Charles Dickens—A Lecture.

remember that their reflected life is life to us . This leads me to the further question of the special form of this gift in him whose loss the country deplores iu grief so genuine as to be in itself matter for serious reflection . What was there in that gift to

call forth this widespread sympathy 1 What was there in this sympathy and that which created it worthy of our thoughts on this occasion 1 I profess not to sit in judgment upon the character and career of this distinguished man . That must be

left to posterity . Neither is this the place to speak at more length on those lighter and more genial qualities which were such as to render bis death like nothing else besides than almost an eclipse of the gaiety of nations . There is a time to laugh and

a time to weep . Laughter is in itself good ; yet there are moments when we dare not indulge it . It has been said that the drollery and merriment which the man brought out threw the trivial side of life into too stron-r or bold relief . While he

descended into disgraceful scenes which he described , he still breathed the pure atmosphere around him . In that long series of shining tales , amidst all its comic and satiric veins , there was a profoundly philanthropic tone of which he was in his own way a special teacher . Those

struggling men , this vast mass of unseen suffering we have need to be reminded of . Ho who spake as never man spake saw , in his far-seeing glance , into our age as far as his own . What was needed then is far

more needed now , and to meet those wants we require those pre-eminent gifts possessed by the eminent writer who lies there . Through his genius the rich man , who fares sumptuously every day , was brought to . see Lazarus at his gate . On people in the workhouseneglected

chil-, dren , and starved and ill-used boys , in remote schools far oil from human sight , a ray of hope was tlnown ; for an unknown friend had pleaded their cause with a voice which rang through the palaces of the great as well as through the cottages of the poor .

The little workhouse boy threads his way imre and undented through the mass of wickedness around him ; the orphan girl brings the purity of Heaven into the hearts of all around her . He told us , in very new words , the old , old story , that there is in the worst of mankind a note of goodness . If he has brought rich and poor

together and made Englishmen feel more one family , he will not have lived in vain , nor will his bones have been laid in vain in this mausoleum of the English people . " " When , on Tuesday last , " the Dean continued , "in the deep , still silence of the summer morning , we stood beside that open

grave , it was impossible not to feel that there was something more sacred , more interesting than the earthly glory , and brighter and higher than the historic mausoleum , and that was the return of an individual soul to the hands of its Maker .

Many are the hearts both in the old and the new world , which are drawn towards his last resting-place ; many are the flowers which will be strewn ; many the tears shed by the giatefvl affection of the poor whom he served , and by the fatherless and those

who have none to help them . " May I speak a few sacred words , which will come with new meaning and deeper force , because they will come from the lips of our lost friend , because they will come from lips now closed in the grave . They are extracted from the will of Charles Dickens , dated May 12 th , 1869 . After the most emphatic injunctions respecting

the inexpensive , and unostentatious , and strictly private manner of Ms funeral—injunctions which were carried out to the letter—ho thus continues : — " I direct that my name be inscribed in plain English letters on my tomb . I conjure my friends not to make me the

subject of any monument , memorial , or testimonial whatever . I rest my claim to the remembrance of my country , upon my published works , and to the remembrance of my friends upon their experience of me in addition thereto . I commit my soul to

the mercy of God , through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ ; and I exhort my dear children humbly to try to guide themselves by the teaching of the New Testament in its expressed spirit , and to put no faith in any man ' s new construction of its

letter here or there . " "In that simple and sufficient faith , " said the Dean , in concluding , " he lived and died . In that simple and sufficient faith he bids you live and die . If any of you have learned from his works the value

of—the eternal value of—generosity , purity , kindness , and unselfishness , and learned to show these in your hearts and lives , then remember that these are the