ABBOTT, LYMAN

Congregational clergyman and editor, whose writings offered a popular synthesis of Christianity and Darwinism; b. Roxbury, Mass., Dec. 13, 1835; d. Cornwall-on-Hudson, N.Y., Oct. 22, 1922. He was the son of Rev. Jacob Abbott, a popular writer, who moved to New York City in 1843. After graduating from New York University in 1853, Abbott was admitted to the bar, studied theology under his uncle Rev. John S. C. Abbott, and was ordained in 1860. An active abolitionist, he served as secretary of the American Freedmen's Union, which supported schools for freed slaves. In 1868 he became editor of the Illustrated Christian Weekly and literary editor of Harper's, resigning both posts in 1879. From 1876 to 1893 he edited the Christian Union, known later as the Outlook under his son's editorship. After the death of Henry Ward Beecher, Abbott succeeded to the pastorate of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, N.Y., from which he resigned in 1898. He edited Beecher's collected works and wrote his official biography (1903). Abbott's other writings include the Dictionary of Religious Knowledge (1874), The Spirit of Democracy (1910), and autobiographical Reminiscences (1915). His Lowell Lectures, published as The Evolution of Christianity (1892), dealt with the development of theology and the church in Darwinian terms. Christianity and Social Problems (1896) called for reforms in the social organism. The Theology of an Evolutionist (1897) offered a synthesis of science and religion in Modernist terms.

Bibliography: i. v. brown, Lyman Abbott: Christian Evolutionist (Cambridge, Mass. 1953).

[r. k. macmaster]