Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks and the
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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,
and that person will, so telling, absorb my attention: he has something
true and genuine and valuable to communicate. They are mostly old people
that can do so. Not that young people have nothing happen to them; but
that only when they grow old, are they able to see things right, to
disentangle confusions, and judge righteous judgment. Things which at
the time appeared insignificant or wearisome, then give out the light
that was in them, show their own truth, interest, and influence: they
are far enough off to be seen. It is not when we are nearest to anything
that we know best what it is. How I should like to write a story for old
people! The young are always having stories written for them. Why should
not the old people come in for a share? A story without a young person
in it at all! Nobody under fifty admitted! It could hardly be a fairy
tale, could it? Or a love story either? I am not so sure about that. The
worst of it would be, however, that hardly a young person would read it.
Now, we old people would not like that. We can read young people’s
books and enjoy them: they would not try to read old men’s books or old
women’s books; they would be so sure of their being dry. My dear old
brothers and sisters, we know better, do we not? We have nice old
jokes, with no end of fun in them; only they cannot see the fun. We have
strange tales, that we know to be true, and which look more and more
marvellous every time we turn them over again; only somehow they do not
belong to the ways of this year--I was going to say _week_,--and so
the young people generally do not care to hear them. I have had one
pale-faced boy, to be sure, who will sit at his mother’s feet, and
listen for hours to what took place before he was born. To him his
mother’s wedding-gown was as old as Eve’s coat of skins. But then he was
young enough not yet to have had a chance of losing the childhood common
to the young and the old. Ah! I should like to write for you, old men,
old women, to help you to read the past, to help you to look for the
future. Now is your salvation nearer than when you believed; for,
however your souls may be at peace, however your quietness and
confidence may give you strength, in the decay of your earthly
tabernacle, in the shortening of its cords, in the weakening of its
stakes, in the rents through which you see the stars, you have yet your
share in the cry of the creation after the sonship. But the one thing I
should keep saying to you, my companions in old age, would be, “Friends,
let us not grow old.” Old age is but a mask; let us not call the mask
the face. Is the acorn old, because its cup dries and drops it from its
hold--because its skin has grown brown and cracks in the earth? Then
only is a man growing old when he ceases to have sympathy with the
young. That is a sign that his heart has begun to wither. And that is a
dreadful kind of old age. The heart needs never be old. Indeed it should
always be growing younger. Some of us feel younger, do we not, than when
we were nine or ten? It is not necessary to be able to play at leapfrog
to enjoy the game. There are young creatures whose turn it is, and
perhaps whose duty it would be, to play at leap-frog if there was any
necessity for putting the matter in that light; and for us, we have the
privilege, or if we will not accept the privilege, then I say we have
the duty, of enjoying their leap-frog. But if we must withdraw in a
measure from sociable relations with our fellows, let it be as the wise
creatures that creep aside and wrap themselves up and lay themselves
by that their wings may grow and put on the lovely hues of their coming
resurrection. Such a withdrawing is in the name of youth. And while it
is pleasant--no one knows how pleasant except him who experiences it--to
sit apart and see the drama of life going on around him, while
his feelings are calm and free, his vision clear, and his judgment
righteous, the old man must ever be ready, should the sweep of action
catch him in its skirts, to get on his tottering old legs, and go with
brave heart to do the work of a true man, none the less true that his
hands tremble, and that he would gladly return to his chimney-corner. If
he is never thus called out, let him examine himself, lest he should be
falling into the number of those that say, “I go, sir,” and go not;
who are content with thinking beautiful things in an Atlantis, Oceana,
Arcadia, or what it may be, but put not forth one of their fingers to
work a salvation in the earth. Better than such is the man who, using
just weights and a true balance, sells good flour, and never has a
thought of his own.
I have been talking--to my reader is it? or to my supposed group of
grandchildren? I remember--to my companions in old age. It is time I
returned to the company who are hearing my whispers at the other side
of the great thundering gallery. I take leave of my old friends with one
word: We have yet a work to do, my friends; but a work we shall never
do aright after ceasing to understand the new generation. We are not the
men, neither shall wisdom die with us. The Lord hath not forsaken his
people because the young ones do not think just as the old ones choose.
The Lord has something fresh to tell them, and is getting them ready to
receive his message. When we are out of sympathy with the young, then I
think our work in this world is over. It might end more honourably.
Now, readers in general, I have had time to consider what to tell you
about, and how to begin. My story will be rather about my family than
myself now. I was as it were a little withdrawn, even by the time of
which I am about to write. I had settled into a gray-haired, quite
elderly, yet active man--young still, in fact, to what I am now. But
even then, though my faith had grown stronger, life had grown sadder,
and needed all my stronger faith; for the vanishing of beloved faces,
and the trials of them that are dear, will make even those that look for
a better country both for themselves and their friends, sad, though it
will be with a preponderance of the first meaning of the word _sad_,
which was _settled_, _thoughtful_.
I am again seated in the little octagonal room, which I have made my
study because I like it best. It is rather a shame, for my books cover
over every foot of the old oak panelling. But they make the room all the
pleasanter to the eye, and after I am gone, there is the old oak, none
the worse, for anyone who prefers it to books.
I intend to use as the central portion of my present narrative the
history of a year during part of which I took charge of a friend’s
parish, while my brother-in-law, Thomas Weir, who was and is still my
curate, took the entire charge of Marshmallows. What led to this will
soon appear. I will try to be minute enough in my narrative to make my
story interesting, although it will cost me suffering to recall some of
the incidents I have to narrate.