Testament among your books
for the very same reasons, and with the very same hopes, that made me
write an easy account of it for you, when you were a little child.
Because it is the best book that ever was, or will be, known in the
world; and because it teaches you the best lessons by which any human
creature, who tries to be truthful and faithful to duty, can possibly be
guided. As your brothers have gone away, one by one, I have written to
each such words as I am now writing to you, and have entreated them all
to guide themselves by this Book, putting aside the interpretations and
inventions of Man. You will remember that you have never at home been
harassed about religious observances, or mere formalities. I have always
been anxious not to weary my children with such things, before they are
old enough to form opinions respecting them. You will therefore
understand the better that I now most solemnly impress upon you the
truth and beauty of the Christian Religion, as it came from Christ
Himself, and the impossibility of your going far wrong if you humbly but
heartily respect it. Only one thing more on this head. The more we are
in earnest as to feeling it, the less we are disposed to hold forth
about it. Never abandon the wholesome practice of saying your own
private prayers, night and morning. I have never abandoned it myself,
and I know the comfort of it. I hope you will always be able to say in
after life, that you had a kind father. You cannot show your affection
for him so well, or make him so happy, as by doing your duty." They who
most intimately knew Dickens will know best that every word there is
written from his heart, and is radiant with the truth of his nature.

To the same effect, in the leading matter, he expressed himself twelve
years before, and again the day before his death; replying in both cases
to correspondents who had addressed him as a public writer. A clergyman,
the Rev. R. H. Davies, had been struck by the hymn in the Christmas tale
of the Wreck of the Golden Mary (_Household Words_, 1856). "I beg to
thank you" Dickens answered (Christmas Eve, 1856) "for your very
acceptable letter--not the less gratifying to me because I am myself the
writer you refer to. . . . There cannot be many men, I believe, who have a
more humble veneration for the New Testament, or a more profound
conviction of its all-sufficiency, than I have. If I am ever (as you
tell me I am) mistaken on this subject, it is because