CHARLES DICKENS

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 20199, 30 March 1931, Page 16

CHARLES DICKENS

WORK AS REFORMER. SERMON BY REV. J. R., HERVEY. "■Charles Dickens, Author and Reformer," was the- subject of a sermon by the x Rev. J. B. Hervey at St. Stephen's Anglican Church, Shirley, last night. It was the final address in Mr Hervey's series entitled "Great Lives." Mr Hervey traced the life of Dickens, pointing out the trials of his youth-when his father was reduced to penury, and hp himself ill-treated and forced to work in a factory, affd his study to follow the - life of his father—journalism.. , "It is not. merely as a literary Senius that we desire - to think' of im," continued Mr Hervey, "but rather for his influence upon the institutions and age in which he lived. They were hard and cruel years; Little children workea long hours under terrible conditions, the poor were oppressed and harassed, and in the administration of 'charity officialdom and' ted tape reigned. 'ln schools and work-houses there was' much cruelty practised. The merely unfortunate were often treated as criminals. Petty -thieving was punished -with death. But in such an age, and despite'the fact that in his tenderest years he had known all the misery and 'persecution of pauperism; - Dickens remained kindly and sympathetic. "He attacked all the injustice and callousness with his powerful , satire, -his righteous-scorn, but-with delightful humour. He looked on the workhouse and wrote 'Oliver Twist,' he, looked on certain schools, and wrote 'Nicholas Nickleby,' he described the debtors' prison, in 'Pickwick Pap: era,' and it .was his attack which did more than anything else to' remove those evils. Mr Chesterton had .said of Dickens: 'He left his mark - on parochialism, on nursing, on funerals, on public executions, on Workhouses, on the Court of Chancery.' " 'lt may be doubted whether any man since 43t. of Assisi has had the same effect on Europe in quickening the sense of sympathy between man 1 and man,' another has said.' The humane feelings that exist to-day for tho unfortunate, and especially-for children, are' to be traced, largely to the influence of) Charles Dickens. Yet' his great, work, and influence were not merely due to a -natural kindheartedness. He was a ■ sincere believer in tho religion of jfesus Christ,' and the' comfort he derived from it he praised above'all things.* His will concluded with an exhortation to his children to guide'themselves humbly by the teaching of the New Testament; "And so we leave the great man/' Mr Hervey concluded, "great in his natural genius, great in his work : of social reform, - and great in his witness for the necessity of Christian love."