be setded by co-operation of the North with the South, by sympathy, by understanding," said an Outlook^ editorial; "it can never be settled in any other way."^'^ At Abbott's suggestion the President invited Edwin A. Alderman and other leaders of the New South to a conference at the White House early in 1905.^® Abbott decided that Booker T. Washington rather than W. E. B. Du Bois held the key to improving the Negro's lot. The Outloo\ urged Negroes to meditate not on The Souls of Blacl(^ Fol\ but on The Future of the American Negro. The militant Niagara Movement, which led to the formation of the N.A.A.C.P., would injure

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the colored man's cause: "The real leaders of the American negroes are not complaining; they are too busy inculcating habits of thrift, energy, and self-control among the people to whom they are proud to belong." Washington was a frequent contributor to the Outloo\ and "an adviser whose wisdom we often sought."^° Up from Slavery was planned in the Outloo\ office and first appeared in its pages. With Charles W . Eliot, Andrew Carnegie, Robert C. Ogden, H . B. Frissell, and others Abbott attended the notable twenty-fifth anniversary celebration of Tuskegee Institute in 1906. There, in a talk on "The Highest Education," he paid tribute to Booker T . Washington, the principal, and defended the idea of industrial rather than literary training for Negroes. "All education that is Worth anything is industrial education," he said. The highest education was the one which best fitted the individual for a useful life. "It is more noble to plow a field and furnish a crop which will feed hungry men, than to wield a pen and write a book that nobody reads."^^ The road to political reform, Abbott thought, lay not in any enlargement of the suffrage but rather in some restrictions upon it. "Possibly this is not populär doctrine; but to be true is better than to be populär." ^^ T o his mind the ballot was not a right but a duty, not a privilege but a bürden. Thus he could oppose extension of the vote to women. The weaker sex, he pointed out, had traditionally been exempt from political functions, which implied not only the task of deciding policy but also that of enforcement. "Ought woman to assume the responsibility for protecting person and property which in the past has been assumed by man as his responsibility alone?"^® If they were to vote, they would eventually have to render police and military Service. Suppose, he submitted, women passed a Prohibition law and men did not want to enforce it?^^ Until the majority of women were Willing to bear this bürden, it would be unfair to them and hazardous to the public to thrust it upon them. Abbott delighted to recall that when Massachusetts

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conducted a poll on the question in 1895, only four per cent o£ the women voted for enfranchisement; the rest eidier disapproved or were indifferent. Mrs. Abbott, who converted her husband from his youthful stand in favor of woman suffrage, served as president of the N e w York State Association Opposed to the Extension of Suffrage to Women. If they really wanted the vote, Abbott wrote to Roosevelt, he should favor extending it to them. "I do not believe that ten per cent of the women of the United States wish to ässume this new responsibiÜty," he averred in 1912, calling for a national referendum to prove his contention.^® In the last analysis, however, his main argument against the Innovation was the old stand-by: Woman's place is in the home. "Personally, I feel very strongly," he told Roosevelt, "that the movement to bring women into public life is a movement against that work in the home which you justly say is more important than any man's work."^® T h e Outloof^ had for years carried the subtitle " A Family Paper," For a time it displayed the motto, "Saving the Family Saves the Nation." His views on the position of women, their rights and their duties, Abbott developed in an article for House Builder

and Home,

a Practical Boo]{ (1896) and in The

The Home

(1908):

While the woman is not to be educated merely to be a good wife and mother, but to be a noble woman, nevertheless wifehood and mothcrhood are to be kept constantiy in mind by the parent and by the instructor, as the probable and normal destiny of woman, exactly as in the education of the young man it is to be kept in mind that he will naturally and normally become a husband and father—the bread-winner and defender of his wife and children. For the woman is the maker of the home, and the man its supporter and protector."

It was idle, Lyman Abbott feit, to talk about equality between men and women; they were different and were to serve difJerent functions. They should complement each other, not compete.^® Toward President T a f t the Outloo\ took a generally sympathetic attitude until early in 1912. While it condemned the standpat Republicanism represented by Senator Aldrich and Speaker Cannon,

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it hesitated to espouse the insurgent cause. Though it had favored downward revision, it gave the stamp o£ approval to the PayneAldrich Tariff, "by far the most enlightened protectionist measure ever enacted in the history o£ the country."^® Abbott had high hopes £or the Tariff Commission, an agency which he had advocated for many years. He also took a cautious, charitable stand in the Ballinger-Pinchot controversy, reaffirming the necessity for careful conservation work but refusing to pass immediate judgment on Taft's Secretary of the Interior. Finally, after a careful study of the Congressional hearings by Ernest H. Abbott, the Outloo\ reluctantly concluded that "the ethical Standards which Mr. Ballinger has adopted are not those which the American people in these days have a right to expect in their pubUc servants."®° The journal considered the term "dollar diplomacy" an unjust characterization of Secretary Knox's poUcy in China. Though dissatisfaction with Taft's administration was "not wholly without reason," the OuÜoo\ said in 1910, neither was it "wholly reasonable," since many constructive measures had been passed.®^ The Outloo\ asked all members of the party to unite on "the three great principles" of Republicanism: "National conservation of public wealth, National regulation of the great corporations, and National protection and promotion of American labor."®^ Roosevelt returned from Europe füll of enthusiasm for what, in a series of Outlook^ articles, he called "Nationalism and Progress" (republished as The New Nationalism). The central issue of the day, according to the OuÜoo\, was "Special Interests vs. Public Weifare." How could the people control the economic power concentrated in the hands of a financial oligarchy? Lyman Abbott continued to assert that the Solution lay not in "disorganization" but in regulation. "All big business is not bad business," he insisted.®® The post office was big but good. Sweatshops were small but bad. A business was evil when its products were harmful or its methods unethical. The editor summarized his views before the Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce on January 11, 1912. After showing that

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the trend of history was toward combination, he declared that it was not the size o£ corporations but their lawlessness which made them dangerous. He recommended Federal licensing and supervision o£ all corporations engaged in interstate commerce, stating his belief that the commerce power gave Congress the right to authorize the Bureau of Corporations to fix dividends, salaries, and even prices.®^ The Outloo\ welcomed the formation o£ the National Progressive Republican League in February 1911, "as a sign that in one of our great parties it is seen that Special Interests vs. the Public Weifare is the paramount issue."®® It refused, however, to endorse any presidential candidates until its famous contributing editor became again deeply involved in the political batde. Even as late as March 1912, after Roosevelt had announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination, an editorial declared that the paper would follow an impartial policy. "Do not let yourself be turned aside into talk about the personal fortunes of this man or that," said an article of April 13, "but keep your mind on this matter of principle."^® Abbott urged his colleague to avoid personal references and to make the issue between him and Taft one between "special privilege and populär rights."®^ Editoriais of April 27 and thereafter left no doubt that the Outloo\ favored Roosevelt over Taft for the Republican nomination on the grounds that he held more progressive principles. Likewise the Journal hailed the Organization of the Progressive Party as a justifiable revolt against boss rule. Thus the pressure of events forced the Outloo\ into the role of campaign organ. "The Roosevelt principles and The Outlook principles are the same," Abbott assured his friend, "and our loyalty to them and to you does not depend upon the events of a summer."®® In reply to a correspondent who asked why progressive Republicans should not vote for Wilson, a progressive Democrat, the Outloo\ declared it objected not to the character or ideals of the candidate but to the Democratic party Organization and party creed.

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It would have no traffic with corrupt city and State machines. It was unsympathetic with the methods proposed by the Democrats for dealing with great national problems—"methods o£ individualism, of disintegration, and o£ States' rights."®® Though it carried articles presenting the case of the Republicans, the Democrats, and the Sociahsts, editörially it stood clearly for the Progressives. Its editor had for years advocated most of the Progressive planks, except woman suffrage. In an open letter to doubtful voters shordy bcfore the election, he declared it safer to trust the new party than either of the old ones on the four basic issues: tarifJ reduction, labor legislation, business regulation, and the elimination of corruption.^" Defeat was a bitter blow not only to Theodore Roosevelt but to Lyman Abbott. Worst of all, it was a severe shock to the Outloo\. Thousands discontinued their subscriptions because the magazine had espoused a partisan cause. The Outloo1(s experiencc in 1912 demonstrated that a journal could not maintain the position and reputation of independence in an exciting political campaign if its stafi included a party leader. Roosevelt's name, of course, overshadowed that of the Outloo\, and nothing could prevent the Impression that the magazine was his personal and political mouthpiece. The press treated Roosevelt's Outloo\ oflSce as the Progressive headquarters. Seeing what was happening, the editor proposed that all names be taken off the paper and the Outloo\ be pubUshed as an impersonal journal. Lawrence Abbott thought that the change would be misunderstood and that, in any case, the hour of political defeat was not the right time for making it. It was finally agreed to keep all names on the masthead but to ask Roosevelt for his autobiography, vrhich replaced his political articles, while the editor began a series of "Letters to Unknown Friends" dealing with religious questions, in place of his political articles.^^ The Outloo\ featured these in 1913. It also carried Jacob Riis' "Life Stories of the Other Half" and a series of contributions. on Japan by Hamilton W. Mabie, who

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was delivering lectures at Japanese universities on "The American Spirit, Ideals, and Life." In 1914 Abbott's Reminiscences occupied a prominent place. While toning down the dement o£ political controversy, the journal continued to review current events and could not avoid comment on Wilson's administration, the domestic aspects of which it gave lukewarm approval. It praised the tariff reduction finally brought about by the Underwood law but expressed disappointment that the tariff board was discontinued. It also opposed the income tax feature of the act. The Federal Reserve banking legislation it greeted cordially. It gave only qualified support to the Clayton antitrust law but rejoiced in the establishment of the Federal Trade Commission, an agency for the regulation of business which Abbott had urged for some time. Wilson's first year in office, the Outloo\ admitted, had increased respect for his ability and his personality among members of his own party, his political opponents, and the country at large. The journal endorsed the La Follette Seamen's Act and favored passage of a Federal child labor law. It soon became impatient, however, with Wilson's foreign policy, in the Philippines, in Latin America, and in Europe. It argued that the Jones Bill would retard rather than advance the progress of the Filipinos. It followed the Mexican difEculties with much interest, sending Gregory Mason there as a special correspondent. In May of 1914, after the seizure of Vera Cruz, it suggested that the United States should occupy Mexico and "maintain an orderly and just government while, during a period which would at least last two or three generations, we are educating the people for self-government."^2 Many observers believed that Theodore Roosevelt dictated Outloo\ policy during these years. Actually he exercised only an indirect influence. Roosevelt's articles were always signed, and occasionally his opinions dififered from the journal's oflScial stand. An Outloo\ editorial, for instance, supported Taft's arbitration

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treaties while Roosevelt wrote in the same issue attacking them.^^ The magazine's editorial policy was determined in a weekly staff conference, where all members were free to express their opinions. In 1913 these included Lyman Abbott and his two sons Lawrence and Ernest, Hamilton W. Mabie, R. D . Townsend, Harold T . Pulsifer, Elbert Baldwin, Gregory Mason, Harold Howland, and Roosevelt. After füll discussion Abbott, the editor-in-chief, decided what was to be the paper's position and assigned the particular editorial to someone who favored that view. As Lincoln is said to have remarked of a Cabinet meeting, there were many voices but only one vote. Nationally known leaders frequently addressed the sta£E at luncheons which followed the weekly editorial conferences.^^ When the mid-term elections of 1914 drew near, the Outloo\ editors determined to run the risk of political connection no longer. In June of that year Roosevelt resigned, with the approval, if not at the suggestion, of the Abbotts, who hoped to regain their independence. The avowed purpose of the resignation was to enable Roosevelt to take a more active part in politics, especially to express Opposition to the Wilson administration. The President, he feit, had abandoned in foreign aflairs "the interest and honor of America," in domestic affairs "every sane eflort to secure the abatement of social and industrial evils."^® While Abbott had "undiminished affection" for Roosevelt, experience had demonstrated that no man could be both the leader of a great political party and an editor of an independent news magazine.^® "The alliance was formed upon a theory false in journalism and was fated from the beginning," George Harvey remarked shortly after Roosevelt and Abbott severed their editorial bonds. The ex-President had not profited from the use of a personal organ, and the OuÜoo\ had suflered irreparably. The editors, Harvey predicted, would strive earnestly to recoup their position, but their magazine could not escape bearing the stamp of Roosevelt's individuality for years to come.^''

Chapter Eighteen

THE CHRISTIAN RATIONALE OF WAR continuing impress of what George Harvey called Abbotis "obsession, his third cup of coflee"—the personality of Theodore Roosevelt—was evident in the Outloo}(s policy during the World War. Almost from the beginning the journal was critical of Wilsonian pacifism and of neutrality. It was an early and vociferous advocate of preparedness and of Intervention. The editor himself, directed by his passion for righteousness, undertook especially to persuade those troubled by religious scruples that the Allied cause was the cause of Christ. Though he had hoped that the growth of international arbitration promised an era of peace, Lyman Abbott was not completely surprised by the sudden opening of the European holocaust in the Summer of 1914. As early as 1889 the Christian Union had predicted disastrous results from the rise of German imperialism. In 1903 the Outloo\ again commented on the German threat to peace and insisted that the United States should have "an efficient navy as a police force."^ At the Lake Mohonk Conference on International Arbitration in 1909 Abbott referred to the trouble brewing between England and Germany. There he remarked incidentally that no question of right or wrong was involved and that war could never settle a matter of justice. "All that war can ever do or ever has done is to settle which of two powers is the most powerful."® No sooner had the war come, however, than Abbott drew the

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moral: "History will hold the German Emperor responsible for the war in Europe." Austria would never have made her indefensible attack on Serbia had she not been assured beforehand of German Support. Victory by the Central Powers would result in Teutonic domination of the Continent. Defeat of the Central Powers would give a fresh Impulse to self-government all over Europe. " W e regard the conflict as one not merely involving historic racial jealousies, but also as one of autocracy, intelligent, capable, and highly organized, against aspiring but imperfectly organized democracy." It was a "war against populär rights."' T w o weeks later came this Statement: "The Outlook believes that a Power greater than that of all the warring peoples is directing the purpose of the war. That purpose is the end of military autocracy in Europe."^ Abbott believed for a time that America could best serve the Allied cause by nonintervention. The violation of Belgium he considered a crime, but the Outloo\ recognized that "the Government is under obligation to maintain strict neutrality."® The sinking of the Lusitania convinced him that the nation must take its stand. "In such a crisis," he wrote the New York Times on May 9, "courage is a duty and timidity a crime; dread of war creates peril of war, and no decision is so bad as indecision." The United States should refuse fellowship to a country which slaughtered unarmed Citizens on the high seas.® The next issue of the Outloo\, dealing with "The Lusitania Massacre," called for the severing of diplomatic relations and the application of economic pressure. Lyman Abbott had long been an advocate of national armament. "Weakness is a terrible provocative of war," he had told the Lake Mohonk Conference in Enduring peace, he thought, was as yet a dream; peace without international justice was not even desirable. The N e w York Times praised him as "a courageous friend of peace" who had not let his zeal run away with his common sense and had not been led to confuse the world as it is with the World as it ought to be.® About the same time the American Peace Society removed his name from its list of honorary vice-

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presidcnts because he had signed a Navy League appeal for large naval appropriations.® In November 1914, the Outloo\ began a series o£ preparedness editorials. National defense w^as the editor's theme when he and Charles W. Eliot spoke at the annual meeting of the New England Society of New York on December 22, 1914. A few days after the Lusitania incident he joined General Horace Porter, Admiral Frank F. Fletcher, and Assistant Secretary o£ the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt in talks before a Navy League meeting, A month later he told members of the National Security League, which his son Lawrence had helped to form, that by their campaign for increased armament they served as "the best peace society in the United States." ^^ Alton B. Parker, Henry L . Stimson, Charles J. Bonaparte, and Jacob M. Dickinson spoke on the same occasion. The Outloo\ rejoiced at Bryan's resignation as Secretary of State, insisting that America must not put "peace before law, freedom, and righteousness."^^ To those who argued that war was hell, Abbott replied in the issue of June 30, 1915 with an editorial entitled "Worse than Hell." War was hell, he concededj but there were conditions which, if permitted, would be worse: "Crime unpunished, unrestrained, unprevented; criminals uncured; greed, cruelty, malice allowed to riot unchecked; purity and innocence unprotected from rapacity and lust; a universe given over to lawlessness." Worse than the War of 1812 would have been cowardly Submission to the British practice of impressment. Worse than the Civil War would have been acquiescence in the extension of slavery. Worse than the Spanish-American War would have been indiflerence to Weyler's barbarous regime in Cuba. "To consent to injustice, to leave the defenseless undefended, to submit in craven spirit to despotism, to flee from peril with duties unfulfilled—these are far too high a purchase price to pay for peace." If Lyman Abbott was thinking of war in 1915, he was also thinking of peace. He was a member of the national provisional

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committee of the League to Enforce Peace, founded in that year. For his commencement address at N e w York University in 1915, he took as his topic "International Brotherhood." H e advocated "an international security league," arguing that Austria would not have drawn her sword against Serbia i£ there had been an international Organization to call her to account.^® A t the twenty-second and final Mohonk Conference in 1916, outlining " T h e Pathway to Peace," he asserted: "Disarmament never has brought peace. It is not the abandonment of power, it is the transference of power from self-interest

to

impartial

and

disinterested

hands

that

brings

peace."" Addressing a great meeting in Philadelphia in May 1916, he declared: "If we used language with accuracy, we should not talk of a war in Europe. There is no war in Europe. There is a posse comitatus summoned from the various civilized nations of the world to protect the peaceable nations of Europe from the worst and most efficient brigandage the civilized world has seen." Germany, he charged, had looted or destroyed the treasures of France and Belgium, had murdered innocent thousands, and had "raped more women than were ever before mistreated in the history of warfare." Quoting the prediction in Genesis regarding the bruising of the serpent's head, he went on: " N o w the head of the serpent is erect; it is running out its forked tongue; its eyes are red with wrath; its very breath is poison." He seemed to grind his heel into the platform, one observer noted, as he completed the analogy: " W e have a difEcult task to get our heel on its head, but when we do, we will grind it to powder." They that take the sword, Christ had said, should perish by the sword. Not by earthquake, nor by pestilence, nor by thunderbolt, nor by any other "act of God," but by the sword in the hands of man. " W e have that sword given us by our Master, and we will not sheathe it until the predatory Potsdam gang has perished from the face of the earth." A t this ringing conclusion the vast audience rose and applauded wildly. T h e speaker's words were telegraphed throughout the country, and they constituted, his son

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Ernest thought, one of the most compelling speeches o£ the war period." The Outloo\ contended that national defense, not domestic reform, was the pohtical issue of 1916: "Shall our Citizens be protected abroad and our country protected at home?"^® Abbott favored Roosevelt over Hughes in the Republican primaries. In no case would he vote for Wilson, who "instead of touching the consciences of the people and arousing them to their duties" had devoted himself to "playing safe,"^'' Writing shordy before the election on "What I Would Have Done," he reproved the administration for its weak foreign policy. Listing principles almost wholly borrowed from Roosevelt, with whom he was still in dose touch, Abbott said he would have protested the violation of Belgian neutrality. He would have broken diplomatic relations after the husitania sinking. He would have called a conference of neutral powers to place an embargo on Germany. He would have sent an army to establish Order in Mexico.^® While in 1914 the Outloo\ had acknowledged that the Government was "under obligation to maintain strict neutrality," in 1916 it asserted that the United States had been "both legally and morally bound" to protest the invasion of Belgium.^® Abbott appeared at another great mass meeting at Carnegie Hall, New York, on March 5, 1917, the day of Wilson's second Inauguration. Much of the discussion on this occasion centered about the action of a small group of senators in filibustering a bill to arm American merchant ships, which Abbott branded "little short of treasonable." Gries of "Traitors!" and "Hang theml" resounded from the tumultuous aüdience. Resolutions were adopted calling on the President to use his existing authority to provide for the defense of the American merchant marine, an action taken shortly thereafter. "It is idle, it is worse than idle, to cry peace when there is no peace," the preacher-editor declared.^® "America has at last placed herseif where for months she has belonged," said the Ouiloo\ after the declaration of war in April

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1917. "President Wilson, the servant o£ the people, has obeyed the people's conscience."^^ The United States had recognized the duty of preserving not only her own territory and homes and prosperity but also those ideals of democracy and liberty for which the Allies stood. A few months earlier an Outloo\ editorial had effectively stated the Interventionist position: T h e militarist declares that necessity knows no law, and defends the violation of neutralized territory and the Invasion of an unoffending nation under the plea that the perpetration of such wrong is necessary to the power of the State. T h e pacifist deplores such injustice, Utters moral condemnation against the perpetrator of the wrong, but because resistance will mean a disturbance of the peace acquiesces in the wrong and permits, or at least does nothing to prevent, liie militarist's success. T h e justicist denies the truth of the militarist's philosophy, declines to join the pacifist in the triumph of that philosophy, and declares not only that the State should resist it, but that he himself, as far as in him lies, should do all that he can to thwart the militarist's aims, to prevent the pacifist from assisting the militarist, and to re-establish law, honor, and justice/'

Abbott's yoimgest son, Theodore, served with the A-EJ". in France and the Outloo\ foUowed the war with great interest. Arthur Bullard reported from the European battle zone, Gregory Mason from Russia, and Joseph H, Odell from American cantonments, from Washington, and from France. Ernest Abbott now handled most of the editorial work, but his father, over eighty, continued as editor-in-chief and contributed many articles. The latter's "Knoll Papers" (named for the home in Cornwall) were a regulär feature—essays dealing with religious and political questions suggested by letters of inquiry or books he was reading. Otherwise there was little religious discussion, and the magazine became almost wholly a journal of current history. Hamilton W. Mabie, who had directed the literary pages of the Outloo\ for almost forty years, died on the last day of 1916. Harold T. Pulsifer, a grandson of Lawson Valentine, who had aided Abbott in the early struggles, now took over the book department. In 1917 the "magazine number" idea was abandoned, and the page size again increased to

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quarto. "Illustrations o£ Current Events" now appeared in every issue, a rotogravure section of sixteen pages once a month. At the same time a new department, "Outline Study of Current History," was introduced. The magazine became populär as a textbook £or current events courses in schools and Colleges. Lyman Abbott's paramount role in the war effort was to rationalize it for persons, particularly those in the Christian fold, who questioned the wisdom of our participation. His views were most fully developed in The Ttventieth Century Crusade (1918), based on the thesis that "a Crusade to make this world a home in which God's children can live in peace and safety is more Christian than a Crusade to recover from pagans the tomb in which the body of Christ was buried."^^ Abbott considered American Intervention in the World War, as in the Cuban revolt, an instance of what Henry Drummond had called the struggle for others. He admitted that certain New Testament passages supported the conviction that Christ would have his followers forego their own rights rather than fight for them; but nothing Christ had said or done gave any Warrant for the notion that He would have His disciples refuse to protect those who were unable to prOtect themselves. W e cannot stand idly by [he argued], while a great nation, which for half a Century has been preparing for its crimes, enacts the part of a pirate on the sea and a brigand on the land, sinks peaceable merchant vessels without warning, destroys in mere wantonness churches, Hbraries, hospitals, enslaves unofEending men and rapes defenseless women."*

Jesus had come to "preach good tidings to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives, to set at liberty them that are b r u i s e d H o w could we preach deliverance to European prisoners and remain at home complacent in our own prosperity? Abbott could not understand how progressives could be horrified at overtime and underpay of laborers in the United States and yet look with indifference on the enslavement and deportation of Belgian workers. Neither could he agree with Tolstoy and others who concluded from the sayings of Jesus that it was wrong to use physical force

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in resisting the powers of darkness. He preferred to picture the manly Jesus who with a whip of small cords drove the money changers out of the Temple and who Struck down those who attempted to arrest his disciples. " I came not to send peace, but a sword." Not happiness, but righteousness was the end of life, Abbott believed. And was there any remission of sins without shedding of blood? The war was teaching the American people that the joy of self-sacrifice was greater than the joy of self-indulgence—and far more Christian. When had a nation ever shown so much of the spirit of love, Service, and self-denial as the American nation was showing today? As Christ had died to make men holy, American soldiers were dying to make men free. "This book affirmatively, I might almost say aggressively," Abbott wrote to Roosevelt, "contends that our participation in this world war primarily for the sake of the people whom most of us do not know, furnishes a striking evidence of the power of Christianity, and the extent with which its spirit has pervaded the nation."^® Lyman Abbott was not the only one who preached war in the name of the Prince of Peace. His successor in Plymouth pulpit, Newell Dwight Hillis, toured the country disseminating sensational atrocity stories. Theodore Roosevelt said that, if he got his commission, he would rather have Hillis as chaplain than any other man he knew. Henry van Dyke contributed the phrase "predatory Potsdam gang." Harry Emerson Fosdick, George A . Gordon, Shailer Mathews, John R . Mott, Francis G. Peabody, Cardinal Gibbons, and other leading clergymen loyally supported the war. Washington Gladden was hesitant and Walter Rauschenbusch was definitely pacifist, but neither was in the pulpit at this time, and the latter's influence was nullified by his German origins.^® For most church members national loyalty took precedence over loyalty to the world brotherhood of Christians. Only the traditionally pacifist Friends and a few minor sects held steadfastly to the cause of peace,^'^ The extent to which Abbott was caught up in the spirit of the times is also shown in his attitude toward the domestic issues of

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the war period, The Outloo\ declared that to ban German music was "not unreasonable."^® Columbia University's dismissal o£ pacifist instructors received approbation from this journal which, until now, had consistently stood for academic freedom. The paper also asserted that pacifists should have no right o£ assemblage. It upheld suppression o£ the Masses. It urged vigorous enforcement of the Espionage and Sedition Acts.^® The editor reluctantly consented to two other measures adopted under the stress of war which he had previously opposed. One was Prohibition. Through the years he had held that moral suasion and local option oflfered the best hope for abating the liquor evil. But in 1915, seeing the prohibitory movement gaining strength, he wrote: "If the people are compelled to choose between an unregulated liquor trafEc and the prohibition of the liquor traffic, I do not doubt that they will choose prohibition."®" Not a total abstainer himself, he was Willing to give up the use of all alcoholic beverages if abstention were necessary to eliminate the evils of excessive consumption. He was among those who secured local prohibition in Cornwall, where it seemed feasible. He did not believe, however, that men could be made good by law or that the American people were ready to enforce nation-wide prohibition. The Outloo\ urged that it be adopted as a war measure only, that constitutional restriction be postponed for peacetime consideration.®^ Furthermore, the magazine pointed out, Congress would have to pass not only the amendment but legislation to make it effective. Seidom irreconcilable, Abbott finally decided that it should be ratified and given a fair trial.®^ More surprising was his acquiescence in the Nineteenth Amendment. " I neither anticipate the benefits from woman suffrage for which its advocates hope, nor the evils from woman suffrage which some of its opponents fear," he wrote in October 1917.®' When the reform went through, he turned his attention to the question of how woman's function might be applied to her new duties. A n Outloo\ editorial issued this warning:

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Wherever woman sufirage is asked for and granted there is laid upon the women a duty of doing something more tiian drop a ballot in a box. It lays on them the duty of new lines o£ study, discussion, and thoüght. A million and three-quarters of uninformed and indifferent voters added to the polling lists of N e w Y o r k State would be a calamity. T h e addition of a million and threequarters of thoughtful, intelligent, and conscientious voters would be of inestimable value."

Addressing the Brooklyn Y.W.C.A. in March 1922, Abbott urged that women use their influence to achieve government for the sake of the governed, as the mother guides her children, not for her own sake but for theirs.®® When the war drew to a dose Lyman Abbott warned against a compromise treaty. "Personally, I neither expect peace nor wish for it," he had written Washington Gladden in 1915, "until the last German soldier has left Belgium, a country which German soldiers ought never to have entered."®® There could be no peace without victory, he insisted. With Theodore Roosevelt and sixteen others he attached his signature to a press release of the American Rights League in March 1918, expressing Opposition to any negotiation with "an unbeaten ancf unrepentant Germany," and urging prosecution of the war to "final victory."®'^ " T o Love Is T o Hate," he wrote in the Outloo\ two months later. He could not pray for the German war lords, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," because that was not true. They did know what they were doing. Had not Christ commanded US to love our enemies.? Yes, but He had not commanded us to love "God's enemies or those who treat His children with malignant cruelty." Abbott did not hate "the predatory Potsdam gang" because it was his enemy. He did not hate it for any evil it had done to him, but for what it had done to his "defenseless neighbor across the sea." "I hate it because it is a robber, a murderer, a destroyer of homes, a pillager of churches, a violator of women." This gang must be "so thoroughly overthrown and so humiliated in its overthrow that its members may hate themselves as the civilized world now hates them."'®

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T h e Kaiser, Abbott wrote, would stand judgment before H i m who condemned to everlasting destruction those who had neglected the poor, the hungry, the sick, the imprisoned. "I have no power to conceive what divine scorn and wrath he will confront who has spread over half a continent poverty, famine, disease, slavery, and death."^® Before men, an Outloof^ editorial suggested, he should be tried as a criminal. A judge who sentenced a criminal on a "trading basis" would be unfit for his post. " T h e only peace that is possible is one which the civilized world dictates upon terms to which the criminals submit."^" Thus Lyman Abbott anticipated the policy followed in the war crimes trials at Nuremberg after World War II, a generation later. Germany, he feit, should be deprived of the power to make war. Only then could the world hope for peace with her.'*^ Likewise Abbott believed that the Allies should "sternly demand reparation." N o cost, he said, would be too great for Germany to pay unless it was so great that she could not pay it. N o indemnity could give back to France "the noble monuments of past centuries so wantonly destroyed." ^^ Naturally enough, Abbott fiailed the Allied triumph in arms as a gift of God and the vindication of a just cause. "Our God is marching on," he wrote in August 1918. " H e who looks back only four years may find in those four years food for his doubts and discouragements, but he who looks back a hundred years must have a great genius for pessimism if he can doubt in what direction the unseen forces are carrying the human race."^® Three factors, he thought, had brought about the destruction of European absolutism: the folly of the autocrats, the courage of the armies of liberty, and the awakened aspirations of hitherto subject peoples. A l l had conspired together in the interests of a predestined end, and the result confirmed what Abbott had written in the first week of the war: W e do not undertake to Interpret the will or purpose of the Almighty. But we believe with Hegel that God has a plan, and that history is nothing but the working out of his plan in human aflairs. And we believe that the Austrian

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Prime Minister and the German Emperor have made a fatal mistake in leaving this truth out of their reckoning in this endeavor to destroy the great democratic movement in Europe."

T h e Outloo\

continued to find fault with Wilson. It attacked

him for asking the country to return a Democratic Congress. It thought he should have appointed two senators to the peace delegation, one from each party.^® Nevertheless, it supported the principle of international Organization, Wilson's primary concern, and criticized the Republican obstructionists. It opposed Knox

and

Lodge when they argued that consideration of the League should be deferred and should be separate from the treaty ratification.^® Early in 1919 it carried a series of editorials in behalf of international collaboration. The editor himself, anticipating the principle of the United Nations Security Council, suggested that the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, and possibly Japan be the core of the League. These five victorious powers, joining their energies, could guarantee the peace of the world. N o nation animated by a spirit of ill will could well set them at defiance.^'^ Isolation, the Outloo\ contended, was no longer possible for America. Cooperation in the maintenance of law, order, and justice was the only course, Ernest Abbott, who attended the peace conference, was somewhat critical of Wilson's plan, but nevertheless the Outloo\

en-

dorsed it. Lawrence Abbott put the matter this way: " T o say that we are for a League but against this League is useless. For if this League fails—and it will fail if the United States refuses to ratify it—it is highly doubtful if our children or our children's children will have the opportunity to form any League whatsoever."^® When Ernest returned from Paris, he had many conversations with his father about the Versailles project. In July 1919, the eider Abbott wrote that his son had enabled him to see the imperfections "and even the perils" in the proposed League, but he did not think the dangers to America or the world from our acceptance of the plan would be nearly so great as "the perils which would attend our

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attempt to go it alone."^® In the Outloo\ he urged ratification of this important step in the "divinely ordered" movement toward World brotherhood. He took pains, however, to charge that Wilson had negotiated the Covenant by "undemocratic methods" and that it was marred by "some serious defects and by some unfortunate ambiguities." He would be Willing, furthermore, to accept any reservations which competent authority assured him would not imperil its acceptance by other nations.®" In September he joined with some 250 other American leaders, including William Howard Taft, A. Lawrence Lowell, and Samuel Gompers, in a written appeal to the Senate to ratify the Treaty without delay or amendment.®^ Wilson's unwillingness to compromise with the Opposition resigned Abbott to rejection of the League. When a coalition of irreconcilable Rcpublicans and anti-reservationist Democrats voted down the Treaty in March 1920, Abbott became convinced that it would be impossible to secure any international agreement under Wilson's administration. Two months later he wrote an editorial urging a return to the McKinley-Roosevelt policy of "a Judicial, not a Diplomatie, League."®^ This change of front led several correspondents to write critical letters to the Outloo\. One charged that week by week it seemed to be accommodating itself more and more to "the Position of the Bourbons in the RepubUcan Party."®® Abbott summarized his later position in the issue of July 28: "I shall now use whatever influence I possess to secure a return of the country to the Hague plan of a parliament and a court to promote and facilitate peace without power to call into the field armies to enforce their decisions." It was the duty and desire of America to bear her share of civilization's bürden, he conceded, but America would never consent for other nations to determine what that share was.®^ "I am not interested in world peace," Abbott wrote in one of his last Outloo\ articles; "I am greatly interested in world justice." Justice was always to be desired, but peace was not. The world did not need an Organization to preserve peace with despotism and in-

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justice. Any international union with supreme power to enforce its authority would promote neither liberty nor justice, The world problem o£ the day, he said, was not how to unite all nations in "one international nation" but how, "carefully preserving the rights and liberties and interests o£ the several nations," they could be inspired to Protect one another's rights, regard one another's interests, and live harmoniously together.®® In the last analysis the Solution o£ any problem, for Lyman Abbott, was ethical and religious. Warren G. Harding received his vote in 1920. The 0«//oo^ vehemently denied Cox's allegation that "the Republican party is trying to buy the Presidency for the purpose o£ using the Government to the financial profit o£ special interests and £or the purpose o£ suppressing the workingmen with the bayonet."®® Its editor did not live long enough to see the charge partly substantiated or to regret his decision. He was voting for Harding, he explained shortly before the election, because he considered Wilson "an autocrat," because he disapproved Article Ten of the League Covenant, and because he thought the Republican Party held greater potentialitics for "constructive statesmanship." Harding's election would "save both America and Europe from the peril involved in a world military alliance, and will insure a judicial League, founded on an international conscience and an international public opinion."®'^ In recognition of his service to the Allied cause in the Great War, the President of the French Republic in March 1922 conferred the decoration of chevdier of the Legion of Honor upon "M. le Docteur Lyman Abbott, Citoyen Americain, fiditeur en Chef de la Revue 'l'Outlook.'" Receiving his badge at his ofiice from the hands of Gaston Liebert, French consul-general in New York, Abbott paid tribute to the common ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity inspiring the two republics, in defense of which they had stood together against the forces of tyranny.®® "The World War was worth all that it cost," the aging editor wrote the following month. If ever another attempt should be made to establish a world empire, whether by the Mongolian, the Slavic, the Teutonic, the Latin, or

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the Anglo-Saxon peoples, he hoped that it would meet a not less detcrmined resistance. Awful as was the tragedy of the World War, the tragedy of World Submission would have been greater. "Submission would have been degradation; and degradation is infinitely worse than death." ®®

Chapter Nineteen

THE OTHER

ROOM

I study less, reflect more; retire more within myself. Gradually my hold on this life lessens; my anticipation of the future life [grows] more vital. Can I not say that my delights are fewer, my contentment greater; my pleasures fewer, my happiness, if not greater at least more uniform? I used to take care of others; I am gradually learning to let others take care of m e /

Thus Lyman Abbott mused in January 1921, at the age of eightyfive. His health had been declining for several years. He returned from his fervent Philadelphia speech of 1916 with a bronchial ailment from which he never fully recovered. In July 1918, after a six weeks' illness, he resolved to limit himself to one Outloo\

article

per week and two speeches per month. H e was able, nevertheless, to summon strength enough for writing two readable autobiographical works supplementing his Reminiscences. One was a series of Outloo\ articles entitled "Snapshots of My Contemporaries," republished in 1921 as Silhouettes My

Contemporaries.

of

Here he set forth what he believed was

"the divine meaning" of the lives of John Greenleaf Whittier, Edwin Booth, Henry Ward Beecher, Booker T . Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, and eleven others. Some he had known personally, some only as a Student of current history from the Civil W a r to the World War. Conspicuously absent were Grover Cleveland, William Jennings Bryan, and Woodrow Wilson. Actually the sketches are more interesting for what they reveal of Lyman Abbott than of his more famous acquaintances. A l l were portraits of men who had "contributed something toward the progress which is making out of this world a better world—one of justice, liberty.

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and peace."® A m o n g those included was P. T . Barnum, who Abbott thought had done "nothing to degrade, something to elevate, and much to entertain his generation."® In What Christianity Means to Me; a Spiritual

Autobiography

the aged divine summarized his reHgious philosophy. "Christianity means to me," he wrote: A new spirit of love, Service, and sacrifice in humanity. A new and ever developing life in art, literature, music, philosophy, government, industry, worship. A relief from the heiavy bürden of remorse for past errors, Wunders, and sins. A n ever growing aspiration for die future and an ever increasing power toward achievement. Faith in ourseives and in our fellow men; in our infinite possibilities because in our infinite inheritance. Faith in the great enterprise in which God's loyal children are engaged, that of making a new world out of this old world, a faith which failure does not discourage nor death destroy, Faith in a Leader w h o both sets our task and shares it with us; the longer we follow him and work with him, the more worthy to be loved, trusted, and followed does he seem to us to be. Faith in a companionable God w h o m w e cannot understand, still less define, but with whom we can be acquainted, as a litde child is acquainted with his mysterious mother. Faith in our present possession of a deathless life of the spirit, which w e share with the Father of our spirits and our divinely appreciated leader.*

Such was the broad-spirited gospel Lyman Abbott had promulgated for more than a generation. Many people, however, were unable to appreciate the ethical and spiritual emphasis of his rehgious modernism, A decade before Abbott's death a great resurgence of reHgious conservatism had begun to sweep the United States. T h e fundamentaUst movement took shape in 1910 with the publication of The Fundamentals:

a Testimony to the Truth, which declared

the essential doctrines of Christianity to be the virgin birth, the resurrection, the inerrancy of Scripture, the vicarious atonement, and the second coming. A critical Outloo\ editorial repUed: "Love, Service, and sacrifice are the one fundamental of Christianity."® H e had

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no respect, Abbott wrote in 1913, for the attempt of men o£ his time to Interpret the enigmas of the books of Daniel and the Revelation, or in their endeavor to construct from the curious and uninteUigible symbols of those books the panorama of the future ® The kingdom of God would grow up gradually, not overnight. Those who were fighting with patience and heroism the age-old battle to make this World a better and a happier one, rather than those who despaired of any improvement until the return of Christ, were following the course which the Master would adviseJ Toward the famous revivahst of the war years, clownish "Billy" Sunday, Abbott was more sympathetic. "By their fruits ye shall know them," the Outloo\ recalled. What Mr. Sunday had imparted to thousands was not his mannerisms, his slang, his theology, or his intolerance, but his faith and the power to replace selfishness and self-indulgence with kindness and cleanness. Hearing him in person, Abbott was impressed by the "direct spirituality" and "intense vitality" of his preaching. He seemed to possess the life of God in his own soul and a remarkable power to inspire that life in the souls of others ® Düring the last years of Abbott's life Southern fundamentalists began to press for State laws forbidding the teaching of evolution in the schools. One of the editor's last articles dealt with such a proposal in Kentucky. Again he stated his belief that evolution was "God's way of doing things."® Unfortunately he did not live to join the battle over Tennessee's antievolution law, tested by the notorious Scopes trial in 1925. If he had lived, there is no doubt where he would have stood. The trial, however, showed that the message of Christian evolutionism which he had proclaimed over the years still had not reached large portions of the American population. Many agreed with William Jennings Bryan, who declared on this occasion, "If evolution wins in Dayton, Christianity goes."^^ Nor did Lyman Abbott survive long enough to have his comfortable edifice of evolutionary optimism shattered by the rüde

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blasts o£ postwar disillusionment. On October 22, 1922, he died at his apartment in N e w Y o r k City after a lingering respiratory attack/^ His four sons and two daughters were with him in the closing hours. "I have fought a good fight [he told them toward the end], I have finished my course, I have kept the faith." I have fought a good fight—though I have had defeats. I have finished my course—finished my course—though I have sometimes faltered and turned aside. And I have kept the faith—in spite of doubts and perplexiües—such doubts and perplexiües as everyone must have who rests his faith on things that are invisible.^" T o L y m a n Abbott the approach o£ death brought no qualms. It was but a stepping into "the other room." Always I have stood in the bow looking forward with hopeful anticipation to the life before me [he had written]. When the time comes for my embarkation, and the ropes are cast ofl and I put out to sea, I think I shall still be Standing in the bow and still looking forward with eager curiosity and glad hopefulness to the new world to which the unknown voyage will bring me.^' Funeral services, attended only by members o£ the family and a f e w intimate friends, were held at the N e w Y o r k residence, after which the body was laid at rest in the N e w Windsor cemetery, a short distance from Cornwall-on-Hudson.^^ A

great public me-

morial Service was held a week later at the Madison

Avenue

Presbyterian Church. T h e Reverend Henry Sloane Cofiin of this church, the Reverend Newell D w i g h t Hillis of Plymouth Church, and D r . Karl Reiland of St. George's were the speakers. Telegrams and letters of sympathy, füll of praise for the man and his work, came from scores of the nation's political and intellectual leaders. F r o m coast to coast newspaper editorials paid tribute. The Story of Dr. Abbott is one of the finest pages in the history of unselfish endeavor [said the New York Herald]. He worked unceasingly all his life that has just ended in its eighty-seventh year. So long as there was some new Spiritual Problem, some social question at which to direct the clear light of his mind, Lyman Abbott would not rest. But at last the strong hands are folded in sleep and the compelling voice is still. He was like a patriarch who had lingered because the people needed him.^°

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" T h e voice o£ the orator is hushed," said the Times,

"but the

influence o£ this prophet of man's brotherhood will be feit long beyond the years of his long life."^® T h e great editor's death marked the beginning of the end of the Outloof^. His son, Ernest Hamlin Abbott, who had been on the journal's staff for some twenty years, succeeded him as editorin-chief, and Harold T . Pulsifer became managing editor and President of the Publishing Company, succeeding Lawrence F , Abbott who retired to a contributing editorship. Perhaps because the new editor lacked his father's journalistic genius and could not command such a large personal following, perhaps because the magazine no longer appealed to religious circles and had new competitors in the field of weekly news commentary, its circulation declined

steadily

during

the twenties. In

1927 Francis

Rufus

Bellamy bought a Controlling interest, becoming editor as well as publisher but retaining members of the old stafl. T h e next year he acquired the Independent, look, and Independent.

calling the new periodical the Out-

T h u s Mr. Beecher's upstart paper absorbed

the older journal which he had abandoned and which in later years had continued to be the Outloo1(% chief competitor. In 1932, under new ownership and named the 'New Outloo\,

it was taken

Over by Alfred E . Smith, who after his failure to obtain the Democratic nomination feit the need of an organ for expressing his ideas on public affairs. N o t a literary man by nature, he soon tired of the task. In June 1935, the journal ceased publication.^'^

Moderation and mediation were the secrets of L y m a n Abbott's character. Said Theodore Roosevelt: Exactly as in his writings he stands fearlessly for the rights of the laboring man and yet is equally fearless in his denunciation of any kind of mob violence or of attack on property; exactly as he unsparingly assails every corrupt politician and yet avoids the pit of mere slanderous accusation against all men in public life; so in his private character he combines a good-natured evenness of temper with the power of flaming wrath against unrighteousness, insistence

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upon adherence to a high ideal widi ready recognition of die need o£ practical mediods in die achievement of diat ideal, and a serene and lofty hopefulness and belief in the future widi a keen appreciation of all that is low, base, cruel, evil, and dierefore mercilessly to be warred against in the present.^'

Iconoclasm had no place in his mentality. He had no sympathy with extremists and revolutionaries who turned with hatxed on all that had carried humanity to "its present hopeful oudook." How carefully would the true reformer pick his way forward, said one editorial, "like a cat among broken bottles, avoiding the disturbance o£ what is good, rejoicing at every sort of success noted as he passes along, hunting out a path, circuitous perhaps, yet practicable, for his own particular plan of improvement!"^® Such a leader would find no cause for exultation in the discovery of an ancient error. If his own scheme proved unworkable, he would not rage at the barriers but would ofler his helpful Shoulder to whatever eise was moving toward the general good. An evolutionist, the Outloo\ declared, beheved that all progress was rooted in the past but grew toward the future. He diflered from the radical because he would not separate himself from the past, from the reactionary because he would not anchor to the past.^° Abbott generally sided neither with the radicals nor with the reactionaries, but with the progressives. He was an evolutionist but not a Darwinian, a religious liberal but not an agnostic, an antislavery man but not an abolitionist, a temperance advocate but not a prohibitionist, an industrial democrat but not a socialist. His mediating temperament bore particularly good fruit in his religious teaching. Men do not give up false or inadequate beliefs by hearing them scoffed at but rather by the attraction of a truer view. Abbott was a master of the Hegelian technique of synthesizing thesis and antithesis. "This," he would say, "is one position, that is the contrary position, and here is the true and reconciling Position." In theology he was a "rationalistic mystic," in politics a "conservative radical." The middle road had the disadvantage, of course, of vulnerability to criticism from both right and left.

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Lyman Abbott possessed an extraordinary ability to see which way the wind was blowing, and he seldom attempted to beat against it. He was always more interested in what was going to happen tomorrow than in what had happened yesterday. For several years the Christian Union bore on its masthead a motto borrowed from Emerson, "Our part is to conspire with the new works o£ new days." Even when he disagreed with what was considered the "progressive step," as in the adoption of woman suffrage and of Prohibition, he was unwilling to be an obstructionist. Many observers accused him of inconsistency, They could not understand how he could defend one year what he had opposed the year before. They could not make the distinction he made between opinion and conviction, between consistency and constancy. If consistency— Said to be the characteristic o£ small minds—meant stubborn adherence to what he found to be false, he was Willing to be inconsistent. He kept his mind always open to new evidence and was unafraid in the search for truth. His opinions on religion and politics never crystallized; they remained fluid, capable of adjustment to changing conditions of knowledge and of life. Though receptive to new ideas, he maintained certain fundamental convictions which provided him with basic repose and exceptional serenity of spirit. Though he questioned at one time or another nearly every article in the creeds, he never doubted the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, and the final triumph of the right. "I have thrown out in my life those four anchors," he afErmed, "—my faith in goodness, my faith in the possibility o£ men's accömplishment of goodness, my faith in Jesus Christ as the ideal of goodness, and my faith in the divine helpfulness in the world to help me to goodness." ^^ He was sure that God governed the World and that the working of His government and the carrying out of His plan was the history of the world. "And I believe—^believe? oh, I am sure of it, sure of it—that there is One higher than the highest, and greater than the greatest, and wiser than the wisest, and better than the best, who is working out this world destiny.

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A n d I — I do the little I can do, and leave the rest to God."^^ This faith endowed him with boundless hope. T h e universal and steady trend of the civilized World during the preceding Century, the Outloo\

declared in 1900, had been toward liberty, equality, and

fraternity. A review of the century's achievements in science, education, theology, ethics, politics, industry, literature, and the arts Abbott found "inspiring as an indication of the progress of the race towards its ultimate goal."^® T h e sun still shone, ran an editorial of 1915: T h e law of evolution is still on the statute-books o£ the universe. T h e human race falls d o w n occasionally, bruises itself, and weeps some bitter tears, but it picks itself up and goes on Walking, and persistendy in the right direction. T h e world is a better world to live in than it was fifty years ago. W e are still c h e e r f u l . "

"My eighty years of experience," Abbott wrote shortly before his death, "show me that we are progressing. If, for example, we could solve the slavery problem in 1860 we shall be able to solve the labor Problem in 1920."^® Abbott's "outlook" is a conspicuous example of the trend of thought in the period which V a n W y c k Brooks has recently labeled The

Confident

Years:

L y m a n Abbott's trust in man matched his belief in G o d and in progress. H i s charity equaled his faith and hope. "I am temperamentally inclined to look for the best in my fellow-men, a temperament I have deliberately cultivated," he admitted; "and w e generally see what we look for."^^ H e performed an especially fine work in promoting religious tolerance. H e was among those w h o took issue with the virulent anti-Catholic movement which found expression in the American Protective Association in the 1890's. "I would rather combat the intolerance of the nineteenth Century," he averred, "than combat the intolerance of the dead Popes of the fifteenth Century."^® Within a single year the Christian

Union

paid

tribute to both the Salvation A r m y and the Ethical Culture movement. "These Agnostics," said an editorial on Felix Adler and his associates, "are bringing men to God, though they confess that they

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know not God. For they are bringing men to love, and God is At the time of Ingersoll's death in 1899 the Outloof{^ dealt understandingly i£ not sympathetically with his attack on conventional Christianity. His was a natural reaction to the narrowness, obscurantism, and bigotry of religious orthodoxy.®" In the same year Dwight L. Moody received obituary praise from the magazine. "There is a mysterious incHnation in all schools to judge religious teachers by their theological opinions." Of this Abbott thoroughly disapproved; by their works should they be known.^^ When someone asked him the best way to fight Christian Science, he suggested teaching its good points—the spiritual nature of man, the immediacy of the soul's knowledge of the spiritual, and the curative power of Christianity. Mrs. Annie Besant expounded theosophy in the Outloo](s pages. "We have and have had and will continue to have particular churchmen," said Karl Reiland, "but except Dr, Abbott, I cannot think of any one who might justly be called a general churchman, for I believe that most of all he belonged to the church of God in Jesus Christ,"®^ Besides the promotion of "Christian union," Lyman Abbott performed in greater or lesser degree three other notable services for American Christianity. He persuaded thousands that science was not incompatible with religion. He was among those who infused a new ethical tone into theology, emphasizing the relation of religion to social Problems. He awakened church people to America's international obligations in a period when the nation had not outgrown isolationism. Lawson Valentine, who supported the Christian Union financially in the early days, wrote to Abbott in 1883 expressing the hope that his friend the editor would "complete the Interpretation of the Bible and set forth the good and the light that is in it for the people of this generation, and do a kindred work in 1884 to what Luther was doing four hundred years ago,"®® While no one could claim that Lyman Abbott's place in history is equal to Martin Luther's,

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he did play a significant part in showing many that science and thc higher criticism, far from demolishing religion, purified and strengdiened it. While some abandoned rehgion entirely and others closed their eyes to modern science, there was a middle group who saw the values in both. T o them Abbott was a guide and a pillar.®* In the work o£ propagating the evolutionary view of religion and the hterary view o£ the Bible Abbott was more a popularizer than an original thinker. H e had a remarkable talent £or bridging the gap between the aristocracy of the mind and the thought of the masses. His role in intellectual history was more that of {in electric wire than that of a generating dynamo. He made no profession to great learning and was never handicapped by being a specialist. "I have never been able," he confessed, "to keep up with modern scientific development. A l l that I have done is to accept the conclusions of the experts in biology and kindred sciences and then apply them in the spiritual, political and moral realm with which I ought to have some familiarity."®® Much of his knowledge was superficial. Many of his answers were evasive. Of the Gospel account of the virgin birth, for instance, he wrote: "Men of mystical temper are inclined to accept the narrative, men of scientific temper are inclined to reject it, and men of temper like my own, in which the mystical and the scientific combine, are inclined to leave the question undetermined as of no serious importance."®® H e repudiated the substance of many traditional doctrines, such as the divinity of Christ, without admitting it. But this cautious way of putting things, together with the remarkable clarity, force, and beauty of his style, accounts for his wide hearing. A historian of the liberal movement in American theology has written of him: "His mission—a vital and valuable one—has been, above that of any other American writer perhaps, that of Interpreter, popularizer (in the best sense), and promulgator of the newer theology. For this he has shown rare gifts and the most indefatigable zeal."®'^ Modern society oflered no less a challenge to religion than

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modern science, and in this field too Lyman Abbott was a prominent mediator. One of his greatest serviccs was to emphasize the ethical and Spiritual aspects of religion over the ceremonial and theological. Salvation, he insisted, was not a crown, a robe, and a harp, but character. Heaven was purity, truth, and love. N o man could get into heaven unless heaven got into him. Faith in Christ implied not the opinion that He was miraculously born, or that He rose from the dead, or that He was the Son of God and the Messiah of the World; rather it meant a desire to follow His example of love, Service, and sacrifice. " T o be Christ-like is to be saved," said an Outlook^ editorial of 1903; "to be un-Christlike is to be lost. Goodness is heaven; wickedness is hell."®® There was no religion which was not ethical, Abbott told Plymouth Church on its fiftieth anniversary.®® About the same time he declared, "I do not see why an agnostic cannot enter the kingdom of heaven."^" Deed, not creed, was the test. Believing that it was "as infidel to deny the brotherhood of man as to deny the Fatherhood of God," Lyman Abbott feit the first infidelity was far more common in this country than the second.'*^ He early became convinced that Christian principles must rule in every realm of life. On Christian grounds he attacked the Institution of slavery, took part in eflforts to improve the lot of Negroes, urged that steps be taken to democratize wealth, demanded that Indians be given the rights of Citizens, interested himself in international brotherhood, and dealt with the other great social problems of his day. Especially notable is his early perception of America's international obligations as a world power. Although an imperialist, he insisted that our colonial rule be an unselfish tutelage designed for the benefit of the governed. In his old age he saw that the United States must take its stand for the preservation of order, liberty, and justice wherever these goals were threatened. Always maintaining a sweetly reasonable attitude, he never became a fanatic. "Some times when I feel particularly depressed by the seeming unwilling-

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ness o£ good people to have good sense," Shailer Mathews told him, "I think o£ what you have been able to accomplish in Building up a leaven o£ steady thinking souls and I take courage."^^ To measure his influence either quantitatively or quaUtatively would be impossible, for in most cases it was intangible. One could, however, gather testimonials by the dozen. "There are very many today," wrote one of his followers on the occasion of his retirement from the pulpit, "both in Plymouth Church and out, who hang on Dr. Abbott's utterances as I do, and regard him as the very breath o£ Spiritual li£e."^® As minister, lecturer, author, and editor, he regularly reached direcdy several hundred thousands o£ people. Many other preachers and writers took their cues £rom him and thus his teaching radiated in an ever-widening circle. The sales of his books averaged between five and ten thousand each, o£ the look^ at its height about 125,000 copies a week. Probably no other man influenced so many students as a visiting College preacher. He was singularly fitted to help the younger generation in their search for ethical and religious truth because o£ his own open-mindedness and freedom from prejudice. His teachings were disturbing to those who preferred to accept time-worn dogmas but of great help to those who sought a faith consistent with modern knowledge. The Outlook^ under his editorship stood for a liberal religion, progressive politics, and a love of letters. "Success is not fees, nor office, nor salary, nor land, nor machinery," Lyman Abbott declared; "it is result? obtained, harvests reaped, garnered, distributed, humanity bettered; the nation improved; the world enriched." Every man who left his home, his Community, his country better for his thoughts and deeds had succeeded; every man who had not had failed.^^ Judged by this Standard, Abbott's life was unquestionably successful. Few men of his time, said the Macon (Georgia) Telegraph on his death, had contributed so much to the "moral and social health" of the United States.^® "There is no one I have known," said Charles Evans Hughes, "who has had a more beneficent influence."^®

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND NOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. PRIMARY

SOURCES

I. MANUSCRIPTS Edward Abbott Papers. Bowdoin College Library. Lyman Abbott Papers. In the possession o£ Mr. Alexander L. Abbott, Larchmont, New York. American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions Papers. Houghton Library, Harvard University. Board of Indian Commissioners of the United States, Minutes, 1869-1915. The National Archives. Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands Papers. The National Archives. Salmon P. Chase Papers. Library of Congress. Grover Cleveland Papers. Library of Congress. Henry L. Dawes Papers. Library of Congress. Eliot Congregational Church Records. Roxbury, Massachusetts. Richard T. Ely Papers. Wisconsin State Historical Society. Washington Gladden Papers. Ohio State Historical and Archeological Society. Mark Hopkins Papers. Williams College Library. Oliver O. Howard Papers. Bowdoin College Library. William McKinley Papers. Library of Congress. New York University, Registrar's records. Edward W. Ordway Papers. New York Public Library. Theodore Roosevelt Papers. Library of Congress. Charles Sumner Papers. Houghton Library, Harvard University. William Howard Taft Papers. Library of Congress. 2. W O R K S BY L Y M A N A B B O T T A. BOOKS

America in the Ma\ing. New Häven, 1911. Christianity and Social Problems. Boston, 1896. The Christian Ministry. Boston, 1905. Christ's Beeret of Happiness, New York, 1907. Cone Cut Corners. New York, 1855. Written in colläboration with Austin and Benjamin Vaughan Abbott under the pseudonym "Benauly."

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The Crucifiers. New York, 1923. The Ethical Teachings of Jesus. Philadelphia, 1910. The Evolution of Christianity. Boston, 1892. For Family Worship. New York, 1883. The Great Companion. New York, 1904. Henry Ward Beecher. Boston, 1903. The Home Builder. Boston, 1906. Impressions of a Careless Traveler. New York, 1907. In Aid of Faith. New York, 1886. The Industrial Problem. Philadelphia, 1905. Jesus of Nazareth: His Life and Teachings. New York, 1869. Laicus; or, the Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish. New York, 1872. The Last Days of Jesus Christ. New York, 1918. Leiters to Unl^notvn Friends. Garden City, 1913. The Life and Letters of Paul the Apostle. Boston, 1898. The Life and Uterature of the Ancient Hebrews. Boston, 1901. The Life of Christ. Boston, 1894. The Life That Really Is. New York, 1899, Matthew Caraby. New York, 1838. Written in collaboration with Austin and Benjamin Vaughan Abbott under the Pseudonym "Benauly." My Four Anchors: What We Know in the Realm of Religion. Boston, 1911. Old Testament Shadows of New Testament Truths. New York, 1870. The Other Room. New York, 1903. Reminiscences. Boston, 1915. Second edition 1923 with introduction by Ernest H. Abbott. The Rights of Man: A Study in Twentieth Century Problems. Boston, 1901. See/(ing after God. New York, 1910. Signs of Promise: Sermons Preached in Plymouth Pulpit, Brooklyn, i88y1889. New York, 1889. Silhouettes of My Contemporaries. Garden City, 1921. The Spirit of Democracy. Boston, 1910. A Study in Human Nature. New York, 1884. The Temple. New York, 1909. The Theology of an Evolutionist. Boston, 1897. The Twentieth Century Crusade. New York, 1918. What Christianity Means to Me: A Spiritual Autobiography. New York, 1921. Why Go to Church? Boston, 1900. B. EDITED WORKS

Abbott, Jacob, Histories of Cyrus the Great and Alexander the Great. New York, 1880. Beecher, Henry Ward, Best Thoughts of . . . with Biographical S\etch. New York, 1893.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

245

Birth day Mottoes, Selected front the Writings of E. P. Roe. New York, 1882. A Dictionary of Religious Knowledge, for Populär and Professional Use. New York, 1880. In collaboration with T. J. Conant. Cough, John B., Platform Echoes. Hartford, 1886. The Guide to Reading. Garden City, 1917. Vol. XXIII of the Pocket University. With Asa Don Dickinson and others. Henry Ward Beecher. New York, 1883. With S. B. Halliday. Henry Ward Beecher. Hartford, 1887. Widi S. B. Halliday. Hints for Home Reading. New York, 1880. The House and Home; a Practical Boo\. 2 vois. New York, 1896. How to Succeed. New York, 1882. An lllustrated Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles. New York, 1878. An lllustrated Commentary on the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans. New York, 1888. An lllustrated Commentary on the Gospels according to Mar\ and Lu\e. New York, 1877. An lllustrated Commentary on the Gospel according to Matthew, New York, 1875. An lllustrated Commentary on the Gospel according to St. John. New York, 1879. The Message of the World's Religions. New York, 1898. The New Puritanism. New York, 1897. The Parables. New York, 1907. The Prophets of the Christian Faith. New York, 1896. Plymouth Hymnal. New York, 1893. Studies in Current Religious Thought. Philadelphia, 1901. With Washington Gladden. Uncontradicted Testimony in the Beecher Case. New York, 1876. C. SELECTIONS FROM ABBOTT'S WRITINGS

Dickinson, Sarah T., ed., Problems of Life; Selections from the Writings of the Rev. Lyman Abbott, D.D. New York, 1900. With introduction by Washington Gladden. Haynes, Mary S., ed., New Streams in Old Channels; Selected from the Writings of Lyman Abbott, D.D. Boston, 1894. Introduction by Theodore T. Munger. O. E. P. S., ed., Inspiration for Daily Living; Selections from the Writings of Lyman Abbott, D.D. Boston, 1919. D. PAMPHLETS

Addresses before the Washington Association of New Jersey at Headquarters, Morristown, N. ]., February 22, igo6. Lyman Abbott, Alfred Elmer Mills; June 16, ipo6, Andrew V. V. Raymond. Morristown, 1906. Addresses Delivered at the Eighty-third Commencement June g, 79/5 by

246

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Lyman Abbott and Elmer Ellsworth Brown, New Yor\ University. New York, 1915. The American Union Commission: Its Origin, Operations and Purposes. New York, 1865. Baccalaureate Sermon at the Semi-Centennial Celehration, Williston Seminary, Easthampton, Mass., June 14^17, 1891. Springfield, 1891. Certain of Your Own Philosophers. An Appeal to Rationalists. New York, 1897. The Church and its Pastor; a Sermon of Ministerial Experiences Preached April 28, 1867 at the New England Church. New York, 1867. How to Become a Christian. Five Simple Tal^s to the Young. New York, 1891. An Interpreter of Life. No place and date. The Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. A Sermon Preached at the Diamond fubilee of the Congregational Home Missionary Society, Tremont Temple, Boston, Mass., May 14, igoi. Boston, 1901. A Living Immortality. New York, 1912. Love and Death. New York, 1896. The Mission of America. Sermon, Fiftieth Anniversary, American Missionary Association, Oct. 20, 1896. No place and date. One Who Loved His Fellow-Men, An Appreciation. (Charles B. Spahr). New York, 1904. An Open Letter on Life Insurance. New York, 1884. The Personality of God. New York, 1905. A Plea for Peace. A Sermon Preached in Plymouth Church, December 22nd, Brooklyn, 1895. The Religion of "Parsifal." New York, 1904. The Results of Emancipation in the United States of America. New York, 1867. Salvation from Sin. New York, 1900. Scientific Doubts and Other Student Religious Difficulties. Ithaca, 1901. Sermons on the Spanish-American War. Brooklyn, 1898. The Simplicity of Christianity. New York, 1891. The Soul's Quest after God. New York, 1897. The Supernatural. New York, 1900. We Canl A Missionary Sermon. New York, no date. Why Women Do Not Wish the Sußrage. New York, 1904. Why Dr. Lyman Abbott Is Not a Universalist and Why He Might Be. Boston, 1900. E. SELECTED

NON-OUTLOOK

ARTICLES

' T h e Advance of Women," World's Worli_, VIII (July 1904), 5033-5038. "The Basis of an Anglo-American Understanding," North American Review, CLXVI (May 1898), 513-521.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

247

"Can a Nation Have a Religion?" Century, XLI (December 1890), 275-281. "Christianity versus Socialism," North American Review, CXLVIII (April 1889), 447-453"The City of the Saints," Harper's Monthly, XLV (July 1872), 168-186. "Compulsory Arbitration," Arena, VII (December 1892), 30-36. "Danger Ahead," Century. XXXI (November 1885), 51-59. "The Eternal City," Harper's Monthly, XLIV (December 1871), 1-19. "FlaWS in Ingersollism," North American Review, CL (April 1890), 446-457. "The Growth of Religious Tolerance in the United States," Forum, XXIII (August 1897), 653-660. "Industrial Democracy," Forum, IX (August 1890), 658-669. "Modern Methods of Social Reform," Chautauquan, XIII (September 1891), 738-740. "My Fifty Years as a Minister," Ladies' Home Journal, XXX (January 1913), 5-6 ff. "The Nature of Prayer," North American Review, CLXXXVI (November 1907), 337-339"The New Reformation," Century, XXXVII (November 1888), 71-80. "No Theology and New Theology," Forum, IX (April 1890), 189-197. "Our Indian Problem," North American Review, CLXVII (December 1898), 719-728. "The Personal Problem of Charity," Forum, XVI (February 1894), 663-669. "The Place of the Individual in American Society," in Nathaniel S. Shaler, The United States of America. 2 vols. New York, 1894. "Postal Telegraphy," Arena, XV (January 1896), 242-244. "Religious Teaching in Our Public Schools," Century, XLIX (April 1895), 943-948. "The Revision of Creeds," North American Review, CXXXVI (January 1883), 11-16. "The Significance of the Present Moral Awakening in the Nation," South Atlantic Quarterly, VII (July 1908), 205-209. "The Son of the Carpenter," Cosmopolitan,XVl (March 1894), 515-528. "Southern Evangelization," New Englander, XXIV (October 1864), 701 fl. "The Story of Christianity," Munsey's, XXXIV (December 1905), 259-274. "A Summing-Up of the Vital Issues of 1896," Review of Reviews, XIV (November 1896), 544-549. "The Use and Misuse of the Bible," in William M. Goldsmith, ed., Evolution or Christianity, God or Darwin? St. Louis, 1924. "The Wages System," Forum, IX (July 1890), 518-529. "Wanted—A Campaign for our Homes," Chautauquan, LIX (July 1910), 246-250. "What Money Is Really Good for," Ladies' Home Journal, X X V (September 1908), 17, 6i.

248

LYMAN

ABBOTT

"Why I Believe We Do Not Die," Ladies' Home Journal, XXII (Octobcr 1905), 11-12. "Why the Vote Would Be Injurious to Women," Ladies" Home Journal, XXVII (February 1910), 21-22. F. PERIODICALS EDITED BY L Y M A N ABBOTT

The American Freedman. New York, April 1866-July 1869. The Christian Union. New York, 1876-1893. Contdnued as The 1893-1922. The lllustrated Christian Weehly. New York, 1871-1876. 3. SELECTED W O R K S BY JACOB

Outloo\,

ABBOTT

The Corner-stone, or a Familiar Illustration of the Principles of Christian Truth. Boston, 1834. A Description of the Mount Vernon School in 1832. Boston, 1832. ,Gentie Measures in the Management and Training of the Young. New York, 1872. Rollo at Play, or Safe Amüsements. Boston, 1838. Rollo at Work,, or the Way for a Boy to Learn to Be Industrious. Boston, 1839. The Rollo Code of Morals, or the Rules of Duty for Children. Arranged with Questions for the Use of Schools. Boston, 1841. Rollo in Rome. Boston, 1858. Rollo in Scotland. Boston, 1855. The Teacher, or Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and Government of the Young. Boston, 1833. The Young Christian, or a Familiar Illustration of the Principles of Christian Duty. Boston, 1832. 4. OFFICIAL

REPORTS

Alvord, John Watson, ed., Semi-Annual Reports on Schools and Finances for Freedmen. 10 vols. Washington, 1866-1870. American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Annual Reports. 83rd and 86th. Boston, 1893 and 1896. American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. The Great Debate. A Verbatim Report of the Discussion at the Meeting of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Held at Des Moines, Iowa, Thursday, October 7, 1886. Boston, 1886. Barrows, J. H., ed., The World's Parliament of Religions. 2 vols. Chicago, 1893. Boston Academy of Music, First Annual Report. Boston, 1835. Conference for Education in the South, Proceedings of the Sixth Session. New York, 1903. Ely, Richard T., "Report of the Organization of the American Economic Association," American Economic Association, Publications, I, Baltimore, 1897.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

249

General Association of Congregational Churches and Ministers of Indiana, Minutes, 1860-1865. Indianapolis, 1860-1865. General Association of Congregational Churches and Ministers of New York, Minutes, 1869 (Syracuse) and 1872 (Binghamton). Lake Mohonk Conference of Friends of the Indian and Other Dependent Peoples, Reports. 34 vols. Philadelphia, etc., 1883-1916. Lake Mohonk Conference on International Arbitration, Reports. 22 vols. Lake Mohonk, New York, 1895-19x6. National Council of the Congregational Churches of the United States, Minutes, 1880. Boston, 1880. New England Church, Manual of the New-England Church in New-Yor\ City. New York, 1866. New York University, Catalogues, 1849-1853. New York University, Commencement Program, 1853. Plymouth Church, Annual Reports, 1889-1900. Proceedings of a Council in Plymouth Church, Broohjyn, New-York., for the Installation of the Rev. Lyman Abbott, D.D., as Pastor, and the Ordination and Installation of the Rev. Howard S. Bliss as Assistant Pastor. Held fanuary 16, i8go. With a Sermon by Lyman Abbott, D.D. on the New Theology. Brooklyn, 1890. Theodore Tilton against Henry Ward Beecher, Action for Criminal Con. Verbatim Report by the Official Stenographer. 3 vols. New York, 1875. United States Senate, 62nd Congress, Report of the Committee on Interstate Commerce, Pursuant to S. Res. g8. 2 vols. Washington, 1913. 5. NEWSPAPERS (Based partly on clipping files in the Lyman Abbott Papers) Boston Advertiser. Boston Herald. Boston Transcript. Christian Register (Boston). Congregational Herald (Chicago). Congregationalist (Boston). Independent (New York). Maine Evangelist (Pordand). Nation (New York). New York Herald. New York Journal. New York Sun. New York Times. New York Tribüne. New York World. Recorder (Boston). Terre Haute Express.

250

LYMAN

ABBOTT

6. OTHER PRIMARY SOURCES An Academic Courtship. Letters of Alice Freeman and George Herbert Palmer, i886-i88y. With an Introduction by Caroline Hazard. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1940. Abbott, Lawrence F., Impressions of Theodore Roosevelt. Garden City, 1919. Butt, Archie, Tajt and Roosevelt. The Intimate Letters of Archie Butt, Military Aide. 2 vols. Garden City, 1930. De Forest, John W., A Union Officer in the Reconstruction, ed. by James H. Croushore and David M. Potter. New Häven, 1948. Gladden, Washington, Recollections. Boston, 1909. Hodge, Charles, What Is Darwinism? New York, 1874. Howard, John R., Remembrance of Things Fast. New York, 1925. Howard, Oliver Otis, Autobiography, 2 vols. New York, 1907. Huxley, Thomas H., Evolution and Et kies and other Essays. New York, 1896. Jackson, Helen Hunt, Ramona. Ed. by Susan Coolidge. Boston, 1900. Le Conte, Joseph, Autobiography. Ed. by William D. Armes. New York, 1903. Lodge, Henry Cabot, ed., Selections jrom the Correspondence of Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge, i884-igi8. 1 vols. New York, 1925. Newman, John Henry, Essays Critical and Historical. 2 vols. London, 1895. Newman, John Henry and Others, Tracts for the Times. Vol. IIL London, 1836. Stanley, Arthur P., ed., The Life and Correspondence of Thomas Arnold, D.D. 2 vols. Boston, 1860. Villard, Oswald G., Fighting Years; Memoirs of a Liberal Editor. New York, 1939-

IL SECONDARY

WORKS

I. BOOKS Abell, Aaron I., The Urban Impact on American Protestantism, 186^-1 goo(Harvard Historical Studies, LIV.) Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1943Abbot, Abiel and Ephraim Abbot, A Genealogical Register of the Descendants of George Abbot, of Andover. Boston, 1847. Abrams, Ray H., Preachers Present Arms. Philadelphia, 1933. Atkins, Gaius G., Religion in Our Times. New York, 1932. Bacon, Theodore D., Leonard Bacon, a Statesman in the Church. Ed. by Benjamin W. Bacon. New Häven, 1931. Brooks, Van Wyck, The Flowering of New England, 1815-1865. New York, 1936. Brooks, Van Wyck, New England: Indian Summer, i865-igi5. New York, 1940.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

251

Bruner, Francis M., The Evolution Theory, as Stated by M. LeConte and Applied by Dr. Lyman Abbott, Unsupported by the Phenomena of the World as Far as We Are Able to Know lt. Des Moines, 1900. Buck, Paul H., The Road to Reunion, 1865-igoo. Boston, 1937. Buckham, John W., Progressive Religious Thought in America. Boston, 1919. Butler, Francis G., History oj Farmington, Franl^lin County, Maine, from the Earliest Explorations to the Present Time, 1776-1885. Farmington, 1885. A Church in History; the Story of Plymouth's First Hundred Years under Beecher, Abbott, Hillis, Durkee, and Fifield. Brooklyn, 1949. Clark, John Spencer, The Life and Letters of ]ohn Fisi(e. 2 vols. Boston, 1917. Cole, Arthur C., The Irrepressible Conßict, 1850-1865. (Arthur M. Schlesinger and Dixon R. Fox, eds., A History of American Life, VII.) New York, 1934. Commager, Henry S., The American Mind; an Interpretation of American Thought and Character since the i88o's. New Häven, 1950. Curti, Merle, The Growth of American Thought. New York, 1943. Dunham, Chester F., The Attitüde of the Northern Clergy toward the South, 1860-1865. Toledo, 1942. Dunning, Albert E., Congregationalists in America. Boston, 1894. Ekirch, Arthur A., Jr., The Idea of Progress in America, 1815-1860. (Columbia University Studies in History, Economics and Public Law, No. 511.) New York, 1944. Esarey, Logan, A History of Indiana from 1850 to igzo. 2 vols. Bloomington, 1935Faulkner, Harold U., The Quest for Social Justice, i8g8-igi4. (A History of American Life, XI.) New York, 1931. Foster, Frank H., The Modern Movement in American Theology. New York, 1939. Gabriel, Ralph H., The Course of American Democratic Thought. New York, 1940. Garrison, Winfred E., The March of Faith; the Story of Religion in America since 1865. New York, 1933. Gray, Wood, The Hidden Civil War; the Story of the Copperheads. New York, 1942. Harper, J. Henry, The House of Harper; a Century of Publishing in FranXlin Square. New York, 1912. Hart, Albert Bushnell, Salmon Portland Chase. (John T. Morse, Jr., ed., American Statesmen.) Boston, 1899. Hibben, Paxton, Henry Ward Beecher: An American Portrait. New York, 1927. Hill, Hamilton A., The American Board. Is its Proper Relation to the Churches That of Domination or Dependence? Cambridge, 1887. Hofstadter, Richard, Social Darwinism in American Thought, i86o~igi5. Philadelphia, 1944.

252

LYMAN

ABBOTT

Hopkins, Charles H., The Rise of the Social Gospel in American Protestantism, 1865-igi^. (Yale Studies in Religious Education, XIV.) New Häven, 1940. Hurlbut, Jesse L., The Story of Chautauqua. New York, 1921. Jones, Theodore F., ed., New Yor\ University, New York, 1933. Knight, Edgar W., Education in the United States. Boston, 1929. Litde, George T., ed., Genealogical and Family History of the State of Maine. 4 vols. New York, 1909. Loewenberg, Bert J., "The Impact of the Doctrine of Evolution on American Thought, 1859-1900." Ph.D. thesis, Harvard University, 1934. McElroy, Robert, Grover Cleveland, the Man and the Statesman. 2 vols. New York, 1923. May, Henry F., Protestant Churches and Industrial America. New York, 1949. Miller, Albert R. H., The Church and War. S t Louis, 1931. Morse, Edwin W., The Life and Letters of Hamilton W. Mabie. New York, 1920. Mott, Frank L., A History of American Magazines, 1850-1865. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1938. Mott, Frank L., A History of American Magazines, 1865-1885. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1938. Nevins, Allan, Grover Cleveland; a Study in Courage. New York, 1933. Nevins, Allan, The Emergence of Modern America, 1865-1878. {A History of American Life, VIII.) New York, 1927. New York Writers' Program, Work Projects Administration, New Yor\ City Guide. New York, 1939. New York Writers' Program, Work Projects Administration, New Yor\, a Guide to the Empire State. New York, 1940. . Niebuhr, Reinhold, Faith and History: A Comparison of the Christian and Modern Views of History. New York, 1949. Nixon, Raymond B., Henry W. Grady, Spo\esman of the New South. New York, 1943. Oakey, Charles C., Greater Terre Haute and Vigo County. 2 vols. Chicago, 1908. Peirce, Paul S., The Freedmen's Bureau; a Chapter in the History of Reconstruction. (State University of Iowa, Studies in Sociology, Economics, Politics, and History, III, No. 1.) Iowa City, 1904. Persons, Stow, ed., Evolutionary Thought in America. New Häven, 1950. Persons, Stow, Free Religion: An American FarfÄ.-New Häven, 1947. Pratt, Julius W., Expansionists of i8p8. Baltimore, 1936. Priest, Loring B., Uncle Sam's Stepchildren; the Reformation of United States Indian Policy, 1865-1887. New Brunswick, 1942. Pringle, Henry F., Theodore Roosevelt, a Biography. New York, 1931. Rhodes, James Ford, History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850. Vol. II. New York, 1892.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

253

Roberts, Windsor Hall, T/ie Reaction of American Protestant Churches to the Darwinian Philosophy, i86o-igoo. Chicago, 1938. Sachs, Emanie, "The Terrible Siren," Victoria Woodhull, 1838-1927. New York, 1928. Schapiro, B. A. M., The Higher Critics' Hebretu. New York, 1907. Schlesinger, Arthur M., The Eise of the City, 1878-1898. (A History of American Life, X.) New York, 1933. Schneider, Herbert W., A History of American Philosophy. New York, 1946. Schneider, Herbert W., Religion in 20th Century America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1952. Sharpe, Dores R., Walter Rauschenbusch. New York, 1942. Smith, Gerald B., ed., Religious Thought in the Last Qmrter Century. Chicago, 1927. Stampp, Kenneth M., Indiana Politics during the Civil War. Indianapolis, 1949. Stowe, Lyman Beecher, Saints, Sinners, and Beechers. Indianapolis, 1934. Sweet, William W., Mauers of Christianity, from John Cotton to Lyman Abbott. New York, 1937. Sweet, William W., The Story of Religion in America. New York, 1939. Swift, David E., "The Future Probation Controversy in American Congregationalism, 1886-1893," Ph.D. thesis, Yale University, 1947. Swint, Henry L., The Northern Teacher in the South, 1862-1870. Nashville, 1941. Syrett, Harold C., The City of Brooklyn, 1865-1898; a Political History. New York, 1944. Tarbeil, Ida M., The Nationalizing of Business, 1878-1898. (A History of American Life, IX.) New York, 1936. Tassin, Algernon, The Magazine in America. New York, 1916. Thompson, Augustus C., Eliot Memorial, S\etches Historical and Biographical of the Eliot Church and Society, Boston. Boston, 1900. Weigle, Luther A., American Idealism. (Ralph H. Gabriel, ed., The Pageant of America, X.) New Häven, 1928. Williams, Daniel D., The Andover Liberais; a Study in American Theology. New York, 1941. Wilson, Philip W., An Unofficial Statesman—Robert C. Ogden. Garden City, 1924. Yeomans, Henry A., Abbott Lawrence Lowell. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1948. 2. ARTICLES Abbott, Edward, "A Memorial Sketch of Jacob Abbott," in Jacob Abbott, The Young Christian; a Memorial Edition. New York, 1882. Baker, Harry T., "Lyman Abbott as a Preacher," Outloo\, CXXXV (Dec. 12, 1923), 624-625.

254

LYMAN

ABBOTT

Bent, Silas, "Building Good-Will for America in the Orient," World's Wor\, XXXVII (November 1918), 57-60. Bridgman, Howard A., "Abbott, Lyman," Dictionary of American Biography, I, 24-25. Brown, Ira V., "Lyman Abbott and Freedmen's Aid," Journal of Southern History, XV (February 1949), 22-38. Brown, Ira V., "Lyman Abbott: Christian Evolutionist," New England Quarterly, XXIII (June 1950), 218-231. Chase, Stanley P. and John K. Snyder, "Abbott, Jacob," Dictionary of American Biography, I, 21-22. Chase, Stanley P. and Robert E. Ham, "Abbott, John Stevens Cabot," Dictionary of American Biography, I, 22-23. Cook, Joseph, "Dr. Lyman Abbott's New Progressive Orthodoxy," Our Day, IX (May 1892), 340-349. Day, Clarence, Jr., Review of Lyman Abbott's Reminiscences, Metropolitan Magazine, XLIII (March 1916), 38 ff. Goldenweiser, Alexander, "Evolution, Social," Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, V, 656-662. Harvey, George, "From Journalism to Politics," North American Review, CC (August 1914), 178-182. Hicks, Granville, "Abbott, Lyman," Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, I, 355-356Jackson, Ludier P., "The Educational Efforts of the Freedmen's Bureau and Freedmen's Aid Socieües in South Carolina, 1862-1872," Journal of Negro History, VIII (January 1923); 1-40. Lawrence, William W., "Rollo and his Uncle George," New England Quarterly, XVIII (September 1945), 291-302. Loewenberg, Bert J., "Darwinism Comes to America, 1859-1900," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, XXVIII (December 1941), 339-368. Mabie, Hamilton W., "Doctor Lyman Abbott," World's Wor\, III (February 1902), 1772-1775Malone, Carroll B., "The First Remission of the Boxer Indemnity," American Historical Review, XXXII (October 1926), 64-68. Mayo, A. D., "The Work of Certain Northern Churches in the Education of the Freedman, 1861-1900," United States Commissioner of Education, Report for the Year igo2, I, 285-314. 2 vols. Washington, 1903. McGiflert, Arthur C., "Immanence," Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, VII, 167-171. Needham, Joseph, "Evolution," Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, V, 648-656. Nevins, Allan, "Tilton, Theodore," Dictionary of American Biography, XVIII, 551-553.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

255

Osgood, Fletcher, "Jacob Abbott, a Neglected New England Author," Neu/ England Magazine, X X X (June 1904), 471-479. Parmelee, Julius H., "Freedmen's Aid Societies, 1861-1871," Bureau of Education Bulletin, 1916, 268-295. Schlesinger, Arthur M., "A Critical Period in American Religion, 1875-1900," Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, LXIV (June 1932), 523-547Shaw, Albert, "Lyman Abbott at Eighty," Review of Reviews, LIII (January 1916), 76-78. Starr, Harris E., "Beecher, Henry Ward," Dictionary of American Biography, II, 129-135. Stimpson, Mary S., "Farmington, Maine," New England Magazine, X X X (June 1904), 387-403. "Tader," "Notes from the Capital. Lyman Abbott," Nation, CV (July 26, 1917), 102. Vernon, Ambrose W., "Later Theology," Cambridge History of American Literature, III, 201-225. Sketches of Abbott's life may also be found in: American Authors, i6oo-igoo. Appleton Cyclopedia of Biography. Encyclopedia of Social Reform. New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge. Twentieth Century Authors. Who Was Who in America, i8gy-ig42.

NOTES Preface 1. Arthur M. Schlesinger, "A Critical Period in American Religion, 1875-1900," Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, LXIV (June 1932), 523-5472. Henry Sloane CofEn, introduction to Lyman Abbott, The Crucifiers (New York, 1923), p. 7. 3. William W. Sweet, Maliers of Christianity, from John Cotton to Lyman Abbott (New York, 1937), p. 320. 4. Merle Curti, The Growth of American Thought (New York, 1943), p. 656. 7. A New England

Heritage

1. Outloo\, CV (Dec. 13, 1913), 770. 2. Lyman Abbott, America in the Ma\ing (New Häven, 1911), p. 208. 3. Clarence Day, Jr., review of Abbott's Reminiscences, Metropolitan Magazine, XLIII (Mar. 1916), 38. 4. Special birthday edition, Outloo\, Dec. 18, 1905. 5. Abiel and Ephraim Abbot, A Genealogical Register of the Descendants of George Abbot, of Andover (Boston, 1847), p. iv. 6. Edward Abbott, "A Memorial Sketch of Jacob Abbott," in Jacob Abbott, The Young Christian (Memorial Edition, New York, 1882), pp. 4-5. 7. Ibid., pp. 10-38. 8. Jacob Abbott, A Description of the Mount Vernon School in 18^2 (Boston, 1832), p. 18. 9. Arthur P. Stanley, ed., The Life and Correspondence of Thomas Arnold, D.D. (2 vols.; Boston, 1860), I, 342. 10. Jacob Abbott, The Corner-stone (Boston, 1834), pp. 5, 21, 49-50, 183, 35511. John Henry Newman, Tracts for the Times, III (London, 1836), No. 73. PP- 46-50. 12. All together he was the sole author of 180 volumes and the joint author or editor of 31 others. Bibliography in Edward Abbott, op. dt., pp. iia-127. 13. Jacob Abbott, The Rollo Code of Morals, or the Rules of Duty for Children, Arranged with Questions for the Use of Schools (Boston, 1841). 14. Jacob Abbott, Rollo at Wor\, or the Way for a Boy to Learn to Be Industrious (Boston, 1839), p. 53. 15. Jacob Abbott, Rollo at Play, or Safe Amüsements (Boston, 1838), p. 87. 16. Jacob Abbott, Rollo in Scotland (Boston, 1855), pp. 108-109.

A NEW ENGLAND

HERITAGE

i'^l

17. Van Wyck Brooks, The Flowering oj New England, 181^-1865 (New York, 1936), pp. 408-409. 18. For an appreciative analysis of Jacob Abbott's books for children see William L. Lawrence, "Rollo and bis Uncle George," New England Quarterly. XVIII (Sept. 1945), 291-302. 19. Lyman Abbott, Reminiscences (Boston, 1915), chap. vii; Silhouettes of My Contemporaries (New York, 1921), chap. xix. 20. William W. Sweet, Makers of Christianity, from John Cotton to Lyman Abbott (New York, 1937), p. 251. 21. Records of the Eliot Congregational Church, Roxbury, Mass., I, i. 22. Augustus C. Thompson, Sketches Historical and Biographical of the Eliot Church and Society, Boston (Boston, 1900), pp. 30-31; Records of the Eliot Church, I, 4. 23. Frank L. Mott, A History of American Magazines, 1850-1865 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1938), p. x. 24. Brooks, Flowering of New England, p. 122. 25. J. Henry Harper, The House of Harper, a Century of Publishing in Franklin Square (New York, 1912), pp. 77-78. 26. Harriet Vaughan Abbott, Journal, 1832-1836, Lyman Abbott Papers. 27. Records of the Eliot Congregational Church, Vol. I. 28. Harriet Vaughan Abbott to C. Vaughan, Jr., Apr. 1838, Lyman Abbott Papers. 29. Edward Abbott, "Jacob Abbott," loc. cit., pp. 66-67. 30. Sallucia Abbott, "Annais of Some Abbotts," Edward Abbott Papers. 31. It was given this name by Lyman's father, who returned to reside there in his old age. In 1904 it was purchased by the Jacob Abbott Memorial Association, which attempted to open it as a museum. The project was not a success, and in 1923 the property was sold and the proceeds invested as the Jacob Abbott Memorial Fund, the income of which is used for the purchase of books by the Farmington Public Library. (Testimony of Benjamin Buder of Farmington.) In 1907 a bronze plaque bearing the following inscription was placed in front of the house: FEWACRES The Later Home of Jacob Abbott 1803-1879 Preacher of the Gospel of Christ. Teacher of the laws of nature and life. Pioneer in the education of youth. Friend and guide of children. Master in the art of gentle measures. Minister to the higher life of man.

258

NOTES

32. Abbott, Reminiscences, p. 7. 33. Ibid., p. 14. 34. Ibid., pp. 15-19. 35. Ibid., p. 20. 36. Ibid., p. 21. 37. Lyman Abbott to Edward Abbott, Mar. 27, 1848, Edward Abbott Papers. 38. Abbott, Reminiscences, pp. 44-45. II. "Lord, Here Am I" 1. Theodore F. Jones, ed., New Yor\ University, (New York, 1933), PP- 65-66. 2. New York University Catalogue, 1849-50. 3. Ibid.; Lyman Abbott, Reminiscences, p. 56. 4. Abbott, Reminiscences, p. 36. 5. Ibid., pp. 41-42. Jacob Abbott married Mrs. Dana Woodbury in 1853, but they did not keep house; they traveled a great deal and customarily boarded when in New York. 6. New York University Catalogue, 1849-50. The announcement for 1852-53 says Instruction in modern languages could be secured without extra Charge. 7. Abbott, Reminiscences, pp. 51, 79. 8. Unfortunately the academic records of New York University for these years do not give the names of courses taken and grades obtained in each but only the numerical ratings and rankings on the comprehensive examination at the end of each year. 9. Abbott, Reminiscences, pp. 44-45. IG. Ibid., pp. 51-56. 11. Ibid., pp. 51-53. 12. Ibid., pp. 55, 57-58. 13. Ibid., pp. 58-60; Lyman Abbott, What Christianity Means to Me; a Spiritual Autobiography (New York, 1921), pp. 2-4. 14. Abbott, Reminiscences, pp. 70-71. 15. New York University Catalogue, 1852-53. 16. Abbott, Reminiscences, pp. 47-48. 17. New York University Catalogue, 1852-53; Abbott, Reminiscences, p. 47. 18. Abbott, Reminiscences, pp. 26-29, 115. 19. New York Herald, June 30, 1853. The Commencement program is in the New York University library. 20. Abbott, Reminiscences, pp. 78-85; New York Times, Feb. 15, Feh. 19, and Feb. 26, 1855. 21. Abbott, Reminiscences, pp. 85-90. 22. "Benauly," Cone Cut Corners (New York, 1855), p. 194.

LIBERTY

AND UNION

259

23. Abbott, Reminiscences, p. 94. 24. Ibid., p. 93. 25. Hannibal Hamlin to Lyman Abbott, Jan. 18, 1855, Abbott Papers; Abbott, Reminiscences, p. 121. The marriage is recorded in the clerk's office at Watertown. 26. Outlook. L X X X V I (Aug. 3, 1907), p. 716. 27. Abbott, Reminiscences, pp. 72-73. 28. Hannibal Hamlin to Lyman and Abby Abbott, Oct. 18, 1857, Abbott Papers. 29. Abbott, Reminiscences, p. 76. 30. Quoted ibid., p. 99. 31. Quoted ibid., pp. 100-102. 32. Ibid., pp. 104-112, 124; Maine Evangelist (Portland), Aug. 2, 1856. 33. Lyman Abbott, Henry Ward Beecher (Boston, 1903). 34. Quoted in Abbott, Reminiscences, p. 126. 35. Paxton Hibben, Henry Ward Beecher: An American Portrait (New York, 1927), severely criticai, admits that Beecher was a barometer of this change in theology, but denies that he had any creative role in the transformation. More sympathetic is Frank H. Foster, The Modern Movement in American Theology (New York, 1939), pp. 81-90. On 'Trogressive Orthodoxy" see below, chaps. xi-xiii. 36. Abbott, Reminiscences, pp. 129-132. On the revival see James Ford Rhodes, History of the United States, iS^o-iSyy, II (New York, 1892), 559565. 37. Hannibal Hamlin to Lyman Abbott, July 10, 1859, Abbott Papers. 38. Abbott, Reminiscences, p. 135. 39. Ibid., pp. 139-140. Benjamin and Austin Abbott in later years became research lawyers, compiling many volumes of digests of New York and Federal decisions. Austin was dean of the New York University law school from 1891 until his death in 1896. 40. Ibid., pp. 160-163. 41. Ibid., pp. 163-172. 42. Abbott, Henry Ward Beecher, p. iio. 43. Abbott, Reminiscences, pp. 173-175; Lyman Abbott, manuscript notebook, Jan. 1860, Abbott Papers. 44. Jacob Abbott to Lyman Abbott, July 16, 1859, Abbott Papers. 45. Lyman Abbott, manuscript notebook, Dec. 13, 1859, Abbott Papers. 46. Ibid., Aug. 20, 1860; Abbott, Reminiscences, pp. 181-186. 47. Washington Gladden, Recollections (Boston, 1909), pp. 86, 168. III. Liberty and Union I. See ehester F. Dunham, The Attitüde of the Northern Clergy toward the South, 1860-1865 (Toledo, 1942).

26O

NOTES

2. Lyman Abbott, Henry Ward Beecher (New York, 1903), chap. x, and Paxton Hibben, Henry Ward Beecher: An American Portrait (New York, 1927), chap. xvii, present contrasting views on this mooted point. 3. Logan Esarey, A History of Indiana jrom 1850 to ig20 (2 vols.; Bloomington, 1935), I, 981. 4. Wood Gray, The Hidden Civil War (New York, 1942), p. 163; Kenneth M. Stampp, Indiana Politics during the Civil War (Indianapolis, 1949), Claims that there has been a tendency to exaggerate the number of Hoosiers who were openly pro-Southern, but still admits that there was much prejudice against "the New England Yankee" and a great deal of hostiiity to abolitionist activity, even after Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. (See pp. ix, 12, 145, 148.) 5. Charles C. Oakey, Greater Terre Haute and Vigo County (2 vols.; Chicago, 1908), I, 334-3356. Lyman Abbott to Jacob Abbott, Mar. 31, 1860, typed copy, Abbott Papers. 7. Lyman Abbott, manuscript notebook, Aug. 20, 1860, ibid. 8. Lyman Abbott, Reminiscences (Boston, I9i5),pp. 194-195; Terre Haute Express, June 27,1860. 9. Abbott, manuscript notebook, Oct. 17, 1860. 10. Abbott, Reminiscences, pp. 192-193, zoS-i-oy, Terre Haute Express, June 29, i86i. 11. Abbott, manuscript notebook, Aug. 20, 1860. 12. Abbott, Reminiscences, p. 202. 13. Terre Haute Express, Dec. 19, 1860. 14. Lyman Abbott to the Congregational Herald (Chicago), Apr. 24, 1861, published in issue of May 16. 15. Abbott, Reminiscences, p. 208. 16. Abbott, manuscript notebook, June 24, 1861. 17. Congregational Herald, May 16, 1861. 18. Ibid., May 23, 1861. 19. Minutes of the General Association of Congregational Churches and Ministers of Indiana at its Meeting in Terre Haute, May 16, 1861 (Indianapolis, 1861), p. 4. 20. Abbott, manuscript notebook, Sept. 17 and Oct. 15, 1861. 21. Abbott, Reminiscences, pp. 211-212. 22. Independent (New York), Jan. 23, 1862, written under pseudonym, "Rev. A. Monk, Highland, Indiana." 23. See, for example, the Independent, Mar. 20, 1862; Hibben, Beecher, p. 159. 24. Arthur C. Cole, The Irrepressible Conflia, 1850-1865 (New York, 1934). P- 306. 25. Terre Haute Express, Sept. 17, 1862.

REGENERATING

THE SOUTH

261

26. Ibid. 27. Abbott, manuscript notebook, Mar. 3, 1862. 28. Ibid., Nov. 15, 1864. 29. Lyman Abbott, "Confession of Faith, Terre Haute, Indiana, May, 1862," Abbott Papers. 30. Abbott, manuscript notebook, Sept. 16, 1862. 31. Ibid.. Nov. 8, 1861. 32. Abbott, Reminiscences, p. 223. See below, chap xi, "Are the Heathen Doomed?" 33. Ibid., p. 220. 34. On these see Hibben, Beecher, pp. 91-93. 35. Quoted in Abbott, Reminiscences, p. 229. 36. Ibid., pp. 229-230; facsimile from Terre Haute Express, Nov. 19, 1863, ibid., p. 231. 37. Letter to the Boston Congregationalisi, published Aug. 26, 1864, under Pseudonym, "Rev. A. Monk." 38. Cole, Irrepressible Conflict, p. 307. 39. Minutes of the General Association of Congregational Churches and Ministers of Indiana for 1860-1865. 40. Abbott, Reminiscences, pp. 188-189; Lyman Abbott, What Christianity Means to Me; a Spiritual Autobiography (New York, 1921), pp. 14-15. 41. Abbott, Reminiscences, p. 206. 42. Abbott, manuscript notebook, Nov. 15, 1864. 43. Terre Haute Express, Apr. 25, 1865. IV. Regenerating the South 1. Lyman Abbott, manuscript notebook, Oct. 15, 1864, Abbott Papers. 2. Lyman Abbott, "Southern Evangelization," New Englander, XXIII (Oct. 1864), 7013. Julius H. Parmelee, "Freedmen's Aid Societies, 1861-1871," in United States Department of Interior, Bureau o£ Education, Bulletin, 1916, No. 38, pp. 268 £f.; Paul S. Peirce, The Freedmen's Bureau (Iowa City, 1904), pp. 25-28. 4. Lyman Abbott, The American Union Commission: Its Origin, Operations and Purposes (New York, 1865), pp. 3-4. 5. Benjamin N. Martin to Abbott, Feb. 15, 1865, Abbott Papers. 6. Abbott to Mrs. Abbott, Mar. 30, 1865, quoted in Lyman Abbott, Reminiscences (Boston, 1915), p. 247. 7. Ibid., p. 248. 8. Abbott to Mrs. Abbott, Mar. 31, 1865, quoted ibid., pp. 248-251. 9. Abbott to Mrs. Abbott, May 1865, quoted ibid., pp. 257-258; Oliver O. Howard, Autobiography (2 vols.; New York, 1907), II, 268-269. IG. Quoted in Abbott, Reminiscences, p. 259.

262

NOTES

ir. Abbott, The American Union Commission, pp. 2-3. 12. Lyman Abbott to Oliver O. Howard, Apr. 30, 1866, Howard Papers. 13. James H. Chapin, "Brief History of the New England Branch of the American Freedmen's Union Commission," Freedmen's Bureau Records, The National Archives. 14. American Freedmen's Aid Commission, Open Letter, Nov. 27, 1865. 15. Lyman Abbott to Joseph P. Thompson, President, American Union Commission, Dec. 14, 1865. Copy, Abbott Papers. 16. American Freedman, I (Apr. 1866), i ; I (June 1866), 37; Parmelee, "Freedmen's Aid Societies," loc. cit., p. 271. 17. Lyman Abbott, Proposed Plan of Organization, the American Freedmen's and Union Commission, Apr. 1 1 , 1866. 18. American Freedman, I (June 1866), 34. 19. Lyman Abbott to Salmon P. Chase, Oct. 17, 1866, Chase Papers. 20. American Freedman, I (Dec. 1866), 133. 21. Abbott, Reminiscences, p. 264. 22. Abbott to Howard, Dec. 10, 1867, Howard Papers. 23. American Freedman, II (Apr. 1867), 196; III (Oct. 1868), 3. 24. Lyman Abbott, The Results of Emancipation in the United States (New York, 1867), pp. 17, 30, 33. 25. John W. De Forest, A Union Officer in the Reconstruction, ed. by James H. Croushore and David M. Potter (New Häven, 1948), p. 116. This autobiographical account gives an excellent first-hand picture of Freedmen's Bureau work and of Southern society in the years 1866 and 1867. 26. John W. Alvord, Semi-annual Reports on Schools and Finances for Freedmen (10 vols.; Washington, 1866-1870), III (Jan. i , 1867), 41. 27. American Freedman, I (Sept. 1866), 96. 28. Boston Recorder, LI (Aug. 10, 1866), 126. 29. American Freedman, II (Apr. 1867), 195. 30. A. D. Mayo, "The Work of Certain Northern Churches in the Education of the Freedman, 1861-1900," Report of the [United States] Commissioner of Education for the Year igo2 (2 vols.; Washington, 1903), I, 285-314. 31. Howard, Autobiography, II, 271. 32. Abbott to Howard, Mar. 26, 1867, Howard Papers. 33. Abbott to Howard, July 17, 1867, ibid. 34. Howard to Abbott, July 19, 1867, ibid. 35. Alvord, Reports, VI (July 1868), 63. 36. American Freedman, I (Apr. 1866), 5-6. In his old age Abbott announced that he no longer thought it inherently wrong to exclude people from a school because of color. It was simply a matter of expediency, and experience had shown that coeducation of the races was not expedient in the Southern states. Justice, he decided, demanded that "equal—not necessarily identical—educational advantages be offered to both races and to both sexes."

EVANGELICAL

ORTHODOXY

263

It did not require that these be provided under the same roof. Abbott, Reminiscences, p. 270. 37. American Freedman, I (Apr. 1866), 2-3. 38. Clinton B. Fisk to Lyman Abbott, Apr. 23, 1866, in American Freedman, I (Aug. 1866), 71. 39. Parmelee, "Freedmen's Aid Societies," loc. ciu, 289. 40. American Freedman, I (Feb. 1867), 164. 41. Ibid., I (Dec. 1866), 133. 42. See below, chap. xvii. 43. American Freedman, II (Aug. 1867), 258. 44. Ibid., I (Nov. 1866), 114. 45. Ibid., I (Mar. 1867), 180. 46. Henry L. Swint, The Northern Teacher in the South, 1862-18^0 (Nashville, 1941), pp. 94-142. 47. American Freedman, III (July 1869), i. 48. Abbott, Reminiscences, p. 271. 49. Peirce, Freedmen's Bureau, p. 85. 50. Luther P. Jackson, "The Educational Eflorts of die Freedmen's Bureau and Freedmen's Aid Socieües in South Carolina, 1862-1872," Journal of Negro History, VIII (Jan. 1923), 40. 51. American Freedman, I (Apr. 1866), i. 52. Abbott, Reminiscences, p. 256. V. Evangelical Orthodoxy 1. Lyman Abbott, Reminiscences (Boston, 1915), pp. 278-280. 2. Printed notice, Edward Abbott Papers. 3. Lyman Abbott, The Church and Its Pastor (New York, 1867); Reminiscences, pp. 6r, 282. 4. Abbott, Reminiscences, pp. 291-293; memorandum book, entry by Mrs. Abbott for Dec. 30, 1868, Abbott Papers. 5. Abbott, Reminiscences, pp. 294-295; Minutes of the ThirtySixth Annual Meeting of the General [Congregational] Association of New Yor\ (Syracuse, 1869), p. 18; Thirty-Ninth (Binghamton, 1872), p. 21. 6. Abbott, Reminiscences, pp. 1 1 6 - 1 1 7 , 295-296. 7. Work Projects Administration, New Yor\, A Guide to the Empire State (New York, 1940), pp. 603, 617. 8. Abbott, Reminiscences, pp. 284-285, 306; J. H. Harper, The House of Harper (New York, 1912), p. 129. 9. Bibliography in the Uterary World (Boston), XIV, 24-25 (Jan. 27, 1883). IG. Quoted in Abbott, Reminiscences, p. 308. II. Lyman Abbott, Jesus of Nazareth: His Life and Teachings (New York, 1869), p . v .

264

NOTES

12. Ibid., p. 509. 13. Harper's New Monthly Magazine, XXXVIII (Mar. 1869), 562. 14. Lyman Abbott, Old Testament Skadows of New Testament Truths (New York, 1870), p. 99. 15. Ibid., p. 114. 16. Ibid., p. 16. 17. Ibid., pp. 17-19. 18. See below, chap. xiii. 19. Lyman Abbott and T. J. Conant, eds., A Dictionary of Religious Knowledge, for Populär and Professional Use (New York, 1874), preface. 20. Christian Register (Boston), Apr. 15, 1875. 21. In 1890 Abbott was honored with the D.D. by Harvard and in 1903 by Yale. He also received the LL.D. from Western Reserve in 1900 and Amherst in 1908. Miami University granted him the L.H.D. in 1909. 22. Compare Lyman Abbott, An lllustrated Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles (New York, 1878), p. 112, with Lyman Abbott, An lllustrated Commentary on the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans (New York, 1888), p. 23. 23. Christian Union, XVII (Feb. 27, 1878), 180. 24. Abbott, Reminiscences, pp. 320-321. 25. Ibid., p. 309. 26. Abbott, Reminiscences, pp. 313-315. Most of his sermon notebooks are in the Abbott Papers. 27. Jacob Abbott to Lyman Abbott, Dec. 30, 1878, Abbott Papers. 28. Abbott, Reminiscences, pp. 322-324. 29. lllustrated Christian Weel^ly, II (Jan. 27, 1872), 38; II (Apr. 20, 1872), 182. 30. Ibid., II (Nov. 23, 1872), 558. On this movement see Stow Persons' excellent monograph, Free Religion: An American Faith (New Häven, 1947). 31. lllustrated Christian Wee\ly, I (July i, 1871), 90. 32. Ibid., VI (June 17, 1876), 297. 33. Ibid., VI (Sept 9, 1876), 441. 34. Ibid., I (May 13, 1871), 34. 35. Ibid.. V (May i, 1875), 214. 36. Ibid., III (Nov. 29, 1873), 575. 37. Ibid., II (May 25, 1872), 242. 38. Ibid., II (Oct. 26, 1872), 510. Grant had introduced a modicum of civil Service reform in 1871 so as to meet this objection to his reelecüon, an action applauded in the WeeJ^ly. 39. Ibid., VI (May 20, 1876), 248. 40. Ibid., II (June 22, 1872), 294. 41. Ibid., IV (Dec. 12, 1874), 591. 42. Ibid., IV (May 23,1874), 242.

"MR. BEECHER'S

PAPER"

265

43. Ibid., VI (Aug. 19, 1876), 405. 44. Ibid., VI (May 6, 1876), 224. Abbott followed the same principle in regard to the Beecher trial, discussed in the next chapter. 45. Ibid., I (June 17, 1871), 74. The economic conservadsm o£ the clergy is brilliandy analyzed and carefully documented in Henry F. May's Protestant Churches and Industrial America (New York, 1949). Dr. May calls the period from 1861 to 1876 "the summit of complacency" in the attitude of religious leaders toward economic probiems. 46. lllustrated Christian Weekly, II (June 15, 1872), 283. 47. Ibid., VI (Aug. 19, 1876), 405. 48. Ibid., II (Oct. 12, 1872), 486. 49. Ibid., IV (May 23, 1874), 242. 50. Ibid., VI (Sept. 16, 1876), 452. VI. "Mr. Beecher's Paper" 1. Frank L. Mott, A History of American Magazines, 1850-1865 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1938), pp. 367-374. 2. Crammond Kennedy to John R. Howard (a member of the Company), Aug. 13, 1869, quoted in John R. Howard, Remembrance of Things Fast (New York, 1925), p. 241. 3. Ibid., p. 242. 4. Beecher to Howard, Sept. 15, 1869, ibid., p. 261. 5. Beecher to Howard, Sept. 2, 1869, ibid., p. 257. 6. Quoted in Paxton Hibben, Henry Ward Beecher (New York, ig^j), p. 196. 7. Howard, Things Past, pp. 245-246. 8. Frank L. Mott, A History of American Magazines, 1865-1885 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1938), pp. 425-426. 9. Allan Nevins, "Tilton, Theodore," Dictionary of American Biography, XVIII, 552; Harris E. Starr, "Beecher, Henry Ward," ibid., II, 134. 10. Hibben, Beecher, p. 234; Emanie Sachs, "The Terrible Siren," Victoria Woodhull, 1838-1 g2y (New York, 1928), pp. 100-102, 171-174. 11. Theodore D. Bacon, Leonard Bacon, a Statesman in the Church, ed. by Benjamin W. Bacon (New Häven, 1931), chap. xvi, describes the work of this council, of which Leonard Bacon was moderator. Abbott was chairman of the business committee. 12. Theodore Tilton against Henry Ward Beecher, Action for Criminal Con. Verbatim Report by the Official Stenographer (3 vols.; New York, 1875). Austin Abbott also prepared a report of the proceedings, in two volumes. 13. Three years after the trial she recanted and declared her husband's charges true. (New York Times, Apr. 16, 1878.) Beecher himself admitted that he was accustomed to visiting—and kissing—^Mrs. Tilton in the absencc of her husband. (Tilton against Beecher, III, 20.)

266

NOTES

14. lllustrated Christian Weekjy, IV (Aug. 22, 1874), 405. 15. Harper's Wee}{ly, XIX (June 5, 1875), 472. 16. Lyman Abbott, Henry Ward Beecher (New York, 1903), pp. 298-299; Reminiscences (Boston, 1915), p. 331. 17. New York Times, July 3, 1875. 18. Howard, Things Fast, p. 248. ig. Mrs. Abbott to Lyman Abbott, 1876, Abbott Papers. 20. Jacob Abbott to Lyman Abbott, Apr. 6, 1876 and Aug. 15, 1876, ibid. 21. Abbott, Reminiscences, pp. 334-335. 22. Christian Union, XIV (Sept. 13, 1876), 222. 23. Edwin W. Morse, The Life and Letters of Hamilton W. Mabie (New York, 1920), p. 54. 24. Mott, American Magazines, 1865-1885, pp. 427, 433. Lyman Abbott himself admitted this: "I do not think he often held a book off at arm's length and subjected it to a critic's scrutiny. I doubt whedier he ever laid it on the dissecting-table and investigated it with the scalpel and the microscope." His reviews were primarily expository and interpretative. See Ouiloo\, CXV (Jan. 10, 1917), 49. 25. Toward the end of his Hfe he wrote an introduction to Asa Don Dickinson's The Guide to Reading (Garden City, 1917), The Poc\et University, XXIII. 26. Jesse L. Hurlbut, The Story of Chautauqm (New York, 1921), pp. 83-84, 211, 400. 27. Christian Union, XIX (May 7, 1879), 423-424; Alice E. Freeman to Lyman Abbott, Jan. 18, 1886, quoted in Abbott, Silhouettes of My Contemporaries (Garden City, 1921), p. 75. 28. An Academic Courtship. Letters of Alice Freeman and George Herbert Palmer, i886-i88y. With an Introduction by Caroline Hazard. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1940), pp. 220-225. 29. Jacob Abbott to Lyman Abbott, Nov. 25, 1876, Abbott Papers. 30. Christian Union, jh^'II (May 29, 1878), 450. 31. See, for example, comment on &e trial of Prof. Robertson Smith of the Free Church of Scodand for articles presenüng new views of the Old Testament: Christian Union, XXI (June 16, 1880), 551; XXIII (June i, 1881), 514-51532. Christian Union, XXI (Mar. 10, 1880), 218-219. 33. Ibid.. XV (Mar. 7, 1877), 203. 34. Ibid., XXV (Apr. 13,1882), 343. 35. Ibid., XIX (June 18, 1879), 545. 36. Ibid., XVIII (Nov. 20, 1878), 423. 37. Ibid., XIX (May 21, 1879), 463. 38. Ibid., XV (May 30, 1877), 486-487. 39. Ibid., XVIII (Dec. 4, 1878), 473.

POLITICS

AND ECONOMICS

267

40. Ibid., XXII (July 21,1880), 45. 41. Ibid., XX (July 9, 1879), 2342. Ibid., XXI (Feb. 18, 1880), 146. 43f. Ibid., XIV (Sept. 27, 1876), 251. 44. Ibid., XXV (Apr. 27, 1882), 390-391. 45. Christian Union, XIX (Apr. 9, 1879), 334. 46. Ibid.. XIV (Sept 20, 1876), 226. 47. Ibid., XVIII (Oct 16,1878), 302. 48. Ibid.,'XVm (Dec. 18,1878), 524. 49. Ibid., XVI (July 18, 1877), 44; XXIII (Fcb. 16, 1881), 150-151; XXVIII (Aug. 30, 1883), 163. 50. Ibid., XIV (Nov. i; 1876), 346-34751. Ibid., XXI (May 19, 1880), 458-459; XXI (June 16, 1880), 550. It ignored Garfield's connection with the Credit Mobilier. 52. Ibid., XXIV (July 6,1881), 2. 53. See below, chap. xv. 54. Abbott, Reminiscences, pp. 346-347. The late Harold T. Pulsifer, who served on the Outloo\ staff for many years, confirmed this tesümony. 55. Outlook, XLVIII (July i, 1893), 6. 56. Mott, American Magazines, 1865-1885, pp. 428-429. Whiton's Yale Ph.D. (1861) was the first such degree conferred in the United States. VII. Politics and Economics: The Moral View 1. Christian Union, XXVI (Oct. 5, 1882), 270. 2. Ibid., XXVI (Oct. 26, 1882), 334. 3. Ibid., XXVI (Nov. 30,1882), 457. 4. Ibid.. XXIX (June 12,1884), 554-555. 5. Ibid.. XXIX (June 19, 1884), 577. 6. Ibid.. XXX (Aug. 7,1884), 121. 7. Ibid.. XXX (Aug. 14, 1884), 148. 8. Ibid., XXX (Aug. 28, 1884), 196; (Oct. 23, 1884), 388. 9. Ibid., XXX (Oct. 30, 1884), 412. 10. Lawrence Abbott, Impressions of Theodore Roosevelt (Garden City, 1919), p. 4; Allan Nevins, Grover Cleveland; a Study in Courage (New York, 1933), p. 164. 11. Christian Union, XXIX (Mar. 31, 1884), 242; XXXII (Aug. 20, 1885), 3; XXXII (Nov. 12, 1885), 3. 12. John B. Cough, Platform Echoes, or Uving Truths for Head and Heart (Hartford, 1886), introduction by Lyman Abbott, p. 55. 13. Christian Union, XXXIV (Aug. 26, 1886), 6-7. 14. Ibid., XVIII (Nov. 20, 1878), 422. 15. Ibid.. XXXIX (Mar. 7, 1889), 289. 16. Ibid.. XXX (July 3, 1884), 3; XXXV (Feb. 10, 1887), 3.

268

NOTES

17. Ibid., XXXV (June 23, 1887), 1-2. 18. Ibid.. XXXIV(Dec. 30, 1886), 26; Raymond B. Nixon, Henry W. Grady, Spokesman of the New South (New York, 1943), p. 242. 19. Christian Union, XXIX (Apr. 24, 1884), 385; XXXVII (Jan. 19, 1888), 68. 20. Ibid., XLI (June 12, 1890), 829. The journal consistendy spelled Negro widi a small "n." 21. Ibid., XVIII (Nov. 13, 1878), 398. 22. Lyman Abbott to Grover Cleveland, Dec. 1887, Cleveland Papers. 23. Christian Union, XXXVII (June 28, 1888), 803. 24. Ibid., XXXVIII (July 5, 1888), 26, and (July 12, 1888) 58. 25. Ibid., XLII (Oct. 9, 1890), 455. 26. Ibid., XLI (June 26, 1890), 891. 27. Ibid., XLVI (July 2, 1892), 8-9, and (Oct. 22, 1892) 722. 28. Outloo\, L (Aug. 18, 1894), 247, and (Sept. 15, 1894) 418-419. 29. Ibid., L (Aug. 25, 1894), 293; XLIX (Jan. 13, 1894), 57-58. 30. Christian Union. XXIX (Mar. 6, 1884), 218; XXXVII (Jan. 19,1888), 67; XLIII (Mar. 12,1891), 333. 31. Ibid., XLI (May 8, 1890), 651; XLVI (Dec. 31, 1892), it-ti-ivji. 32. Ibid., XXXVIII (Dec. 20, 1888), 718-719. 33. Outlook, LVI (May r, 1897), ro-ii; LVIII (Jan. 29, 1898), 261-262. 34. Ibid., LI (Jan. 19, 1895), 89-90. 35. Ibid., LVII (Oct. 23, 1897), 463. In 1901 Seth Low was the victor. 36. Ibid., L (Nov. 17, 1894), 788. 37. Ibid., XLIX (Jan. 6, 1894), lo-ii. 38. Forum, XVI (Feb. 1894), 663-669. 3§. Ouiloo\, XLIX (May 5, 1894), 777. Abbott's views on the industrial problem are treated more fully in chap. ix. 40. Christian Union, XVI (Nov. 14, 1877), 416; (Dec. 5, 1877), 495. 41. Ibid., XLIII (Jan. 22, 1891), 101-102. 42. Outloo\, LIII (June 27, 1896), 1179-1180; LIV (July 18, 1896), 89-90. 43. Ibid., LIV (Aug. 15, 1896), 281-282 (Sept. 5, 1896), 443, and (Sept. 19, 1896) 523. 44. OuÜoo\, LIV (Oct. 10,1896), 642. 45. Ibid., 643. 46. Ibid.. 644. In addition to this Ouüoo\ editorial Abbott wrote "A Summing-Up o£ the Vital Issues of 1896" for the Review of Reviews, in which he presented substantially the same arguments. He admitted that the gold dollar had been unfair to the debtor element but insisted that silver would be unjust to creditors—and two wrongs did not make a right XIV (Nov. 1896), 544-54947. Outlook, LIV (Dec. 19, 1896), 1129. 48. Ibid., LVIII (Jan. 15, 1898), 162-164.

CIVILIZATION

AND BARBARISM

269

49. This fact is abundantiy illustrated in Henry F. May's Protestant Churches and Industrial America (New York, 1949). VIII. Civilization and Barbarism 1. Christian Union, XIX (Jan. 22, 1879), 74. 2. Lyman Abbott, Silhouettes of My Contemporaries (Garden City, 1921), pp. 30-31. 3. Loring B. Priest, Uncle Sam's Stepchildren; the Reformation of United States Indian Policy, 1865-1887 (New Brunswick, 1942), pp. 84-85. 4. Second Annual Address to the Public of the Lal^e Mohon\ Conference (1884), p. 26. 5. Helen Hunt Jackson, Ramona, ed. by Susan Coolidge (2 vols.; Boston, 1900), introduction. Appearance of the novei temporarily increased the Christian Union's circulation. 6. Priest, Uncle Sam's Stepchildren, p. 194. 7. Christian Union, XXXI (June 1 1 , 1885), 2. 8. Ibid., XXXII (July 16, 1885), 3. Repeated fifteen years later in connection with the debate on imperialism, this Statement brought Abbott a storm of criticism. See below, chap xiv. 9. Ibid. 10. "Proceedings of Informal Indian Meeting Held by Request of Dr. Lyman Abbott," typed copy attached to letter, Lyman Abbott to Henry L. Dawes, July 18, 1885, Dawes Papers. 11. Herbert Welsh to Henry L. Dawes, July 25, 1885; similar view expressed in letter of August 19; both in Dawes Papers. 12. Abbott to Dawes, July 18, 1885, Dawes Papers. 13. Abbott to Dawes, July 20, 1885, Dawes Papers. 14. Proceedings of the Third Annual Meeting of the La\e Mohon\ Conference of Friends of the Indian (1885), p. 41. 15. Ibid., p. 50. 16. Ibid., pp. 51-52. 17. Ibid., p. 54. An interesting side light on this debate is provided by a letter from Mrs. Henry L. Dawes to her daughter Anna (Oct. 1 1 , 1885, Dawes Papers): "The Abbott phase was managed. Dr. Abbott made a very good and ellective speech on his side, but the current was set strongly the other way. Some of the wisest of the men said that your Father smashed himü" 18. Lake Mohonk Conference, Proceedings (1885), p. 49. 19. Copy of address in Abbott Papers. 20. Robert McElroy, Grover Cleveland, the Man and the Statesman (2 vols.; New York, 1923), I, 227. 21. "Minutes of the Board of Indian Commissioners, 1869-1915," pp. 254255, in records of Department of Interior, National Archives. 22. Clinton B. Fisk to Grover Cleveland, Nov. 16, 1885, Cleveland Papers.

270

NOTES

23. U. S. Statutes at Large. XXIV, 388-391. The Five Civilized Tribes of Indian Territory and die Seneca Nation of New York were exempt from this legislation. 24. Christian Union, X X X V I (July 7, 1887), 2-3. 25. Proceedings of the Thirty-Fourth Annml Lake Mohon\ Conference (1916), p. 183. 26. Lucius Q. C. Lamar to Henry L. Dawes, Nov. 13, 1885, Dawes Papers. 27. Proceedings of the Fifth Annual La\e Mohon\ Conference of Friends of the Indian (1887), p. 9. 28. Proceedings of the Sixth Annual La^e Mohon^ Conference of Friends of the Indian (1888), p. 40. 29. Ibid., p. 104. 30. W. N. Hailmann, "Education of the Indian," in Nicholas M. Buder, ed., Education in the United States (Albany, 1900), II, 945. 31. Proceedings of the Thirteenth Annual La]{e Mohon\ Conference (1895), p. 109. 32. Lyman Abbott, "Our Indian Problem," North American Review, CLXVII (Dec. 1898), 719-728; Outlook, L X X V (Sept. 19, 1903), 150; Lyman Abbott to Theodore Roosevelt, Oct. 12, 1903, Rooseveh Papers. 33. Roosevelt to Abbott, Feb. 12, 1905; Outlook, LXXIX (Feb. 18, 1905), 417-419. 34. See, e.g., Oliver La Farge, "A Plea for a Square Deal for the Indians," New York Times Magazine, June 27, 1948. IX. Industriäl Democracy 1. On this movment see Aaron I. Abell, The Urban Impact on American Protestantism, i86s-igoo (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1943), which emphasizes economic and institutional factors, and Charles H. Hopkins, The Rise of the Social Gospel in American Protestantism, 1865-igi^ (New Häven, 1940), mainly concerned with intellectual and personal influences. Henry F. May, Protestant Churches and Industriäl America (New York, 1949), deals chiefly with the atdtude of religious leadership toward organized labor. 2. Christian Union, XVIII (Oct. 9, 1878), 284-285, and (Oct. 16, 1878), 303-3043. Ibid., X X V (Apr. 13, 1882), 344. 4. Ibid., XXIX (Jan. 24, 1884), 79. 5. Ibid., XXVIII (Aug. 30, 1883), 141. 6. Ibid., XXIX (Jan. 3, 1884), 3. 7. Outlook, LI (May 25, 1895), 860. 8. Quoted in Richard T. Ely, "Report of the Organization of the American Economic Association," in Publications of the American Economic Association, I (1887), 9.

INDUSTRIAL

DEMOCRACY

271

9. Ibid., pp. 40-41. 10. Christian Union. XXXI (Feb. 26, 1885), 3. 11. Ibid., XXXI (March 26, 1885), 4. 12. Ibid., XXVIII (Nov. 29, 1883), 456. 13. Lyman Abbott, ''Danger Ahead," Century, XXXI (Nov. 1885), 51-59. 14. Christian Union, XXXIII (May 13, 1886), i. 15. Ibid., XXXII (Oct. 29, 1885), 3-4. 16. Ibid., XXXV (Apr. 21, 1887), 8-9. It should be noted that postalsavings banks were not established until 1910 and even then were hailed as socialistic and opposed "almost without exception" by private bankers. See Harold U. Faulkner, The Quest jor Social Justice, 1898-1914 (A History of American Life, XI, New^ York, 1931), p. 120. Another indication of Abbott's interest in thrift may be found in his Open Letter on Life Insurance (New York, 1884), reprinted by several companies from an article in the Christian Union. 17. Christian Union, XVII (Aug. 28, 1878), 162. 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid., XXIX (Apr. 10, 1884), 339. 20. Lyman Abbott, Reminiscences (Boston, 1915), p. 408. 21. Christian Union, XXIII (May 4, 1881), 428. 22. Outlook, LVII (Nov. 6, 1897), 552. 23. Christian Union, XVIII (Sept. 18, 1878), 222-223. 24. Ibid., XXIV (July 20, i88r), 51. 25. Ibid., XXVII (Feb. 15,1883), 127. 26. Ibid., XXX (Aug. 14, 1884), 149. 27. Ibid., XXXV (Jan. 20, 1887), 3. 28. Ibid., XXVI (Nov. 30, 1882), 457. 29. Lyman Abbott, 'Tostal Telegraphy," Arena, XV (Jan. 1896), 242-244. 30. Lyman Abbott, "Industrial Democracy," Forum, IX (Aug. 1890), 66^ 31. Christian Union, XIX (Jan. 22, 1879), 7432. Ibid., XXXII (Oct. 29, 1885), pp. 3-4. 33. Abbott, Reminiscences, p. 408. 34. Ibid. 35. Lyman Abbott, "Christianity versus Socialism," North American Review, CXLVIII (Apr. 1889), 451-453. See also Lyman Abbott, Christianity and Social Problems (Boston, 1896), p. 133. 36. Christian Union, XXXIII (Apr. 8, 1886), 8. 37. Ibid., XXXIX (Feb. 21, 1889), 231. 38. Dores R. Sharpe, Walter Rauschenbusch (New York, 1942), p. 98. 39. Washington Gladden, Recollections (Boston, 1909), p. 345. 40. Christian Union, XLVI (July 16, 1892), 108-109; XLVI (Oct. 22, 1892), 717. 41. Ibid., XXXVII (Apr. 5, 1888), 413.

272

NOTES

42. Outloo\, L (July 7, 1894), 8-9. 43. Lyman Abbott to Richard T . Ely, July 19, 1894, Ely Papers. 44. Outloo\, L (July 21, 1894), 85. 45. Ibid. (Sept. I, 1894), 339. A decade later Abbott wrote: "morally, and in die high court of heaven, die capitalistic employers were far more responsible for the conditions in Chicago in the strike of 1894 di^ii th^ laborers whose passions overwrought their judgment, and w h o allowed themselves to be led into a foolish and criminal violation of the law." \The Industrial Problem (Philadelphia, 1905), p. 125.] 46. Outloo\, L (Dec. 22, 1894), 1078, and later. Eugene V . Debs, President of the American Railway Union, was given a prison sentence for contempt of court in disobeying an injuncüon against interfering with the Operation of rail lines. 47. Lyman Abbott, "Industrial Democracy," Forum, IX (Aug. 1890), 667. 48. Lyman Abbott, Christianity and Social Problems (Boston, 1896), p. 26. 49. Problems of Life; Selections from the Writings of the Rev. Lyman Abbott, D.D., ed. by Sarah T . Dickinson ( N e w York, 1900), p. 292. 50. Abbott, Christianity and Social Problems, p. 200. 51. Hopkins, Social Gospel, passim. 52. Quoted in May, Protestant Churches and Industrial America, p. 222. X. An Institutional

Church at

Wor\

1. See Aaron I. Abell, The Urban Impact on American Protestantism, 1865-1 goo (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1943). 2. Christian Union, XXIII (Apr. 20, 1881), 375-376. 3. Ibid., X X I X (June 26, 1884), 602. 4. Ibid., X X X I (Jan. i , 1885), 3-4. 5. Ibid., X X X I (June i r , 1885), 3. 6. Ibid., X X X I (Apr. 23, 1885), 3-4. 7. Ibid., X X X I I (Dec. 17, 1885), 6-7. 8. Ibid.. X X X V (June 16, 1887), 7 ff. 9. Ibid., XLII (Oct. 2, 1890), 421-422. 10. Ibid., X X X V I I (May 31, 1888), 698. 11. N e w York Star, May 26, 1888. 12. N e w Y o r k Herald, May 26, 1888; N e w York Tribüne, June 25, 1888; S. B. Halliday to Lyman Abbott, May 16, 1888, Abbott Papers. 13. This testimony is confirmed by his letter accepting the pastorate, June 22, 1888, Abbott Papers. 14. Lyman Abbott, Reminiscences (Boston, 1915), pp. 358-359. 15. Boston Advertiser, Dec. 29, 1887. 16. John R. Howard, Remembrance of Things Fast ( N e w York, 1925), p. 373. While Beecher's method exemplified the "pulpit oratory" which was typical of nineteenth-century preaching, Abbott has been called "the first great

A CHURCH

AT WORK

273

master of the conversational style of speaking" which has become Standard in die twentietJi Century. See Charles W. Gilkey, "Protestant Preaching," in S. M. Cavert and H. P. Van Düsen, eds., The Church through Half a Century (New York, 1936), p. 211. 17. Other well-known Brooklyn pastors were Richard S. Storrs of the Church of the Pilgrims and T. De Witt Talmage of the Central Presbyterian Church. Talmage, who graduated from New York University in the same class with Abbott, was at the height of his fame in 1890, preaching to larger audiences than any other clergyman in America. Though much criticized for his sensaüonal methods, he had an immense following. His sermons appeared in 3500 newspapers throughout the English-speaking world. See Alvin F. Harlow, "Talmage, Thomas De Witt," Dictionary of American Biography, XVIII, 287-288. iS. A Church in History; the Story of Plymouth's First Hundred Years under Beecher, Abbott, Hillis, Dur^ee, and Fifield (Brooklyn, 1949), pp. 3-6. 19. Lyman B. Stowe, Saints, Sinners, and Beechers (Indianapolis, 1934), P- 27320. A Church in History, pp. 24-42. 21. Henry Ward Beecher, A Memorial (Brooklyn, 1887), p. 18. 22. Proceedings of a Council in Plymouth Church, Broo\lyn, New-Yor\, for the Installation of the Rev. Lyman Abbott, D.D. as Pastor, and the Ordination and Installation of the Rev. Howard S. Bliss as Assistant Pastor, Held January 16, i8go (Brooklyn, 1890), p. 40. 23. Ibid.,

p. 58. T h e occasion was also significant for Abbott's Statement

of the "New Theology," discussed in the next chapter. 24. Christian Union, X X X (Sept. 25, 1884), 305-306. It is interesting to note that the lllustrated Christian Weekjy, under Abbott's editorship, had denied the premises of the Prison Reform Association, holding that the object of imprisonment was not reform of the criminal but protection of society. See VI (June 17, 1876), 297. 25. Christian Union, XXXIX (Feb. 7, 1889), 163-164; X L I (May 15, 1890), 691. 26. New York Tribüne, Dec. 14, 1890. 27. Ibid. 28. Ibid., Dec. 12, 1897; Abbott, Reminiscences, p. 374. 29. Harold C. Syrett, The City of Brooklyn, i%$-i&g8] a Political History (New York, 1944), pp. 16-17. 30. Abbott, Reminiscences, p. 362. 31. Annual Reports of Plymouth Church, iSSj-iSgg. Howard S. Bliss, Plymouth Church at Wor\, an address delivered Dec. ig, 1893, and published in pamphlet form lists most of the organizations connected with the church. 32. Austin Abbott to Lyman Abbott, Jan. 7, 1892, Abbott Papers. Abbott, Reminiscences, p. 367.

274

NOTES

33. Brooklyn Eagle, Dec. 31, 1898. 34. Abell, Urban Impact, pp. 27-30, 137-165. Episcopalians and Congregationalists were preeminent among religious denominations in this movement. 35. Outlook., XLyiII (Dec. 2, 1893), 991. 36. Abbott, Reminiscences, pp. 375-378; New York Times, Dec. 4, 1898; statcments by die late Beatrice Vail AbbotL 37. Two collections of his Plymouth Church sermons are Signs of Protnise (New York, 1889) and The Life That Really Is (New York, 1899), die first taken £rom the first few years, the second from his last year. Their content will be analyzed more carefully in chaps. xi-xiü. 38. Gaius G. Atkins, Religion in Our Times (New York, 1932), p. 253. 39. Abbott, Reminiscences, pp. 371-372. 40. Syrett, City of Brooklyn, p. 39. Parkhurst, a Manhattan preacher, was elected president of the New York Society for the Prevention of Crime, proved collusion between criminals and the police, and led a victorious campaign against Tammany in 1894. 41. Charles H. Hopkins, The Rise of the Social Gospel in American Protestantism, 1865-1 gi5 (New York, 1940), p. 160. 42. New York Herald, Sept. 22, 1895. 43. Abbott, Reminiscences, pp. 383-384. 44. Outlook, LX (Dec. 3, 1898), 885-886; Annual Reports of Plymouth Church for i8g8; New York Tribüne, Jan. 23, 1899. 45. New York Tribüne, Nov. 29, 1898. XL Are the Heathen Doomed? 1. Frank H. Foster, The Modern Movement in American Theology (New York, 1939), and John W. Buckham, Progressive Religious Thought in America (Boston, 1919), discuss the major contribuüons to this development. Also iiseful is Gaius G. Atkins' delightfully reminiscent Religion in Our Times (New York, 1932). 2. Dr. Sidney E. Mead, Associate Professor of the History of American Chrisdanity at the University of Chicago, to the author, Apr. i, 1949. 3. Charles A. Dinsmore, "Bushneil, Horace," Dictionary of American Biography, III, 350-354- For a fuller analysis see Theodore T. Munger, Horace Bushneil, Preacher and Theologian (Boston, 1899). 4. Minutes of the National Council of the Congregational Churches of the United States, at the fourth session, held in St. Louis, Missouri, November 11-15, (Boston, 1880), p. 24. 5. Lyman Abbott, Reminiscences (Boston, 1915), p. 471. Washington Gladden, Recollections (Boston, 1909), also has a good discussion of Congregational creed revision and the subsequent controversy over future probation. 6. Albert E. Dunning, Congregationalists in America (Boston, 1894), pp. 529-531.

ARE THE HE ATHEN

DO OMED?

275

7. Christian Union. XXIX (Mar. 6, 1884), 220. 8. Lyman Abbott, "The Revision of Creeds," North American Review, CXXXVI (Jan. 1883), 15. 9. Ibid., 16. 10. Abbott, Reminiscences, pp. 471-472. 11. Christian Union, XVII (Jan. 2, 1878), 2. 12. Ibid., XIX (Apr. 16, 1879), 357. 13. Daniel D. Williams, The Andover Uberais, a Study in American Theology (New York, 1941); David E. Swift, "The Future Probation Controversy in American Congregationalism, 1886-1893," Yale Ph.D. thesis, 1947. 14. Christian Union, XXXIW (Feb. 18, 1886), 3-4. 15. Ibid., XXXIV (Aug. 19, 1886), 3-4. 16. Hamilton A. Hill, The American Board. Is its Proper Relation to the Churches That of Domination or Dependence? (Cambridge, 1887), p. 32. 17. Gladden, Recollections, p. 290. 18. Hill, American Board, p. 33. 19. Abbott, Reminiscences, pp. 473-474. 20. Christian Union, XXXIII (June 10, i886), 3. 21. Ibid., XXXIV (Sept. 16, 1886), 4. The Congregationalist and the Advance, both denominational organs, supported Alden and werc severely critical of the Christian Union. 22. Abbott, Reminiscences, p. 475. The proceedings were published as The Great Debate (Boston, 1886). The Christian Union carried a brief report —XXXIV (Oct. 14, 1886), 3, 5-6. 23. The Great Debate, p. 37. 24. Ibid., pp. 39-40. 25. Ibid., p. 47. 26. Ibid., p. 80. 27. Abbott, Reminiscences, p. 476. 28. Lyman Abbott to Alpheus Hardy, Oct. 26, 1886, Mark Hopkins Papers. 29. New York Tribüne, Oct. 15, 1887. 30. Christian Union, XL VI (Dec. 3, 1892), 1034. 31. Ibid., XXXVII (Feb. 9,1888), 190. 32. Proceedings of a Council in Plymouth Church, Brool^yn, New-Yor\, for the Instillation of the Rev. Lyman Abbott, D.D. (Brooklyn, 1890), p. 14. In i86i he had written that the Bible was "equally clear" against unconsciousness after death and against the idea of a future probation. (Journal, Nov. 8, 1861, Abbott Papers.) 33. Ibid. 34. Christian Union, XLIII (Jan. 8, 1891), 39. 35. Why Dr. Lyman Abbott Is Not a Universalist and Why He Might Be (Boston, 1900). Prof. W. G. Tousey of Tufts College, speaking for the Universalists, answered Abbott's argument. Both speeches are included here.

276

NOTES

36. Eighty-third Annml Report of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (1893), p. xii-xv. 37. Eighty-sixth Annual Report of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (1896), p. x. 38. J. H. Barrows, ed., The World's Parliament of Religions (Chicago, 1893). I, 499-50039. Outlook., XLVIII (Sept. 30, 1893), 583-584. 40. Ibid., LVI (June 26, 1897), 484. In 1898 the articles were brought together in book form. 41. Ibid., LVI (Aug. 21, 1897), 988-993. 42. Lyman Abbott, The Life That Really Is (New York, 1899), p. 88. XU. Evolutionary Theology 1. Frank H. Foster, The Modern Movement in American Theology (New York, 1939), p. 54. 2. Stow Persons, ed., Evolutionary Thought in America (New Häven, 1950), is a coöperative work dealing with Darwin's influenae on all branches of learning. Richard Hofstadter, Social Darmnism in American Thought, i86o-igi§ (Philadelphia, 1944), emphasizes social and economic theory. Bert J. Loewenberg, "The Impact of the Doctrine of Evolution on American Thought, 1859-1900" (Harvard Ph.D. thesis, 1934), is also important; the conclusions of this work are set forth briefly in "Darwinism Comes to America, 1859-1900," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, XXVIII (Dec. 1941). 339-368. 3. Charles Hodge, What Is Darwinism? (New York, 1874), p. 177. 4. Loewenberg, "Darwinism Comes to America," loc. cit., p. 357. 5. William D. Armes, ed., The Autobiography of Joseph LeConte (New York, 1903), p. 335. 6. Henry Ward Beecher, Evolution and Religion (New York, 1885), p. 46. 7. Christian Union, XXVI (Sept. 21, 1882), 230-231. 8. Ibid., XXV (Apr. 27, 1882), 390-391. 9. Lyman Abbott, Reminiscences (Boston, 1915), p. 459. 10. Christian Union, XXVII (Feb. 8, 1883), 106-107. 11. Ibid., XXX (Nov. 6, 1884), 437. 12. Lyman Abbott, In Aid of Faith (New York, 1886), pp. 31, 86. 13. The acute Belgian observer Count Goblet d'Alviella, in his The Contemporary Evolution of Religious Thought in England, America and India, trans. by J. Moden (New York, 1886), while primarily concerned with radical religious thought, noted the extent to which the theory of evolution was influencing even the orthodox, especially among Congregationalists. See pp. 205-206, 218-221. 14. Lyman Abbott, The Evolution of Christianity (Boston, 1892), p. iv. 15. Ibid.. p. 245.

EVOLUTIONARY

THEOLOGY

277

16. Ibid., pp. I, 11-12. 17. Ibid., p. 40. Detailed trcatment of Abbott's views on the Bible is reserved for the next chapter. 18. Ibid., p. 172. 19. Ibid., p. 227. 20. Ibid., p. 250. 21. Ibid., pp. 254-255, 258. 22. Boston Transcript, Jan. 15, 1892. 23. Boston Herald, Jan. 10, 1892. 24. Boston Advertiser, Jan. 27, 1892. 25. Ibid., Feh. 8, 1892. 26. Boston Herald, Jan. 18, 1892. 27. Joseph Cook, "Dr. Lyman Abbott's New Progressive Orthodoxy," Our Day, IX (May 1892), 340-349. 28. Francis M. Bruner, The Evolution Theory, as Stated by M. LeConte and Applied by Dr. Lyman Abbott Unsupported by the Phenomena of the World as Far as We Are Able to Know It (Des Moines, 1900), pp. 9, 23, 121, 45. 29. Lyman Abbott, The Theology of an Evolutionist (Boston, 1897), pp. 75-76. 30. Ibid., p. 49. 31. Ibid., p. III. 32. Ibid., p. 127. 33. Ibid., p. 159. 34. Ibid., p. 161. 35. Ibid., p. 173. 36. Ibid., p. 184. 37. Christian Union, XLII (July 3, 1890), 24. 38. Daniel H. Chase to Edward Abbott, Feb. 1897, Edward Abbott Papers. 39. John Fulton to Edward Abbott, Dec. 8, 1897, ibid. 40. Brooklyn Citizen, June 8, 1896. 41. Chicago Interior, Feb. 4, 1897. 42. New York Tribüne, Nov. 29, 1898. 43. Washington Gladden to Lyman Abbott, Nov. 23, 1897, Abbott Papers. 44. Sarah T. Dickinson, ed., Problems of Life; Selections from the Writings of the Rev. Lyman Abbott, D.D. (New York, 1900), p. 128. 45. Abbott, The Theology of an Evolutionist, p. 176. 46. Lyman Abbott, "What Is Christianity?" Arena, III (Dec. 1890), 46. 47. Hofstadter's Social Darwinism, pp. 74, 174, makes it clear that nothing in Darwinism inevitably made it an apology for competition and force. It was a neutral Instrument, capable of supporting opposite ideologies. See also "Evolution and Social Reform," in the New Encyclopedia of Social Reform, cd. by William D. P. Bliss and Rudolph M. Binder (New York, 1908), pp. 451-

278

NOTES

455. For tJie relation of evolutionary theories to the social gospel, consult Charles H. Hopkins, The Eise of the Social Gospel in American Protestantism, 1865-igis (New Häven, 1940), pp. 121-122, 129-130. 48. Thomas H. Huxley, Evolution and Ethics (London, 1893). 49. See Foster, The Modern Movement in American Theology, pp. 90-104. XUL The Bible as Literature 1. The term "higher criticism" is used in contradistinction to "lower criticism" (inquiry into particular texts) to indicate examination of the documents as a whole, especially of their authenticity and the circumstances of their composition. 2. Lyman Abbott, Reminiscences (Boston, 1915), p. 447. 3. Christian Union, XVII (May i, 1878), 366. 4. Ibid., XXXI (May 28, 1885), 3. 5. Ibid., XXIX (June 19, 1884), 579. 6. Ibid., XXXIX (May 30, 1889), 697. 7. Arthur C. McGifTert, "Briggs, Charles Augustus," Dictionary of American Biography, III, 40-41. In 1898 Briggs joined the Episcopal Church. 8. Christian Union, XLIII (May 23, 1891), 690. 9. New York Tribüne, May 21, 1891. 10. Christian Union, XLVII (June 10, 1893), 1116. The journal also criticized other heresy ti'ials, such as thpse of A. C. McGiflert and Borden Parker Bowne. See Outloo\, LXIV (Feb. 10, 1900), 343-345; LXXV (Dec. 19, 1903), 927-928. 11. Lyman Abbott, The Evolution of Christianity (Boston, 1892), pp. 36-3712. Outloo\, LV (Feb. 6, 1897), 390. New York Journal, Jan. 26, 1897. Cf. Lyman Abbott, The Life and Literature of the Ancient Hebrews (Boston, 1901), pp. 192-200. 13. New York World, Jan. 25, 1897. 14. Uving Church, XIX (Mar. 27, 1897), 1245. 15. W. S. Rainsford to Lyman Abbott, Feb. 9, 1897, Abbott Papers. 16. Abbott, Reminiscences, p. 455. 17. Abbott, Ufe and Literature of the Ancient Hebrews, pp. v-vi. 18. Contrast Lyman Abbott, Jesus of Nazareth (New York, 1869), p. 39, with Ufe and Literature of the Ancient Hebrews, p. 128. 19. Abbott, Ancient Hebrews, p. 165. 20. Ibid., pp. 182-183. 21. Ibid., p. 316. 22. Ibid.. p. 337. 23. Ibid., p. 387. 24. Abbott, Reminiscences, p. 369.

"THE

IMPERIALISM

OF LIBERTY"

279

25. Abbott, Andent Hebrews, footnotes; Lyman Abbott to Rev. A. B. Hervey, Jan. 6, 1897, copy, Abbott Papers. 26. Hartford Seminary Record, XI (May 1901), 216-217. 27. W. H. Green, in The Homiletic Review. XXXIII (Jan. 1897), 62. 28. B. A. M. Schapiro, The Higher Critics' Hebrew (New York, 1907). 29. New York Herald, Mar. i, 1898. 30. Nation, LXXIII (Sept. 19,1901), 230. 31. Robert E. Bisbee in the Arena, XXVI (Sept. 1901), 331-332. 32. Christian Union, XXXIX (Mar. 21, 1889), 356. 33. Ibid., XXXIX (May 30, 1889), 685. 34. Lyman Abbott, A Life of Christ (New York, 1894), P35. Ibid., pp. i i o - i i i . 36. Ibid., p. 5. 37. Ibid., p. 71. 38. Lyman Abbott, The Life and Letters of Paul the Apostle (Boston, 1898), pp. 9, 18. 39. Ibid., p. 163. 40. Outlook, LXXXII (Feb. 24, 1906), p. 396. 41. Ibid., XCIV (Feb. 19, 1910), 378. 42. Puc\, XLV, no. 1167 (July 19, 1899). 43. Outloo\, LI (Mar. 23, 1895), 463. XIV. "The Imperialism of Uberty" 1. Lyman Abbott to Edward Abbott, Aug. 2, 1898, Edward Abbott Papers. 2. Brooklyn Eagle, May 30, 1898. 3. Lyman Abbott, In Aid of Faith (New York, 1886), p. 148. 4. Christian Union, XLIV (Nov. 7, 1891), 865. 5. Outloo\, LI (Apr. 6, 1895), 550. 6. Ibid., XLVII (Feb. 18, 1893), 309-310; XLVIII (Dec. 23, 1893), 1178. 7. New York Tribüne, Dec. 19, 1895. 8. "A Plea for Peace," Abbott Papers; New York Tribüne, Dec. 23, 1895. 9. New York Tribüne, Dec. 24, 1895. IG. Outlook, LH (Dec. 28, 1895), 1131. 11. Ibid., LIII (Jan. 4, 1896), 7. 12. "A Plea for Peace," Abbott Papers. 13. Outloo\, LH (Jan. 11, 1896), 51-52. 14. lllustrated Christian Weekly, I (May 27, 1871), 50. 15. Outlook, LH (Feb. 15, 1896), 279 and later. 16. Lyman Abbott, "The Basis of an Anglo-American Understanding," North American Review, CLXVI (May 1898), 520. 17. Christian Union, XXXII (Dec. 31, 1885), i. 18. Report of the Second Annual Meeting of the Lake Mohonk Conference on International Arbitration (1896), p. 103.

28O

NOTES

ig. Lyman Abbott, Christianity and Social Problems (Boston, 1896), pp. 241-246.

20. Ibid., p. 242.

21. Ibid., p. 240. 22. Outlook, LIV (Dec. 26, 1896), 1176-1177; LVI (May 29, 1897), 235. 23. Ibid., LVIII (Feb. 26, 1898), 506. 24. Plymouth Morning Pulpit, I, no. 5. 25. New York Journal, March 14,1898. The New York Times also reported the sermon. For Outloo\ criticism of the sensational press see LVIII (Jan. 22, 1898), 203-204. 26. Outlook, LVIII (Mar. 19, 1898), 708-709. 27. In his Reminiscences (Boston, 1915), p. 437, Lyman Abbott attributed his conversion to Proctor's influential speech, but his "Peace or War" sermon was given four days earlier. 28. New York Tribüne, Apr. 5, 1898. 29. Outloo\, LVIII (Apr. 9, 1898), 903-905. 30. Ibid.. LVIII (Apr. 30, 1898), 1058. 31. Ibid., LIX (May 7, 1898), 1 1 . 32. New York Tribüne, May 19, 1898. 33. Lyman Abbott to Hamilton W. Mabie, July 19, 1898, copy, Abbott Papers. George Kennan the Journalist (1845—1924) should be distinguished from George F. Kennan the diplomat (1904). 34. Outlook, L X (Dec. 3, 1898), 807. 35. Ibid., LXIII (Oct. 18, 1899), 377. 36. Ibid., LIX (July 23, 1898), 743. 37. Ibid., 710-712. 38. Report oj the Fifth Annual Meeting of the La^e Mohon\ Conference on International Arbitration (1899), pp. 78, 80. 39. New York Times, May 16, 1898. 40. Outlook, LIX (Aug. 2j, 1898), 1004. 41. Lyman Abbott to Edward Abbott, Aug. 2, 1898, Edward Abbott Papers. 42. Outlook, L X I (Jan. 28, 1899), 239. 43. Lyman Abbott to William McKinley, May 25, 1899, McKinley Papers. 44. Outlook, LXVI (Oct. 6, 1900), 300. 45. Ibid., LXVI (Dec. 15, 1900), 916-918; LXVII (Mar. 23, 1901), 665. 46. Lyman Abbott to Theodore Roosevelt, Mar. 1900, Roosevelt Papers. 47. Lyman Abbott to Theodore Roosevelt, Mar. 15, 1900, ibid. 48. Roosevelt to Henry Ca bot Lodge, Mar. 16, 1900, in Selections from the Correspondence of Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge, 1884-1^18 (New York, 1925), I, 454. 49. Outlook, LXIV (Mar. 17, 1900), 616-617; (Mar. 24, 1900), 664. 50. Christian Union, XXI (Apr. 7, 1880), 314. 51. Outlook, LXIX (Nov. 23, 1901), 763-764.

"MY DEAR MR. ROOSEVELT"

281

52. Sarah T. Dickinson, ed., Problems of Lije; Selections jrom the Writings oj the Rev. Lyman Abbott, D.D. (New York, 1900), p. 212. 53. Outloo\, LXXI (June 7, 1902), 348-349. 54. Illustrative of the influence of his father is the fact that the first four of these basic human rights were stated in Jacob Abbott's The Corner-stone (Boston, 1834), PP- 84-85. Originally they are probably from the injunctions in the Ten Commandments against murder, theft, adultery, and false witness. 55. Lyman Abbott, The Rights of Man, A Study in Twentieth Century Problems (Boston, ipor), pp. 69-72. 56. Ibid., p. 274. This purports to be taken from a Stenographie report of the original lecture. Professor John W. Burgess of Columbia had used substantially the same argument in 1890. See Merle Curti, The Growth of American Thought (New York, 1943), p. 673. Abbott reiterated it on various occasions, as at the eighteenth annual Lake Mohonk Conference of Friends of the Indian in 1900. 57. Boston Herald, Feb. 13, 1901. 58. Ibid., Feb. 22, 1901. Trueblood said the papers had misreported him regarding Abbott. Ibid., Feb. 25, 1901. 59. Lyman Abbott to Edward W. Ordway, Jan. 2, 1902, Ordway Papers. 60. Outloo\, LXX^'^II (June 1 1 , 1904), 348-349. 61. See, for example, Outloo\, L X X V I (Jan. 23, 1904), 204; Proceedings of the Twenty-First Annual Meeting of the La\e Mohon\ Conference of Friends of the Indian and other Dependent Peoples (1903); Lyman Abbott to Theodore Roosevelt, April 1 1 , 1906, Roosevelt Papers. 62. OutlooXj XCII (June 26, 1909), 462. Also Lyman Abbott to William Howard Taft, Mar. 1 1 , 1909, Taft Papers. 63. Abbott, "Anglo-American Understanding," loc. cit., 515. 64. Abbott, The Rights of Man, p. 260. 65. Outloo\, LIX (July 23, 1898), 711. 66. Ibid., LXXVIII (Nov. 26, 1904), 773. 67. Overheard by Oswald Garrison Villard and recorded in his Fighting Years; Memoirs of a Liberal Editor (New York, 1939), p. 173. 68. Abbott, Problems of Life, p. 91. 69. Christian Union, XXXIII (June 10, 1886), 3-4. 70. The Churchman, L X X X V I (Dec. 27, 1902), 840. 71. Abbott, The Rights of Man, p. 262. XV. "My Dear Mr. Roosevelt" 1. Abbott recognized this when in his Silhouettes of My Contemporaries (Garden City, 1921) he treated Roosevelt as a 'Treacher of Righteousness." See also Henry F. Pringle, Theodore Roosevelt, a Biography (New York, 1931), p. 474. 2. Lyman Abbott, Reminiscences (Boston, 1915), p. 443.

282

NOTES

3. Theodore Roosevelt to Lyman Abbott, Aug. 18, 1904, Roosevelt Papers. 4. Theodore Roosevelt to Lawrence F. Abbott, Nov. 12, 1907, ibid. 5. Christian Union, XXIX (May i, 1884), 409. 6. Roosevelt to Abbott, Oct. 11, 1901; Nov. 8, 1901; Abbott to Roosevelt, Nov. 16, 1901, Roosevelt Papers. 7. Roosevelt to Lawrence F. Abbott, Aug. 29, 1907, ibid. 8. Abbott to Roosevelt, Oct. 5,'1902, Oct. 8, 1902, ibid. 9. Outlook, LXXII (Nov. 22, 1902), 672. 10. Roosevelt to Abbott, Sept. 26, 1902, Roosevelt Papers; Outloo\, LXXII (Sept. 27, 1902), 198-201. 11. Outloo\, LXXII (Nov. 15, 1902), 627-629. 12. Lyman Abbott, The Industrial Problem (Philadelphia, 1905), p. 155. 13. Ibid., pp. 70, 100. Abbott spoke on the same theme to the Washington Association of New Jersey in 1906 and to the Religious Education Association in 1908. Both speeches were published, the latter as "The Significance of the Present Moral Awakening in the Nation," in South Atlantic Quarterly, VII (July 1908), 205-209. Abbott predicted that capitalism would not survive the first half of the twentieth Century. It would be replaced not by State socialism but by industrial democracy. 14. Abbott, The Industrial Problem, p. 154. 15. Washington Gladden, Recollections (Boston, 1909), p. 405. 16. Outlook, LXXIX (Apr. 8, 1905), 871. 17. Ibid., LXXIX (Apr. 22, 1905), 984, 976. The money was not returned, but the Board gave Gladden assurances that no more donations would be solicited from persons who had become rieh by "methods morally reprehensible or socially injurious" {Recollections, 407). A survey revealed that the great majority of Board members favored accepting the gift. (Letters and tabulation in papers of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Houghton Library.) 18. Outlook, LXXVI (Apr. 2, 1904), 775. 19. Lyman Abbott, The Ethical Teachings of Jesus (Philadelphia, 1910), pp. 29 ff. These were the George Dana Boardman lectures on Christian ediics, given at the University of Pennsylvania in 1909. 20. Outlook, XCV (July 23, 1910), 696. See also C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards, The Meaning of Meaning (New York, 1927), p. 16. 21. Outlook, LXXVIII (Dec. 24, 1904), 1017. 22. Roosevelt to Abbott, Mar. 16, 1906, Abbott Papers. 23. Outlook, LXXIII (Feb. 7, 1903), 277-283, and later; Abbott to Roosevelt, Feb. II, 1903, Roosevelt Papers. 24. Roosevelt to Abbott, Oct. 7, 1903, Roosevelt Papers. 25. Roosevelt to Abbott, Nov. 10, 1904; Jan. 11, 1905, ibid. 26. Outlook, LXXV (Sept. 19, 1903), 143. 27. Ibid., LXXV (Dec. 12, 1903), 880.

"MY DEAR

MR. ROOSEVELT"

283

28. Ibid., CVI (Apr. 25, 1914), 881. In 1921, under pressure from oil interests, the indemnity went through, but die OuÜoo\ again opposed it. 29. Outlook, L X X I X (Feb. 1 1 , 1905), 366-368. 30. Ibid., L X X X (June 17,1905), 410. 31. Roosevelt to Abbott, Oct. 16, 1905, Roosevelt Papers. 32. Outlook^ L X X V I (Feb. 20, 1904), 443. 33. Ibid., LXXXIII (Aug. 4, 1906), 784. 34. Report of the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Lake Mohon\ Conjerence on International Arbitration (1905), p. 70. 35. Outlook, LXXIX (Mar. 18, 1905), 675. 36. Report of the Tweljth Annual Meeting of the Lak^ Mohonk Conference on International Arbitration (1906), p. 30. 37. Outlook, L X X X V I (May 25, 1907), 152. The same issue also carried articles on this topic by Roosevelt, Andrew Carnegie, Baron d'Estournelles de Constant, and Edward Everett Haie. 38. Ibid., LXXXVII (Oct. 5, 1907), 240-241, (Nov. 9, 1907), 509. 39. Ibid. (Oct. 26, 1907), 455. 40. Ibid., LXXXVIII (Feb. 15, 1908), 344. 41. Abbott to Roosevelt, Sept. 30, 1905, Roosevelt Papers. 42. Outlook, XCI (Feb. 27, 1909), 424-426. 43. Roosevelt to Abbott, Feb. 14, 1906; Lawrence F. Abbott to Roosevelt, Jan. 21, 1916, Roosevelt Papers. Roosevelt to Lawrence F. Abbott, Jan. 24, 1916, quoted in Lawrence F. Abbott, Impressions of Theodore Roosevelt (Garden City, 1919), p. 146. 44. "Remission of a Portion of the Chinese Indemnity," House Document, 60 Cong., 2 sess., no. 1275; Carroll B. Malone, "The First Remission of the Boxer Indemnity," American Historical Review, XXXII (Oct. 1926), 64-68. 45. Abbott to Roosevelt, Aug. 21, 1904, Roosevelt Papers. 46. Outlook, LXXVIII (Oct. I, 1904), 252-255 (Nov. 5, 1904), 556-558. 47. Ibid. (Oct. 29, 1904), 523-526. 48. Roosevelt to Abbott, Oct. 29, 1904, Abbott Papers. 49. Lyman Abbott, "Why the President Is So Populär," Ladies' Home Journal, XXII (Oct. 1905), 12. 50. Outlook, LXXXVII (Dec. 21, 1907), 833. 51. Ibid., LXXXIX (June 27, 1908), 410. 52. Ibid., XC (Oct. 10, 1908), 285-288. 53. Lawrence F. Abbott, Impressions of Theodore Roosevelt, p. 16. On the same visit Lyman Abbott addressed the Oklahoma State legislature on the Problem of government regulation of business. 54. Lawrence F. Abbott to Roosevelt, Sept. 25, 1908, Roosevelt Papers. William Randolph Hearst showed that Haskeil was connected with the oil trust and challenged Bryan to get rid of him, whereupon Haskeil resigned his Position with the party.

284

NOTES

55. Outloo\, XC (Oct. 17, 1908), 333. 56. Ibid. (Oct. 24, 1908), 372. 57. Ibid. (Oct. 31, 1908), 469-472. 58. Roosevelt to Abbott, Oct. 14, 1905, Roosevelt Papers. 59. Lawrence F. Abbott, Impressions of Theodore Roosevelt, pp. 12-14; Pringle, Theodore Roosevelt, pp. 490-492. 60. Lawrence F. Abbott to Roosevelt, July 9, 1908; Roosevelt to Abbott, July 29, 1908, Roosevelt Papers. 61. Outloo\, XCI (Mar. 6, 1909), 509. 62. Ibid., ^11. 63. New York Sun, Nov. 13, 1908. The Arena, for Jan. 1909, XLI, 106-108, carried the same charge as an Illustration of corporate influence on journalism. It also reported Roosevelt's Outloo\ salary as $30,000 a year and charged that the magazine had become "the vehicle for the Promulgation of the many amazing reactionary sophistical pleas . . . in extenuation of lawless wealth." More recently the accusation has appeared in Ferdinand Lundberg's America's 60 Families (New York, 1937). 64. Lawrence F. Abbott to Roosevelt, Nov. 13, 1908, Roosevelt Papers. Outlook, XC (Nov. 21, 1908), 597. 65. Roosevelt to Lawrence F. Abbott, Nov. 14, 1908, Roosevelt Papers. 66. Lawrence F. Abbott, Impressions of Theodore Roosevelt, pp. 203, 208. 67. Roosevelt to Abbott, Dec. 30, 1908, to Lawrence F. Abbott, Feb. i, 1909. 68. Archie Butt to Mrs. Lewis F. Butt, Aug. 3, 1909, in Tajt and Roosevelt; the Intimate Letters of Archie Butt, Military Aide (Garden City, 1930), I, 168. 69. Gaius G. Atkins, Religion in Our Times (New York, 1932), p. 93. 70. Edwin W. Morse, The Life and Letters of Hamilton W. Mabie (New York, 1920), p. 228. XVI. Preacher of Divine Immanence 1. Lyman Abbott to Theodore Roosevelt, Oct. 10, 1908, Roosevelt Papers. 2. Outlook, XCII (July 24, 1909), 758. 3. Lyman Abbott, sermon notebooks, 1911-1914, Abbott Papers. 4. Francis G. Peabody to Lyman Abbott, May 13, 1889, Houghton Library; Christian Union, X L (Nov. 28, 1889), 671; Lyman Abbott, Silhouettes of My Contemporaries (Garden City, 1921), 240-241; Washington Gladden, Recollections (Boston, 1909), pp. 324-326. 5. Harry T. Baker, "Lyman Abbott as a Preacher," Outlook, C X X X V (Dec. 12, 1923), 624-625. 6. Boston Transcript, Dec. 19, 1904. 7. Lyman Abbott to Edward Abbott, Dec. 23, 1904, Edward Abbott Papers; Lyman Abbott, Reminiscences (Boston, 1915), p. 464. 8. Boston Transcript, Dec. 20, 1904.

THE NEW

NATIONALISM

285

9. Quoted ibid., Dec. 21, 22, 1904. 10. This txial, said the Outloo\, would seem "ridiculous to the cynic and tragically unintelligent to the man who loves the Church and understands modern life." LXXXIII (May 26, 1906), 147. 1 1 . New York Times, Dec. 20, 1904. 12. Abbott constantly quoted these authorities to bolster his argument. See, for example, his The Personality oj God (New York, 1905), pp. 18-20, based on the Appleton sermon. 13. Lyman Abbott, The Great Companion (New York, 1904), p. 14. 14. Ibid., p. 42. 15. Lyman Abbott, Seeking ajter God (New York, 1910), pp. i i o - i i i . 16. Lyman Abbott, "The Nature of Prayer," North American Review, CLXXXVI (Nov. 1907), 337-339. 17. Abbott, Reminiscences, p. 462. 18. Lyman Abbott, The Temple (New York, 1909), p. 8. 19. Lyman Abbott, The Other Room (New York, 1903), p. 14. 20. Ibid., p. 57. 21. Lyman Abbott, A Living Immortality (New York, 1912), pp. 23-24. 22. Ibid., p. 18. 23. Ibid., p. 16. 24. Lyman Abbott, "Why I Believe We Do Not Die," Ladies' Home Journal, XXVII (Mar. 1910), 22. 25. Abbott, TÄ