Abbott, Edward
ABBOTT, EDWARD: Protestant Episcopalian; b. at Farmington, Me., July 15,
1841. He was educated at the University of the City of New York (B.A., 1860) and
at Andover Theological Seminary (1860-62; did not graduate). In 1862-63 he was an
agent of the United States Sanitary Commission, and in the latter year was ordained
to the Congregational ministry. Two years later he founded the Stearns Chapel Congregational
Church (now the Pilgrim Church) at Cambridge, Mass., of which he was pastor four
years. In 1872-73 he was chaplain of the Massachusetts Senate. In 1879 he was ordered
deacon in the Protestant Episcopal Church, and priested in 1880, his parish being
that of St. James, Cambridge, which he still holds. He refused the proffered missionary
bishopric of Japan in 1889. At various times he has been a member of the Board of
Visitors of Wellesley College, trustee of the Society for the Relief of the Widows
and Orphans of Clergymen of the Protestant Episcopal Church, director and president
of the Associated Charities of Cambridge, vice-dean and dean of the Eastern Convocation
of the Diocese of Massachusetts, president of the Cambridge Branch of the Indian
Rights Association, member of the Missionary Council of the Protestant Episcopal
Church, secretary of the Standing Committee of the Diocese of Massachusetts, member
of the Provisional Committee on Church Work in Mexico, president of the Indian Industries
League, president of the Cambridge City Mission, and has been active in other religious
and philanthropic movements. His theological position is that of the Broad Church,
sympathizing neither with the extreme of medievalism nor higher criticism. In 1869-78
he was associate editor of the Boston Congregationalist, and was joint proprietor
and editor of the Boston Literary World from 1877 to 1888, again editing
it in 1895-1903. His principal works are The Baby’s Things: A Story in Verse
(New York, 1871); Paragraph History of the United States (Boston, 1875);
Paragraph History of the American Revolution (1876); Revolutionary Times
(1876); History of Cambridge (1880); Phillips Brooks (Cambridge,
1900); and Meet for the Master’s Use: An Allegory (1900).