the harvest rises from the wintry earth, so rise thou up from the trials of this world a full ear in the harvest of Him who sowed thee in the soil that thou mightest rise above it. As the summer rises from the winter, so rise thou from the cares of eating and drinking and clothing into the fearless sunshine of confidence in the Father. As the morning rises out of the night, so rise thou from the darkness of ignorance to do the will of God in the daylight; and as a man feels that he is himself when he wakes from the troubled and grotesque visions of the night into the glory of the sunrise, even so wilt thou feel that then first thou knowest what thy life, the gladness of thy being, is. As from painful tossing in disease, rise into the health of well-being. As from the awful embrace of thy own dead body, burst forth in thy spiritual body. Arise thou, responsive to the indwelling will of the Father, even as thy body will respond to thy indwelling soul. ‘White wings are crossing; Glad waves are tossing; The earth flames out in crimson and green: Spring is appearing, Summer is nearing-- Where hast thou been? Down in some cavern, Death’s sleepy tavern, Housing, carousing with spectres of night? The trumpet is pealing Sunshine and healing-- Spring to the light.’” With this quotation from a friend’s poem, I closed my sermon, oppressed with a sense of failure; for ever the marvel of simple awaking, the mere type of the resurrection eluded all my efforts to fix it in words. I had to comfort myself with the thought that God is so strong that he can work even with our failures. END OF VOL. II. THE SEABOARD PARISH BY GEORGE MAC DONALD, LL.D. VOLUME III. CONTENTS OF VOL. III. I. A WALK WITH MY WIFE II. OUR LAST SHORE-DINNER III. A PASTORAL VISIT. IV. THE ART OF NATURE V. THE SORE SPOT VI. THE GATHERING STORM. VII. THE GATHERED STORM. VIII. THE SHIPWRECK IX. THE FUNERAL X. THE SERMON. XI. CHANGED PLANS. XII. THE STUDIO. XIII. HOME AGAIN. CHAPTER I. A WALK WITH MY WIFE. The autumn was creeping up on the earth, with winter holding by its skirts behind; but before I loose my hold of the garments of summer, I must write a chapter about a walk and a talk I had one night with my wife. It had rained a good deal during the day, but as the sun went down the air began to clear, and when the moon shone out, near the full, she walked the heavens, not “like one that hath been led astray,” but as “queen and huntress, chaste and fair.” “What a lovely night it is!” said Ethelwyn, who had come into my study--where I always sat with unblinded windows, that the night and her creatures might look in upon me--and had stood gazing out for a moment. “Shall we go for a little turn?” I said. “I should like it very much,” she answered. “I will go and put on my bonnet at once.”