By the time he came to write David Copperfield, Dickens was increasingly concerned to call upon his audience to respond to the sufferings of the poor, in’ terms of the gospel demand for charity and forgiveness. His religion was always oriented towards society and social action. By the time he was approaching the age of forty he seems to have desired most strongly the re-enactment of what had become for him the “crowning m iracle” of the New Testament: the bringing of the gospel to the poor.
He saw the gap between the material conditions of the poor and the spiritual message offered to them. He had already remarked the “monstrous task” of attempting to impress the children of the poor “even with the idea of God, when their own condition is so desolate”. In a public speech in 1851 he stressed his conviction that “even Education and Religion can do nothing where they are ‘most needed, until the way is paved for their m inistrations by Cleanliness and Decency.”
This sermon by the Rev Geoff Usher on Charles Dickens view of religion as shown in the novel “David Copperfield” can be read here.
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