Hi, the easiest way to verify to circuit (at least the max232 part) is to put a jumper between tx and rx pins (ttl section), so everything you write down to the PIC will be send it back to the computer, remember this is just to verify the max232 part. For the PIC section you must write a little code to turn on and off a pin every time the PIC receive a message from PC. At least this is what I do every time I want to be sure my hardware works correctly.

Regards