A gallon of condescension

"As I passed the church, I felt (as I had felt during service in the morning) a sublime compassion for the poor creatures who were destined to go there, Sunday after Sunday, all their lives through, and to lie obscurely at last among the low green mounds. I promised myself that I would do something for them one of these days, and formed a plan in outline for bestowing a dinner of roast-beef and plum-pudding, a pint of ale, and a gallon of condescension, upon everybody in the village." (Dickens 191)

This quote is interesting because it contains another repetition of a message of the novel, a witticism by Dickens, and perhaps a comment on religion. Dickens, in Great Expectations, warns against pride and greed; this quote shows Pip's pride yet again. He has lived in this tiny village all of this life and has, up until the time he is leaving it for "greater" things, been happy there. Now he thinks that the "poor creatures" who live in the village and in the country must be unhappy because of their lack of wealth and high-class standing. He says he shall bestow a feast upon them, and Dickens jabs again at his pride by adding in "a gallon of condescension" to
the things he proposes to give to the villagers.
I believe that Dickens is saying in this passage that the people who attend the church in fact are happy, and content to be there, living in the village, because Dickens is clearly disagreeing with Pip's point of view in the latter part of this quote. Therefore I think that this is a point on religion on Dickens' part, and in favor of it.