THE KEY. CHARLES CLARK’S LECTURES.

Evening Star, Issue 3763, 16 March 1875, Page 2

THE KEY. CHARLES CLARK’S LECTURES.

The large audience that last night filled the Queen’s Theatre unanimously endorsed the verdict that has placed the Rev. C. Clark in the foremost rank as an orator and popular lecturer. The fame that had preceded him led them to expect an intellectual treat ; and how fully and completely that anticipation was realised was demonstrated by the hearty and prolonged applause with which so frequently the course of the lecture was interrupted. “ The life of Dickens ” is most eloquently handled, but not critically treated by Mr Clark, because his strong affection for Dickens, which in its intensity almost resembles that of a child for its parent, causes him to overlook his faults. With a fine presence, Mr Clark has a voice, which, though at first apparently thin, is, as the lecture proceeds, shown to be thoroughly flexible, and very mellow. While overflowing with humor himself, and capable of calling forth astonishing powers of mimicry which in another calling would have made his fortune, he can without effort be so pathetic as to almost move his listeners to tears. And he has a memory that is wonderful for its retentiveness. Every word of this lecture, which occupies two hours in delivery, and comprises no end of quotations from numerous books, has been committed to heart, and is given without the slightest hesitancy. Believing rightly that the bulk of his audience have, through Dickens himself or Forster’s books, some acquaintance with the early history and life of the great novelist, Mr Clark makes this part of his lecture very brief. Then passes in rapid review, “ TheOldCuriosity Shop. ” “ Pickwick, David Copperfield,” “ Martin Chuzzlewit,” “Nicholas Nickleby,” “Barnaby Budge,” &0., and gives as the most fitting illustrations of the author’s humor and pathos, Bob Sawyer’s party, the famous scene between Sairey Gamp and Betsy Prig, and the affecting story of Little NelL So faithfully are these mirth-provoking characters pourtrayed that the audience gave way to unchecked laughter, while his masterly recital of the chapter which tells of little Nell’s death brought the moisture to many an eye. As with everything else, there is an end to this entertaining lecture, and this reached, Mr Clark pointed out as the secret of Dickens’s immense influence the sympathy—vast and many-sided sympathy—with all the forms which human life put on, with its weaknesses as with its forces, with its vanities as with its sublimities, with its fears as with its heroisms, ay, and with its follies where they did no harm! Then followed a vigorous defence in the following words of Dickens from the charge of irreligion and of himself of irreverence ; _ “ Now he (Mr Clark), as one who understood ma obligations to his fellowmen, wished most heartily and emphatically to repudiate any such Idea. Of course he knew that Dickens very brilliantly satirised certain types and classes of religious busybodies under the names of Mrs Pardigglo and Mrs Jellyby. The first was the type of those hard, cold creatures who thought that to take notice of the poor was an immeasurable condescension, and that to arm themselves with a tract, and to undertake the spiritual policemanship of a district, gave them a right to invade the houses of the poor at any season, to interfere in their affairs, and to criticise their situation and habits in what fashion they pleased—people who would dragoon their fellows into being religious, and whose manners and behaviour were a gross libel upon that religion of charity and courtesy whose disciples and teachers they professed to be. Mrs Jellyby devoted her life to the interests of her foreign mission. Her gaze was fixed so intently on her favorite African station that her home was the scene of every domestic misery, and her children grew up without a mother’s care. Though Dickens painted such evils, he did not invent them, nor was he the only man that had recognised and rebuked them. More than once had he heard ministers criticise sharply our methods of carrying on Home Mission work, demanding their reformation, and affirming that sympathy, not lecturing, would touch the heart of the outcast and win him to the path of goodness. Was it not matter |of notoriety that while the energies of the Church were zealously directed to the amelioration of black savages,!the needs and wants of white ones in their unsavory homes among the slums of our cities were almost entirely overlooked? He called it flagrant injustice to brand any man as a scoffer because he had hit the blot of modern Christian efforts, and had suggested a more excellent way. To reverence truth and goodness, while heartily castigating hypocrities, was the property of courageous, clear-seeing, righteous hearts. If he had had time, he might have cited many passages which went to show how Dickens turned to the sacred volume for illustrations of his most touching incidents, and how reverent and loving was the spirit in which every such illustration was employed. Nor could lie find the shadow of an instance m which simple godUhess, faith, and prayer and humble, peaceful piety were not introduced with most obvious feeling on the part of the writer that those emotions and qualities constituted the sweetness, strength, and beauty of human life. What was religion? Was it under a thin veneer of sanctimonious looks and solemn phrases to hide the meanness and deformity of a nature corrupted and distorted by hatred, avarice, envy, malice, and all uncharitableness? Or was religion purity, honor, generosity, manliness, love to the Diviae and to His creatures, for His sake ? If religion lay not in empty mouthings, but in the sweetness and manliness of life, then did he say that Chadband he had known, Stiggins hehadknown, ami Pecksniff, that nine-storeyed moralist, he had known again and again, and he kissed right loyally the hand which had gibbetted those intolerable impostors, and hung them up on high as perpetual targets for the shafts of genuine contempt and scorn. He (Mr Clark) wished that his sermons and the sermons of his brothers were half as good as those words in which Dickens had taught us to fear-not power, but wrong; tor everence—not wealth but goodness,; and in daily life to cultivate those broad sympathies and genial characteristics

which found their crowning exhibition la the Man of Nazareth. They bitterly misjudged him who refused to endorse the words of Dean Stanley—-‘ln the writings of Dickens it is clearly shown that it is possible to move both old and young to laughter, without the use of a sing e expression which would defile the purest or shock the most sensitive.’ If he was to choose his place, lie deliberately selected condemnation with Dean Stanley, the. Bishop of Manchester, and Professor Jowett, rather than the warmest approva! of all the Chadbands in the Colonies. It was not for such men to measure the work which God in Hia manifold wisdom gave Charles Dickens to do. The last page of Pickwick’ struck the key-note of his writings. There are dark shadows on the earth, but its lights are stronger from the contrast. Some men, hke bats and owls, have better eyes for the darkness than for tho light pi i \ i’ e j no powers.’ Ho (Mr Clark) had read with profound and pathetic Interest an extract from the will of Dickens, which Dean Stanley quoted:— ‘ I commit my soul to the mercy of God, through our Lord and vVi j )ur ” e ® us Christ, and I exhort my dear children to try to guide themselves by the teaching of the New Testament in its broad spirit, and to put no faith in any man’s narrow constructions of its letter.’ ”

This eloquent defence was frequently interrupted by loud applause, which was prolonged, at its conclusion. The lecture is to be repeated, and for the last time, to-night, and those who wish a genuine treat should not neglect this; opportunity. Aspiring elocutionists should go, for they will greatly profit by hearing. Mr Clark.