Seaboard Parish, vol 1

Seaboard Parish, vol 1

Project Gutenberg's The Seaboard Parish Volume 1, by George
MacDonald #29 in our series by George MacDonald
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Title: The Seaboard Parish Volume 1
Author: George MacDonald
Release Date: July, 2005 [EBook #8551] [Yes, we are more than one
year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on July 22, 2003]
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
SEABOARD PARISH VOLUME 1 ***

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THE SEABOARD PARISH
BY GEORGE MAC DONALD, LL.D.
VOL. I.

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

I. HOMILETIC II. CONSTANCE'S BIRTHDAY III. THE SICK
CHAMBER IV. A SUNDAY EVENING V. MY DREAM VI. THE
KEW BABY VII. ANOTHER SUNDAY EVENING VIII.
THEODORA'S DOOM IX. A SPRING

CHAPTER X
. AN IMPORTANT LETTER XI. CONNIE'S DREAM XII. THE
JOURNEY XIII. WHAT WE DID WHEN WE ARRIVED XIV.
MORE ABOUT KILKHAVEN XV. THE OLD CHURCH XVI.
CONNIE'S WATCH-TOWER XVII. MY FIRST SERMON IN THE
SEABOARD PARISH

CHAPTER I
.
HOMILETIC.
Dear Friends,--I am beginning a new book like an old sermon; but, as
you know, I have been so accustomed to preach all my life, that
whatever I say or write will more or less take the shape of a sermon;
and if you had not by this time learned at least to bear with my oddities,

you would not have wanted any more of my teaching. And, indeed, I
did not think you would want any more. I thought I had bidden you
farewell. But I am seated once again at my writing-table, to write for
you--with a strange feeling, however, that I am in the heart of some
curious, rather awful acoustic contrivance, by means of which the
words which I have a habit of whispering over to myself as I write
them, are heard aloud by multitudes of people whom I cannot see or
hear. I will favour the fancy, that, by a sense of your presence, I may
speak the more truly, as man to man.
But let me, for a moment, suppose that I am your grandfather, and that
you have all come to beg for a story; and that, therefore, as usually
happens in such cases, I am sitting with a puzzled face, indicating a
more puzzled mind. I know that there are a great many stories in the
holes and corners of my brain; indeed, here is one, there is one, peeping
out at me like a rabbit; but alas, like a rabbit, showing me almost at the
same instant the tail-end of it, and vanishing with a contemptuous thud
of its hind feet on the ground. For I must have suitable regard to the
desires of my children. It is a fine thing to be able to give people what
they want, if at the same time you can give them what you want. To
give people what they want, would sometimes be to give them only dirt
and poison. To give them what you want, might be to set before them
something of which they could not eat a mouthful. What both you and I
want, I am willing to think, is a dish of good wholesome venison. Now
I suppose my children around me are neither young enough nor old
enough to care about a fairy tale, go that will not do. What they want is,
I believe, something that I know about--that has happened to myself.
Well, I confess, that is the kind of thing I like best to hear anybody talk
to me about. Let anyone tell me something that has happened to
himself, especially if he will give me a peep into how his heart took it,
as it sat in its own little room with the closed door, and that person will,
so telling, absorb my attention: he has something true and genuine and
valuable