Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team THE SEABOARD PARISH By George MacDonald, LL.D. VOLUME 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. So 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,