Back to: Dickens A Christmas Carol and the Bible
6 Scenes
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Scene 1 – Cold winter day on a country road
As the words were spoken, they passed through the wall, and stood upon an open country road, with fields on either hand. The city had entirely vanished. Not a vestige of it was to be seen. The darkness and the mist had vanished with it, for it was a clear, cold, winter day, with snow upon the ground.
‘Good Heaven!’ said Scrooge, clasping his hands together, as he looked about him. ‘I was bred in this place. I was a boy here.’
1. Scrooges meditative journey
Part of Scrooges meditative journey into shadowy past requires him to open up old wounds. Examining the open wound will lead to healing and penitence. Yet he is simply led to repentance for his own healing sake, he is led there so he can bare fruit.
Romans 15:5-7
5 May the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another, in accordance with Christ Jesus, 6 so that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God
“May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a Spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.”
Role of Hope – But God doesn’t give us the gift of hope simply for our personal use. Our gift of salvation is not simply for our own healing or for esthetic reasons God’s hope has been given to us practical reasons. God’s hope which gives us “the ability to hang on” and “preserves our faith” also keeps us from developing a calloused heart. Because we mutually are dependent upon hope of God, this hope creates unity by allowing us to accept one another.
“May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a Spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.” Romans 15:5-7
We can accept one another because Christ has accepted us. Christ’s acceptance leads us out to one another in community. We have the power to form a new community because God has uprooted his world in the incarnation. The Creator of the universe has come in the form of helpless babe. God upturned the soil of our hearts when the child grew into servant
The Spirit gazed upon him mildly. Its gentle touch, though it had been light and instantaneous, appeared still present to the old man’s sense of feeling. He was conscious of a thousand odours floating in the air, each one connected with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares long, long, forgotten.
‘Your lip is trembling,’ said the Ghost. ‘And what is that upon your cheek.’
Scrooge muttered, with an unusual catching in his voice, that it was a pimple; and begged the Ghost to lead him where he would.
2. The pimple
The “pimple” is a tear—and the first sign Scrooge still has a heart
‘You recollect the way.’ inquired the Spirit.
‘Remember it.’ cried Scrooge with fervour; ‘I could walk it blindfold.’
‘Strange to have forgotten it for so many years.’ observed the Ghost. ‘Let us go on.’
They walked along the road, Scrooge recognising every gate, and post, and tree; until a little market-town appeared in the distance, with its bridge, its church, and winding river. Some shaggy ponies now were seen trotting towards them with boys upon their backs, who called to other boys in country gigs and carts, driven by farmers. All these boys were in great spirits, and shouted to each other, until the broad fields were so full of merry music, that the crisp air laughed to hear it.
‘These are but shadows of the things that have been,’ said the Ghost. ‘They have no consciousness of us.’
The jocund travellers came on; and as they came, Scrooge knew and named them every one. Why was he rejoiced beyond all bounds to see them. Why did his cold eye glisten, and his heart leap up as they went past. Why was he filled with gladness when he heard them give each other Merry Christmas, as they parted at cross-roads and bye-ways, for their several homes. What was merry Christmas to Scrooge. Out upon merry Christmas. What good had it ever done to him.
‘The school is not quite deserted,’ said the Ghost. ‘A solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still.’
Scrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed.
3. Scrooge is that solitary child
Scrooge is that “solitary child, neglected by his friends” who is “left there still”—in both the past and the present—an indictment on how our unkindness can poison the lives of others, through them infecting still more, as it had throughout the life of Scrooge
Now, here is the child that accompanies the lost house in chapter one. Yet this child has not run away to play “hide and seek”. This child was put away and abandoned. He was first ostracized by his family and then by his young friends. There is a sad fact in child development clinical literature which shows that children, who are not loved at home, do not acquire the social skills to be loved among their peers.16 The child, who cries alone at home, often plays alone at school. So we find Scrooge alone in his classroom.
The lost and orphaned child becomes a favorite theme in Dickens books perhaps because he was separated from his family at the early age of twelve when his family was sent to live with his father in debtor’s prison. Charles Dickens could not join his brothers and sister because as oldest male he was required to earn a living for his family. We can feel the pain of the abandoned, lonely young Charles Dickens in the characters of David Copperfield, Oliver Twist and the countless other abandoned children we find his stories. These bruised and malnourished children stand out as a moral rebuke to the family and adults in society who abandoned their moral responsibility to these children.
One reason Charles Dickens continued to visit the theme of the abandoned child was that abandoned children were a reality in 19th century England. Many children were abandoned as a direct result of the “Poor Law 1834”, which Charles Dickens was working to reform17. This law was written end poverty by punishing those who would not or could not work. Sadly, this poorly written law did not end poverty; it trapped people into impoverished institutions. This law ruthlessly broke up families, and placed children in the same workhouses as drunkards, prostitutes, criminals and the infirmed and aged. So orphans and the lost child becomes a staple in all of Dickens’s literary work.
Yet besides the orphaned children of poverty, Charles Dickens shows young Ebenezer Scrooge. He is not outwardly bruised. He is well fed and properly dressed. But he is alone and his pain palpable as Oliver Twist.
The general mood is jubilant until the sight of him abandoned in a schoolroom brings on a fit of crying. Critic Rosemary Bodenheimer points out why this scene is important: “Scrooge’s ability to look upon his abandoned young self in the schoolroom brings self-pity; self-pity brings tears, awakening feeling; feeling awakens sympathy for others” (Knowing Dickens 66).
Scene 2. Large House Reading
They left the high-road, by a well-remembered lane, and soon approached a mansion of dull red brick, with a little weathercock-surmounted cupola, on the roof, and a bell hanging in it. It was a large house, but one of broken fortunes; for the spacious offices were little used, their walls were damp and mossy, their windows broken, and their gates decayed. Fowls clucked and strutted in the stables; and the coach-houses and sheds were over-run with grass. Nor was it more retentive of its ancient state, within; for entering the dreary hall, and glancing through the open doors of many rooms, they found them poorly furnished, cold, and vast. There was an earthy savour in the air, a chilly bareness in the place, which associated itself somehow with too much getting up by candle-light, and not too much to eat.
They went, the Ghost and Scrooge, across the hall, to a door at the back of the house. It opened before them, and disclosed a long, bare, melancholy room, made barer still by lines of plain deal forms and desks. At one of these a lonely boy was reading near a feeble fire; and Scrooge sat down upon a form, and wept to see his poor forgotten self as he used to be.
Not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and scuffle from the mice behind the panelling, not a drip from the half-thawed water-spout in the dull yard behind, not a sigh among the leafless boughs of one despondent poplar, not the idle swinging of an empty store-house door, no, not a clicking in the fire, but fell upon the heart of Scrooge with a softening influence, and gave a freer passage to his tears.
The Spirit touched him on the arm, and pointed to his younger self, intent upon his reading. Suddenly a man, in foreign garments: wonderfully real and distinct to look at: stood outside the window, with an axe stuck in his belt, and leading by the bridle an ass laden with wood.
‘Why, it’s Ali Baba.’ Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy. ‘It’s dear old honest Ali Baba. Yes, yes, I know. One Christmas time, when yonder solitary child was left here all alone, he did come, for the first time, just like that. Poor boy. And Valentine,’ said Scrooge,’ and his wild brother, Orson; there they go. And what’s his name, who was put down in his drawers, asleep, at the Gate of Damascus; don’t you see him. And the Sultan’s Groom turned upside down by the Genii; there he is upon his head. Serve him right. I’m glad of it. What business had he to be married to the Princess.’
4. Arabian Nights
After the New Testament and Shakespeare’s works, the book Dickens most often alludes to in his writings is The Arabian Nights, which includes the tale of “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
To hear Scrooge expending all the earnestness of his nature on such subjects, in a most extraordinary voice between laughing and crying; and to see his heightened and excited face; would have been a surprise to his business friends in the city, indeed.
‘There’s the Parrot.’ cried Scrooge. ‘Green body and yellow tail, with a thing like a lettuce growing out of the top of his head; there he is. Poor Robin Crusoe, he called him, when he came home again after sailing round the island. ‘Poor Robin Crusoe, where have you been, Robin Crusoe.’ The man thought he was dreaming, but he wasn’t. It was the Parrot, you know. There goes Friday, running for his life to the little creek. Halloa. Hoop. Hallo.’
Then, with a rapidity of transition very foreign to his usual character, he said, in pity for his former self, ‘Poor boy.’ and cried again.
5. First experience of remorse
Scrooge next looks in on himself reading next to a “feeble” fire in a rundown and melancholy house. He feels an air of “too much getting up by candle-light, and not too much to eat.”
Again, he seems to have been neglected, even abandoned. His friends from this period of childhood were imaginary—all characters in his books.
->The sight of this lonely boy brings forth in Scrooge his first experience of remorse. “Poor Boy” and cried again. It brings to his mind another little boy, the one who just a day or so earlier had stopped before the office to sing a Christmas carol to those inside. Scrooge had ignored him; now he wishes he had given him something to thank him. His circle of awareness has now grown by one person. The carol the boy sings is the carol referred to in the work’s title, “God bless you, merry gentlemen, May nothing you dismay.”
The most painful sound to a child is the voice of silence from adults that ought to have spoken. By the same token, no sound is more disconcerting to a parental ear than to hear an abandoned child cry out into a void. God gave parental instincts, so we can care for children who cannot care for themselves. The lonely child in the schoolroom in “A Christmas Carol” touches our heart because at some level we all know that this child represents so many children in our world, and sometimes ourselves.
But the lonely scars remain in a child who was denied the love that God had ordained for them through a loving parenting
Christmas is a good time to contemplate that child who is left alone in the school house and ask what our role is in this child’s life.
If the harsh action that Jesus recommends for people to take, “gauging out ones eye”, to avoid “causing a child to sin” seems severe, it is because God is severe on those who abuse the helpless.
Scripture reveals to us that helpless children have a special place in God’s heart. (Jeremiah 49:11,
Deuteronomy 10: 17-18 Psalm 68: 5) And God calls his people to protect this population as well (Malachi 3: 5, Exodus 22:22-23, James 1:27)
Jeremiah 49:11 – Leave your orphans, I will keep them alive;
Deuteronomy 10:17-18
For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, 18 who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing.
Psalm 68:5 Father of orphans and protector of widows
And God calls his people to protect this population as well (Malachi 3: 5, Exodus 22:22-23, James 1:27)
Malachi 3:5 – Then I will draw near to you for judgment; I will be swift to bear witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired workers in their wages, the widow and the orphan, against those who thrust aside the alien, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts.
Exodus 22:22-23 You shall not abuse any widow or orphan. 23 If you do abuse them, when they cry out to me, I will surely heed their cry;
James 1:27 – Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
Maybe that is why Christ came to us as a child in a manger, so we would have sympathy for other children who come in to this world in uneasy situations. Let it be our Prayer to remember these children through out the year and simply not relegate them to our Christmas charities.
The abandoned child reminds us again of the child in the manger. I think that was Dickens intended message. And indeed we must heed it, because Jesus said, “that which you have done to least of these you have done to me.” Matthew 25:46
‘I wish,’ Scrooge muttered, putting his hand in his pocket, and looking about him, after drying his eyes with his cuff: ‘but it’s too late now.’
‘What is the matter.’ asked the Spirit.
‘Nothing,’ said Scrooge. ‘Nothing. There was a boy singing a Christmas Carol at my door last night. I should like to have given him something: that’s all.’
6. Scrooge - another sign of retreat.
Another sign of retreat
The Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its hand: saying as it did so, ‘Let us see another Christmas.’
Scrooge’s former self grew larger at the words, and the room became a little darker and more dirty. The panels shrunk, the windows cracked; fragments of plaster fell out of the ceiling, and the naked laths were shown instead; but how all this was brought about, Scrooge knew no more than you do. He only knew that it was quite correct; that everything had happened so; that there he was, alone again, when all the other boys had gone home for the jolly holidays.
Scene 3. Scene with Fan –He was not reading now, but walking up and down despairingly.
We see for the first time—as Scrooge is seeing for both a first and second time—that his childhood was marked by many episodes of neglect, many instances when he was left to his own devices for comfort and diversion. The scene with his younger sister establishes the domestic disruption that seems to have always hovered in the background of his young life. He was alone again – first three scenes
He was not reading now, but walking up and down despairingly.
Scrooge looked at the Ghost, and with a mournful shaking of his head, glanced anxiously towards the door.
It opened; and a little girl, much younger than the boy, came darting in, and putting her arms about his neck, and often kissing him, addressed him as her ‘Dear, dear brother.’
‘I have come to bring you home, dear brother.’ said the child, clapping her tiny hands, and bending down to laugh. ‘To bring you home, home, home.’
‘Home, little Fan.’ returned the boy.
8. Frances Dickens
Frances Dickens (1810-1848), was a talented musician; and as in Scrooge’s family also, the daughter received better treatment than the son from their parents.
Such sweet and pure devotion flows from sister to brother in this scene, but why would she be the member of the family sent to rescue him? What dire situation left him so neglected? Where was the now-welcoming father? We learn why Scrooge’s sister is so important to him; she is the mother of Fred, his nephew, and her death at a young age brought pain to her brother’s life.
‘Yes.’ said the child, brimful of glee. ‘Home, for good and all. Home, for ever and ever. Father is so much kinder than he used to be, that home’s like Heaven.
9. Self-criticism
If heaven is like their home, it is little wonder that Scrooge left the faith; after all, they almost didn’t let him come home for Christmas—a small reminder for those who claim to maintain Christian homes to be always mindful of how they heat tire ones who live there and leave there
“The first movement of imaginative self-criticism”: This is an essential component of the conversion process that Scrooge must undertake to avoid Marley’s fate.
He spoke so gently to me one dear night when I was going to bed, that I was not afraid to ask him once more if you might come home; and he said Yes, you should; and sent me in a coach to bring you. And you’re to be a man.’ said the child, opening her eyes,’ and are never to come back here; but first, we’re to be together all the Christmas long, and have the merriest time in all the world.’
‘You are quite a woman, little Fan.’ exclaimed the boy.
She clapped her hands and laughed, and tried to touch his head; but being too little, laughed again, and stood on tiptoe to embrace him. Then she began to drag him, in her childish eagerness, towards the door; and he, nothing loth to go, accompanied her.
A terrible voice in the hall cried. ‘Bring down Master Scrooge’s box, there.’ and in the hall appeared the schoolmaster himself, who glared on Master Scrooge with a ferocious condescension, and threw him into a dreadful state of mind by shaking hands with him. He then conveyed him and his sister into the veriest old well of a shivering best-parlour that ever was seen, where the maps upon the wall, and the celestial and terrestrial globes in the windows, were waxy with cold. Here he produced a decanter of curiously light wine, and a block of curiously heavy cake, and administered instalments of those dainties to the young people: at the same time, sending out a meagre servant to offer a glass of something to the postboy, who answered that he thanked the gentleman, but if it was the same tap as he had tasted before, he had rather not. Master Scrooge’s trunk being by this time tied on to the top of the chaise, the children bade the schoolmaster good-bye right willingly; and getting into it, drove gaily down the garden-sweep: the quick wheels dashing the hoar-frost and snow from off the dark leaves of the evergreens like spray.
10. Dickens education
When Dickens’s father was asked about his famous son’s education, he proudly stated that his son educated himself. Though this was not entirely by choice (the family debt requiring the young Dickens to work), Dickens would have had good reason of his own to avoid schools—at Wellington House Academy in London, one of only two schools he attended, he suffered at the hand of one such terrible schoolmaster as those he would later write about
‘Always a delicate creature, whom a breath might have withered,’ said the Ghost. ‘But she had a large heart.’
‘So she had,’ cried Scrooge. ‘You’re right. I will not gainsay it, Spirit. God forbid.’
‘She died a woman,’ said the Ghost, ‘and had, as I think, children.’
‘One child,’ Scrooge returned.
‘True,’ said the Ghost. ‘Your nephew.’
Scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind; and answered briefly, ‘Yes.’
11. Scrooge - inconsistent love
Scrooge is uneasy because, while he loved his sister, he has not loved his nephew (nor his neighbor) as well as he should have.
The parable of God’s vineyard (Matthew 20) mirrors some of Scrooges redemptive journey. Scrooge’s life may have had a hard beginning, but his life was not without the tender mercy of the vinedresser. Even though he was abandoned as a child, Scrooge was the given the opportunity to reconcile with his father in his childhood. He had a sister who possessed “a large heart” who interceded for him. But her soft heart did not soften Scrooges’ heart toward her son. Scrooge did not return his sister’s favor by showing kindness to her only son, who was his nephew.
Scrooge is now beginning to taste the sour grapes of his life and they make him uneasy.
Scrooge also had no excuse for his calloused behavior toward his clerk. Scrooge also had a noble business role model who illustrated to Scrooge how to treat people with dignity and grace
Parable of the Vineyard Matthew 20:1-16
“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. 2 After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage,[a] he sent them into his vineyard. 3 When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace; 4 and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. 5 When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. 6 And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’ 7 They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ 8 When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’ 9 When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage.[b] 10 Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage.[c] 11 And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, 12 saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ 13 But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage?[d] 14 Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. 15 Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’[e] 16 So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”[f]
Ebenezer sees himself as a boy
and let your widows trust in me.
is God in his holy habitation.
7. Scrooge - childhood of neglect.