The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1870-06-25 00:00:00

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DEAN STANLEY on CHARLES DICKENS.

The announcement that Dean Stanley intended to ,
make Charles 1./Arens and his works the subject of hie
sermon in Weatinineter Abbey on Sunday lost brought
togetile., at might be expected, a very large c ingrate-
tion to the afternoon service, and some time before
three o'clock the choir and transepts were filled to
overflowing, as well as the seats in the Sacrarium.
The Dean tosk his te at from the Gospel of the day, the
Parable of the Rich Man and LAMA,, which, he observed,
was most appropriate to the occasion, and chimed in admir-
ably with the service performed within those walls on 'Tues-
day—the funerid of "that gifted being who for years had
delighted and instructed the generation to which he be-
longed." Ile showed that the story of Dives and Lee trui
formed sono thing snore than an ordinary "parable," and
that. in spite of b. tic the one Mel the other being "as
purely imaginary beiess as Hamlet or Shylock," it was a
"tale of real life, so real that we can hardly believe it to be
fiction, and not an actunl history." The Bible, ihrm, urged
the preacher, sanctions this mode of teaching, which has been
In a special sense God's gift to our own age. "In various
ages," he continued. .• this gift has assumed various forms,
the divine flame of poetry, the far-reaching page of science
the searching analysis of philosophy, the glorious page of
history, the stirring eloquence of preacher or orator, the
grave address of moralist or divine—all these we have hart ,
iu ages past, and to some extent we have them still ; but
no age has developed like this the glft of spoaking
in parardes, of teaching by fiction.'. " Poetry," he
continued, "may kindle a loftier tire, the drama may
rivet the attention more firmly, science may open a
wirier horizon, and philosophy may touch a deeper spring,
but no works are so penetrating or so persuasive,
enter so many housee, or attract so many readers, aa the
romance or novel of modern times." And hi proportion as
the good novel lathe best so is the bad novel the worst of
instructors ; but the work of the successful novelist, if pure
in style, elevating in thought, and true In its eentiment. Is
the beat of blessings to the Christian home, which the bad
writer would debase and defile. In the writings of Charles
Dickens, it is clearly shown that "it is passible to move
both obi and young to laughter without the use of a si, gle
expression which could defile the purest or shock the most
sensitive Ire taught a lesson to the world that it is pos-
sible to jest without the introduction of depraving scenes or
the use I unseemly and filthy J ,kes. "So thought and so
wrote, not only the genial and loving humourist whom we
mourn. but Walter Scott, and Jane Austen, and Elizabeth
Gaskell, and William Thackeray But, he urged, there was
something even higher than this to be learnt in the writings
A 4 Charles Dickens, NM which ft was well to speak of in the
House of God and beside that new laid grave. "In that
long series of stirring tales, now closed, there was a palpably
serious truth—might he not say a Christian and Evangelical
truth ?—cf which we all needed notch to be reminded, and
of which in hie own way lie was the special teacher. In
spite of the Oriental Mimicry with which it is surrounded,
the Gospel tells us, and the departed writer did but reecho
the truth, that the Rich Man arid LBetelet lived very near
and close to each other ; he showed hIS, in his own dramatic
and sympathetic manner, how close that lesson lay at the
gates of the upper and wealthier classes of moil, rn Englirsh
society in this age of wide-spread civilization and loamy."
The Parr Man had but one name given in him Ia tie Parable,
I.ut in the writli,gs of Charles Dickens he bore many monee
and wore in iny forms; now coming to we in the type
of the forlorn outcast, now in that of the workhouse
child struggling towaas the good amid an atmosphere
of cruelty, injustice, and vice. "We have need then," ha
continued. "at such • teacher to remind us of one greet
lesson of life, the duty of sympathy with the poor and the
weak, with the absent, and with those who cannot speak for
themselves. And it is because this susceptibility, this gilt
of rympathy is so rare, that we wield to value it highly
where we meet it, and to reckon it as a gift from God. " .
"As the Rich Mau was made to see and to feel Lazarus at
his gate, so our departed Instructor taught us to realise as
brought into very rear contact with ourselves the suffering
nmates of the workhouse, the neglected children in the dens
and dark corners of the streete of our great cities, the starved
and ill-used boy in remote schools far from the observation
of the world at large. All these must have felt that a new
ray of sunshine was poured by his writings on their dark exist-
en and a new interest awakened outside in their forlorn
and desolate lot. In him an unknown friend pleaded their
cause with a voice which rang through the palaces of the
rib and great, as well us through the cottages of the pour;
aid by him these gaunt figures and strange faces, though ill
a slishtly exaggerated form, were made to stand and speak
face to face with those who sip to that time had doubted
their existence." And, further, the same faithful hand
which thus depicted the sufferinge of the Poor Man, drew
also pietnrei of that unselfish kindness, that kindly
patience, that tender thoughtfulness, that sympathy for the
week and helpless which often underlies a rough exterior.
"When the little workhouse boy wins his way, pure and un-
defiled, through the maces of wickedness into a happy home,
when the litVe orphan girl brings thought. of Beavers into
the hearts of all around her, and is aa if the very gift of
God to those whose desolate life she cheers, there is a lesson ,
taught which none can read and learn without being the •
later for it. In fact, he laboured to tell us the old, old
story, that even is the very wcrst and most hardened of
inaukind there is some soft and tender point, and, what is
wi-re, a soul worth being touched and reached and rescued
and regenerate i. Ile helped to blot out the hard line
which too often severs class from class, and made English-
men feel more as one family than they had felt before.
Therefore, it was felt that he had not lived in vain,
or been laid in vain here in this sacred house, which
Is the home and the heart of the English nation."
There was, of contra to he learnt from the text one further
great and fearful leeson—the solemn weight and burden of
individual resperisibility of emir man to his Maker for the
life that he has led, and the me which he has made of the
talents vouchsafed to him. This lesson, was brought very
closely hornet, those fourteen mourners and the handful of
other persons who were gathered a few days before in the
silence and stillness of that vast empty church around the
grave et the great novelist. But Im would not dwell long
on this lesson, nor would he add there any eulogy on the
dead, further than to remark that his grave, already strewed
with flowers, would henceforth lie • sacred spot both with
the New World as well es with the Old as that of the rep-
resentive of the literature, not of this island only, but of all
who speak our English tongue. The Dean then read the
following extract from Mr. Dickens's will, dated May 12,
1869, which will be new to the public, and will be read with
a thrill of interest aud satiefiction
"I direct that my name be inscribed is% plain English
letters on my tomb. . . . I enjoin toy friends on no ac-
Count to make me the subjeet of any monument, memorial, or
testimonial whatever. I rest my claims to the remembrance of
t 0,,, country upon my published works, and the remembrance
of ray friends upon their experience of me in addition
thereto - I commit my lout to the mercy c/ God,
through oor Lord and Saviour JOIRIA Christ, and I exhort wry
dear children to try to guide thenuelves by the teaching of the
New Testament in its broad spirit, and to put no
faith in any man's narrow construction of its letter."
"ha that simple but siffiliiient faith," concluded
the Dean, " Charles Dickens lived and died. In that
faith he would have yen all live and die also; and it
any of you have learnt from his works the eternal value of
generosity, purity, kindness, and unsellishnees, and to carry
them out in action, those are the best monuments, memo-
rials, and testimonials' Which you, his fellow-countrymeu,
can raise to his memory."
The sermon was listened to with breathless attention by
that portion of the congregation who fortunately had seats
in the Sacrarium mei under the Lantern, but very little 01 11
could have reached the MAAS of the congregation in the choir
and transept'. The Dean was labouring under a eevere cold,
and it was evidently only with the greatest difficulty that he
WAI able to deliver his sermon At all. The sermon Wel
followed hy Ilandel's well-known arid magrillicent anthem
from the Book of I. chapter 29, " When the ear heard me,
then it blessed see ; and vhen the eye sato foe, it gave wt.,.
'tato roe." Among the congregation present were several
members of both Houses of Parliament, some dignitaries of
the Church, and a host of literary celebrities, among whom
Mr. Tennyson attracted considerable attention as he eat in
the centre of the Sacrarium.