The Project Gutenberg EBook of Abbeychurch, by Charlotte M. Yonge

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Title: Abbeychurch
or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit

Author: Charlotte M. Yonge

Posting Date: July 19, 2009 [EBook #4267]
Release Date: July, 2003
First Posted: December 24, 2001

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ABBEYCHURCH ***

Produced by Sandra Laythorpe. HTML version by Al Haines.

ABBEYCHURCH;

OR

SELF-CONTROL AND SELF-CONCEIT,

BY

CHARLOTTE M. YONGE

THE AUTHOR OF THE HEIR OF REDCLYFFE.

Second Edition

The Original Printed Text of this work is in the possession of The
Charlotte M Yonge Fellowship.

'Never think yourself safe because you do your duty in ninety-nine
points; it is the hundredth which is to be the ground of your
self-denial, which must evidence, or rather instance and realize, your
faith.'

Newman's Sermons

PREFACE.

Rechauffes are proverbially dangerous, but everyone runs into them
sooner or later, and the world has done me the kindness so often to
inquire after my first crude attempt, that after it has lain for many
years 'out of print,' I have ventured to launch it once
more--imperfections and all--though it is guilty of the error of
pointing rather to a transient phase of difficulty than to a general
principle. The wheels of this world go so quickly round, that I have
lived to see that it would have been wiser in the clergyman to have
directed rather than obstructed the so-called 'march of intellect.' I
have lived also to be somewhat ashamed of the exuberant outpouring of
historical allusions, which, however, were perfectly natural among the
set of girls from whom my experience was taken: but these defects, as
well as the more serious one of tyrannical aversion to vulgarity, are
too inherent in this tale to be removed, and the real lesson intended
to be conveyed, of obedience and sincerity, of course remains unchanged.

The later story was a rather hasty attempt to parody the modern
sensation novel, as Northanger Abbey did the Radclyffe school, but it
makes the mistake of having too real a mystery. However, such as they
are, the t