The Seaboard Parish, Complete by MacDonald, George, 1824-1905

Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team

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.