The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1870-06-18 00:00:00

A LSISIIOE.B MOUS' ON THE LATE MR. DICKENS.

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On Sunday evening the Bishop of Manchester preached at
Westminster Abbey, from the words Great is the mystery
of godliness" The sermon was a plea for the toleration of
differences of opinion where the foundations of religious
truth were accepted. If the hope of 'reunited Christendom
were nothing better than a soothing dream, let us not (said
the Bishop) disturb it needlessly by misrepresentations and
jealousies. There might be unity of purpose beneath wide
divergences of thought, and in spite of apparent differences
of aim.

In conclusion, the Bishop said It will not be out of har-
mony with the linen thought we have been pursuing—cer-
tainly it will be in keeping with the associations of this
place dear to Englishmen, not only as one of the proudest
Christian temples, but as containing the memorials of so
many who by their genius in sets or arms, or stateemanehip,
or literature, have made England what ehe is—if in the sim-
plest and briefest words I allude to that sad and unexpected
death which has robbed English literature of one of its
highest living ornaments, and the news of which, two morn-
ings ago, must have marls every household in England feel as
though they had lost • personal friend. lie has been called
in one notice an apostle of the people. I suppose it is meant
that he had a miselon ; but in a style and fashion of his own ;
a gospel, • cheery, joyoue, gladsome message, which the
people understood, and by which they could hardly
help being bettered; it was the gospel of kindlineee, of
brotherly love, of sympathy in the widest sense of
the word. I am sure I have felt in myself the
healthful spirit of his teaching. Possibly we might not have
been able to subscribe to the same creed in relation to God,
but I think we should have subscribed to the same creed in
relation to man. Ile who has taught us our duty to our
fellow men better than we knew it before, who knew so well
to weep with them that wept, and to rejoice with them that
rejoiced, who has shown forth all his knowledge of the dark
corners of the earth, how much sunshine miy rest upon the
lowliest lot, who had such evident sympathy with suffering,
such natural instinct of purity, that there is scarcely a page
of the thousands he has Written which might not he put into
the bands of a little child, must be regarded by those woo
recognize the diversity of the gifts of the Spirit as a teacher
sent from God. Ile would have been welcomed as a fellow.
labourer in the common interests of humanity by Rim who
asked the question, "ii amen love not hie brother whom he
bath seen, how ;an he love God whom he bath not seen 7"
INTERESTING JOTTINGS.

We learn by telegram from New York that the news of the
death of Mr. Charles Dickens has evoked manifestations of
general and profound regret. Friday evening's Journals pay
glowing tributes to the nigh talents of the deceased, and
unanimously declare that his death brings sorrow to nearly
every American household.

Tte Paris Temps of Saturday morning, In all article Signed
by hi. Clysse Ladet, says telegram announces the
sudden death of the most powerful and most popular English
novelist, Charles Dickens. No writer has ever been more
fertile, or so unrivalled in his fecundity. Charles Dickens
will be regretted all over the world, where numerous transla-
tions have spread his works."

An Incident is mentioned as Shewing In how great regard
Mr. Dickens, sue man and as an author, was held by the
Queen ,—Shortly before Ms death he sent to her Majesty an
edition of his collected works; and when the Clerk of the
tosincll roust to lialssoral last week, the Queen, knowing the
friendship that existed between Mr. Diego'. and Mr. Helps,
showed the latter where she had placed the gift of the great
novelist. This well In her private library, and her Majesty
expressed her desire that Mr. Helps should inform Mr.
Dickens of this arrangement. On his return home from Bal-
moral, Mr. Helps wrote to Mr. Dickens, in pursuance of her
Majesty's desire ; but the letter that contained so remarkable
a tribute te the great novellist could only have reached Dads-
bill ruin ha lay unconscious and dying,

In an account of the origin of "Pickwick," Mr. DI, keno
said on ma occasion I rim a young man of two or
tbrre ool.loeoto, a hen M ins rs Chapman and Hall,
' A qt.; UM: ig

written_

M,...natig Chronicle rowsnaper, or g,„„
Old Monthly hlngazins (of which one series had lately been
colleclei and published in two volames, illustrated by Mr.
George Crullithank), waited upon me te propose a some-
thing that should be published in shilling numbers—then
only known to me, or I believe, to anybody else, by a dim
ree Ilection of certais interminable novels in that form,
which used to he trirrtd about the country by podium and
over some of which I remember to have shed innumerable
tears before I had servs.l my apprenticeship to Life. When
opened my door in Evolvers-inn to the partuer who repre-
sented the limn. I rectuulled in him the person from whose
/lan is I had bought, two or three years previously, and whom
I had Dever seen bet ire or since, my first copy of the
magazine in which my firs; effusion—a paper in the
"Sketches," called "hr. Minns and his Cousin"—dropped
stealthily one evening it twilight, with tear and trembling,
Into a dark letter-box, in • dark office, up a dark court in
Fleef-street—sppeared in all the glory of print; on which occa-
sion I walked down to Westininster-hall, anti turned into it for
half-an-hour, because my eyes were so dimmed with joy and
pride that they could not bear the street, and were not fit
to be seen there. I toll my visitor of the coincidence, which
we bolh hailed as • good omen; and so fell to business.
My views being deferred to, I thought of Mr. Pickwick,
and wrote the first number ; from the proof sheets of which
Mr. Seymour made his drawing of the club, and his happy
portrait of its four der—the latter on Mr. Edward Chapmsn's
description of the dress and bearing of a real personelle
whom he had often seen. I connected Mr. Pickwick with •
club, because of the origival suggestion, ((hat the book
should represent a Nimrod club,) and I put hi Mr. Winkle
expressly for the use of Mr. Seymour..
A newspsper corespondent writes:—

A short paragraph in the current number of "The Mystery
of Elsie brood" has acquired a p maul eignincance from
the sad event of the Sill inst. Saddened as Mr. Dickens
must have been by the 1088 of so mar y old friends, notably
by the very recent abil sudden death of Maelise ; the tone i
thoucht which dictated the few lines referred to is easily ac-
counted for, but his own lamented departure points the
moral with more than ordinary force. The few lines may be
interesting to von? readers. They. are from a description of
a stonecutter's The two 3nurneymen have left their
two preat saws sticking in their blocks of stone ; awl two
skeleton journeymen out of the DOI. el Death might be
grii nine iit the shadow of their sheltering sentry-hosea, about
to slash away at cutting out the gravestones of the nest too
penple destined to die at Cloisterham. Likely enough the
two think little of that slow, being alive and perhaps merry.
Curious to make •guess at the two—or say, at one of the
two!

All the leading foreign papers refer with regret to the
death of Mr. Charles Dickens, but the event has excited pros
founder eemeeet by in Germany than in any other continental
country. The following is from an article mWe Cologne
Gazette of Friday lust:—
Chine. Dickens died yesterday evening—a piece of sad
newa which will fill the whole civilised world with deeper
sympathy than the death of emperors and kings. . . . . No
writer of this century hiss exercised upon the English
people an influence so deep and lasting. llis descriptions,
characterised by poetic truths and incomparable humour, and
drawn from reality, held up to the people a mirror in which
they saw faithfully reflected their faults and laughable aides.
but also their good points and the inner moral kernel of
their life. Rich and poor, eslucated and uneducated find
themselves in Dickens's novels on the common ground of
pure humanity, and learn to meet each other in a spirit of
mutual respect Thus amongst all classes, from the palace
to the simple hut, the loss of the great teacher and peace-
bringer will be painfully felt.

The North German Gazette thus concludes • notice of
Mr. Dickens:—