But though she always seemed satisfied, and no doubt felt nearly so, after any conversation of the sort, yet every night she would call out once and again, "O, that sea, out there!" I was very glad indeed when Mr. Turner, who had arranged to spend a short holiday with us, arrived. He was concerned at the news I gave him of the shock both Connie and her mother had received, and counselled an immediate change, that time might, in the absence of surrounding associations, obliterate something of the impression that had been made. The consequence was, that we resolved to remove our household, for a short time, to some place not too far off to permit of my attending to my duties at Kilkhaven, but out of the sight and sound of the sea. It was Thursday when Mr. Turner arrived, and he spent the next two days in inquiring and looking about for a suitable spot to which we might repair as early in the week as possible. On the Saturday the blacksmith was busy in the church-tower, and I went in to see how he was getting on. "You had a sad business here the last week, sir," he said, after we had done talking about the repairs. "A very sad business indeed," I answered. "It was a warning to us all," he said. "We may well take it so," I returned. "But it seems to me that we are too ready to think of such remarkable things only by themselves, instead of being roused by them to regard everything, common and uncommon, as ordered by the same care and wisdom." "One of our local preachers made a grand use of it." I made no reply. He resumed. "They tell me you took no notice of it last Sunday, sir." "I made no immediate allusion to it, certainly. But I preached under the influence of it. And I thought it better that those who could reflect on the matter should be thus led to think for themselves than that they should be subjected to the reception of my thoughts and feelings about it; for in the main it is life and not death that we have to preach." "I don't quite understand you, sir. But then you don't care much for preaching in your church." "I confess," I answered, "that there has been much indifference on that point. I could, however, mention to you many and grand exceptions. Still there is, even in some of the best in the church, a great amount of disbelief in the efficacy of preaching. And I allow that a great deal of what is called preaching, partakes of its nature only in the remotest degree. But, while I hold a strong opinion of its value--that is, where it is genuine--I venture just to suggest that the nature of the preaching to which the body you belong to has resorted, has had something to do, by way of a reaction, in driving the church to the other extreme." "How do you mean that, sir?"