"The Victorian Reward: Simple Love, and Marriage with God"

"The Victorian Reward — Simple Love, and Marriage with God, for a Christian Life of Toil" by William R. Terpening

The Pickwick Papers, Jane Eyre, and North and South, each conclude with a wedding, or a pledge of love, which contains the promise of a tranquil experience for the remainder of the protagonist's lives. The theme communicated by this example is that, after a life of testing through hardship and trial, people who led "Christian" lives-- lives marked by good, charitable, and industrious behavior-- would be rewarded by enjoying later years in which they were surrounded by friends and peace. The context for this idealistic view grew out of nineteenth-century Evangelical Christian ideals...