THE REV CHARLES CLARK.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CIII, Issue 12157, 22 March 1900, Page 5

THE REV CHARLES CLARK.

FIRST DICKENS RECITAL. The Rev Charles Clark was at his best last evening, when he attempted to interpret Charles Dickens and his works for the instruction and entertainment of the people of Christchurch. The body of the Choral Hall was well filled, but it is impossible to believe that the great novelist has not more worshippers in Christchurch. However much they may love the master and his creations, and however strongly they may prefer the fireside or the corner for their enjpyment, they would have lest nothing and gained much by listening to so gifted an orator, so wholehearted an admirer and so dramatic a reciter as Mr Clark. The brilliant lecturer owes his success to his splendid voice, his fine choice of language, his perfect enunciation, and his dramatic power, and no theme is calculated to bring these qualities into greater prominence than the life and work of Dickens. Mr Clark ■sketched the career of the author from the time of his birth at Portsmouth in 1812, laying especial stress upon the incidents and vicissitudes of his early days—when his character and his genius were taking shape—and illustrating them by plentiful recitals from the works of a maturer age. He showed how Captain Cuttle and Mr Micawber and the rest lived and moved and had their being in the mean streets and shabby bar-parlours of London, and how David Copperfield was really working in the guise of the boy Charles Dickens in the blacking factory at Hungcrford Market. And lest the audience should lose its interest for one moment in his stbry, he introduced a- score of delicious little scenes from the novels, taking each character in turn, till it really seemed that Pickwick and his friends were alive again. Then when it became ncessarv to speak of the works which brought Dickens more than fame, Mr Clark recited longer scenes, convulsing his audience with laughter at the story of Bob Sawyer's little supper party, or the quarrel between those bosom friends Betsy Prig and the immortal Mrs Gamp, concerning the reality of Mrs Harris's existence, or bringing tears into the eyes of many of his hearers with the pathetic prose poem of Little Nell's death. Quite as enjoyable, too, was the encounter between poor little David and the obliging waiter. Mr Clark concluded his lecture . with a vigorous defence of Charles Dickens against the charge of irreverence and contempt of religion, claiming that the great author had exposed shams, for the existence of which he could not be held responsible. The keynote of his genius, he said, was a deep, many-sided sympathy with all that was weak in mankind. He was frequently and heartily applauded, and when he had spoken for an hour and a half, the audience was still in the same mood as Oliver Twist.

To-night Mr Clark will deliver a patriotic oration entitled "The Tower of London."