Dickens’ Christian Carol Session 5
The Christmas Carol as Christian Truth
Session Five: “Come and Know Me Better Man!”
Word to Live By: By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love
one to another. (John 13:35 KJV). But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his
brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the
love of God in him? (1 John 3:17 KJV)
Session Truth: The central quality of Christians
should be love. . .love for one another and love for
the poor. "Vide", inquiunt, "ut invicem se diligant"
("Look," they say, "how they love one another")
Tertullian—early church father.
Scripture: 1 John 4:7-21 (KJV)
7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of
God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and
knoweth God. 8 He that loveth not knoweth not
God; for God is love. 9 In this was manifested the
love of God toward us, because that God sent his
only begotten Son into the world, that we might live
through him. 10 Herein is love, not that we loved
God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the
propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved
us, we ought also to love one another. 12 No man
hath seen God at any time. If we love one another,
God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. 13 Hereby know we that we dwell in
him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and do
testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. 15 Whosoever shall
confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. 16 And we
have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth
in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. 17 Herein is our love made perfect, that we may
have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. 18 There
is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that
feareth is not made perfect in love. 19 We love him, because he first loved us. 20 If a man
say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother
whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? 21 And this
commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.
Introduction: If memory is vital for the first step in the journey towards salvation, in
that it overtly shows individuals how much they are in debt to others and how far they
have fallen into evil, then the ever drawing quality of God’s love exemplified by the love
of God’s people is essential for the next step. “See how they love one another” was the
remark made by many in the first century. And so the church grew.
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Dickens’ Christian Carol Session 5
Unlike the Ghost of Christmas Past who takes Scrooge out of time, the Ghost of
Christmas Present is anchored within time. In fact he is the only ghost who ages—he
comes unlooked for and when he is gone he is gone.
The Ghost of Christmas Present is a Recognizable Spirit of
Christmas:
As with the “traditional” elements of ghosts used by Dickens
in Marley, so the Ghost of Christmas present stands in the long
line of mid-winter spirits of pagan folklore.
They themselves have merged with the legend of a generous
Christian bishop named Nicholas who lived in the fourth-century in the Lycian port of
Myra, (in the south-west of modern Turkey) and whose feast day is Dec. 6th. The Ghost
is not Santa Clause, but he’s definitely related.
However while comfortable within that role, note that Dickens’ spirit is overtly
connected with the coming of Christ.
Dickens’ giant of Christmas present is an illustration of the quality of Christian love both
in the peace and joy it brings to all who experience it as well in the practical good it
manifests in its care for those whose physical needs are great.


The bare chest of the ghost demonstrates its full and
giving nature: “It was clothed in one simple green
robe, or mantle, bordered with white fur. This
garment hung so loosely on the figure, that its
capacious breast was bare, as if disdaining to be
warded or concealed by any artifice.” (Stave 3)
He wears an empty sword scabbard perhaps
indicating that he may have—as Christmas does—
bloody origins1; but he has been transformed a vessel of peace. “Girded round its
middle was an antique scabbard; but no sword was in it, and the ancient sheath
1
Midvinterblót the pagan festival which occurred in Sweden and many surrounding parts of Europe around
the Winter solstice involved animal and sometimes human sacrifice to stop the light of the world from
going out. Of course it is an ancestor to our modern Christmas revels.
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was eaten up with rust.” Furthermore the quality which the ghost presents is
unbounded love, not the severity of the law.
Human Justice = Blood

Divine Response = Abundant Grace
Everything about the ghost matches the abundance which is the nature of God’s
love: “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more
abundantly (John 10: 10). ” he is “a jolly Giant, glorious to see:, who bore a
glowing torch, in shape not unlike Plenty's horn, and held it up, high up, to shed
its light on Scrooge. . . . Its dark brown curls were long and free; free as its genial
face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice, its unconstrained
demeanour, and its joyful air”.
Note that the Spirit of Fellowship is based in the body of Christ:
But soon the steeples called good people all, to church and chapel, and
away they came, flocking through the streets in their best clothes, and with
their gayest faces.
Consider what drew you, dear reader, to the family of faith of which you are a part? In
my personal experience, it is the fellowship and love of believers far more than the nuts
and bolts of their belief system which attracts others to the family of God.
Sadly, we Christians have much to answer for as illustrated by one of Dickens’
contemporaries, Mark Twain in the voice of Huckleberry Finn:
The Widow Douglas she took me for her son, and allowed she would
sivilize me; but it was rough living in the house all the time, considering
how dismal regular and decent the widow was in all her ways. . .Her sister,
Miss Watson, a tolerable slim old maid, with goggles on, had just come to
live with her. . .Then for an hour it was deadly dull, and I was fidgety.
Miss Watson would say, "Don't put your feet up there, Huckleberry;" and
"Don't scrunch up like that, Huckleberry -- set up straight;" and pretty
soon she would say, "Don't gap and stretch like that, Huckleberry -- why
don't you try to behave?" Then she told me all about the bad place, and I
said I wished I was there. She got mad then, but I didn't mean no harm. All
I wanted was to go somewheres; all I wanted was a change, I warn't
particular. She said it was wicked to say what I said; said she wouldn't say
it for the whole world; she was going to live so as to go to the good
place. Well, I couldn't see no advantage in going where she was going, so
I made up my mind I wouldn't try for it. But I never said so, because it
would only make trouble, and wouldn't do no good. Now she had got a
start, and she went on and told me all about the good place. She said all a
body would have to do there was to go around all day long with a harp and
sing, forever and ever. So I didn't think much of it. But I never said so. I
asked her if she reckoned Tom Sawyer would go there, and she said not by
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a considerable sight. I was glad about that, because I wanted him and me
to be together. (Huck Finn 1-4)
Sometimes the widow would take me one side and talk about Providence
in a way to make a body's mouth water; but maybe next day Miss Watson
would take hold and knock it all down again. I judged I could see that
there was two Providences, and a poor chap would stand considerable
show with the widow's Providence, but if Miss Watson's got him there
warn't no help for him any more. I thought it all out, and reckoned I would
belong to the widow's if he wanted me, though I couldn't make out how he
was a-going to be any better off then than what he was before, seeing I
was so ignorant, and so kind of low-down and ornery (Huck Finn 15).
Clearly one, of the sisters, who truly loves Huckleberry, is an effective witness, but the
other is not. Sadly in their society both would be seen as Godly women.
While Dickens does not dwell on the failure of fellowship (that was covered in the first
stave), there is an interesting discussion between Scrooge and the Spirit about individuals
who see themselves as righteous but lack the love which needs to be a part of that
righteousness. These were those who would forbid the poor to enjoy recreation on the
Sabbath2 which ends this way:
There are some upon this earth of yours,' returned the Spirit,' who lay
claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will,
hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to
us and all out kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and
charge their doings on themselves, not us.'
Since the Ghost of Christmas Present is an “examplum” of Christian love, it separates
itself from those who use religion rather than express it (and thus identifies itself as a
minister of God’s grace itself:
But for the most part Dickens shows Christian fellowship at its best:
The Nature of Christian Love Illustrated by the Ghost of Christmas
Present
`It is required of every man,' the Ghost returned, `that the spirit within him
should walk abroad among his fellowmen, and travel far and wide [to
share]. . .on earth, . . .[so that it may be] turned to happiness!'
2
Sabbatarianism, the Christian doctrine of strict observance of Sunday as a holy day reserved for worship,
was attacked by Dickens throughout his life. Closed SundaysIn 1836 he published the pamphlet Sunday
Under Three Heads in opposition to a Bill that would have extended already strict limitations to Sunday
recreation. Dickens felt that these Bills were an attempt by the upper classes to control the lives of the
lower classes disguised as religious piety.
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Christian Love is unexpected: Scrooge is unprepared for what he experiences “Now,
being prepared for almost anything, he was not by any means prepared for nothing; and,
consequently, when the Bell struck One, and no shape appeared, he was taken with a
violent fit of trembling.”
The Ghost of Christian fellowship is typified by abundance:
It was his [Scrooge’s] own room. There was no doubt about that. But it
had undergone a surprising transformation. The walls and ceiling were so
hung with living green, that it looked a perfect grove; from every part of
which, bright gleaming berries glistened. The crisp leaves of holly,
mistletoe, and ivy reflected back the light, as if so many little mirrors had
been scattered there; and such a mighty blaze went roaring up the
chimney, as that dull petrification of a hearth had never known in
Scrooge's time, or Marley's, or for many and many a winter season gone.
Heaped up on the floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese,
game, poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of
sausages, mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot
chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense
twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of punch, that made the chamber dim
with their delicious steam. In easy state upon this couch, there sat a jolly
Giant, glorious to see:, who bore a glowing torch, in shape not unlike
Plenty's horn, and held it up, high up, to shed its light on Scrooge, as he
came peeping round the door.
Scrooge has begun to change: his humor is even less caustic than it is was with the stake
of holy line. However even in his joke of the Spirit having more than 1800 bothers to
provide for the reader still sees the worldly mindedness of Scrooge. “A tremendous
family to provide for.' muttered Scrooge”
Within Christian love is the great (and often underestimated) power of Joy:
It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is
infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so
irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humour. When Scrooge's
nephew laughed in this way: holding his sides, rolling his head, and
twisting his face into the most extravagant contortions: Scrooge's niece,
by marriage, laughed as heartily as he. And their assembled friends being
not a bit behindhand, roared out lustily.
I mean to give him the same chance every year, whether he likes it or not,
for I pity him. He may rail at Christmas till he dies, but he can't help
thinking better of it -- I defy him -- if he finds me going there, in good
temper, year after year, and saying Uncle Scrooge, how are you. If it only
puts him in the vein to leave his poor clerk fifty pounds, that's something;
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and I think I shook him yesterday.' It was their turn to laugh now at the
notion of his shaking Scrooge.
The Spirit of Fellowship:
There was nothing very cheerful in the climate or the town, and yet was
there an air of cheerfulness abroad that the clearest summer air and
brightest summer sun might have endeavoured to diffuse in vain. For, the
people who were shovelling away on the housetops were jovial and full of
glee; calling out to one another from the parapets, and now and then
exchanging a facetious snowball.
The Joyful Welcoming!
But, if you had judged from the numbers of people on their way to friendly
gatherings, you might have thought that no one was at home to give them
welcome when they got there, instead of every house expecting company,
and piling up its fires half-chimney high. Blessings on it, how the Ghost
exulted. How it bared its breadth of breast, and opened its capacious
palm, and floated on, outpouring, with a generous hand, its bright and
harmless mirth on everything within its reach.
His Nephew’s Party also affirms the need for Joy which is tied to being “like a child”
and that also leads it to Christ
But they didn't devote the whole evening to music. After a while they
played at forfeits; for it is good to be children sometimes, and never better
than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself.
The power of the Spirit is not hindered by unpleasant or harsh realities.
Poor Miners of the Earth
And now, without a word of warning from the Ghost, they stood upon a
bleak and desert moor, where monstrous masses of rude stone were cast
about, as though it were the burial-place of giants; and water spread itself
wheresoever it listed, or would have done so, but for the frost that held it
prisoner; and nothing grew but moss and furze, and coarse rank grass.
Down in the west the setting sun had left a streak of fiery red, which
glared upon the desolation for an instant, like a sullen eye, and frowning
lower, lower, lower yet, was lost in the thick gloom of darkest night.
`What place is this.' asked Scrooge.
`A place where Miners live, who labour in the bowels of the earth,'
returned the Spirit. `But they know me. See.' Alight shone from the window
of a hut, and swiftly they advanced towards it. Passing through the wall of
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mud and stone, they found a cheerful company assembled round a glowing
fire. An old, old man and woman, with their children and their children's
children, and another generation beyond that, all decked out gaily in their
holiday attire. The old man, in a voice that seldom rose above the howling
of the wind upon the barren waste, was singing them a Christmas song -it had been a very old song when he was a boy -- and from time to time
they all joined in the chorus. So surely as they raised their voices, the old
man got quite blithe and loud; and so surely as they stopped, his vigour
sank again.
Out to Sea a Lighthouse
The Spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge hold his
robe, and passing on above the moor, sped -- whither. Not
to sea. To sea. To Scrooge's horror, looking back, he saw
the last of the land, a frightful range of rocks, behind them;
and his ears were deafened by the thundering of water, as it
rolled and roared, and raged among the dreadful caverns it
had worn, and fiercely tried to undermine the earth.
Built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league
or so from shore, on which the waters chafed and dashed,
the wild year through, there stood a solitary lighthouse.
Great heaps of sea-weed clung to its base, and storm-birds
-- born of the wind one might suppose, as sea-weed of the
water -- rose and fell about it, like the waves they skimmed.
But even here, two men who watched the light had made
a fire, that through the loophole in the thick stone wall shed
out a ray of brightness on the awful sea. Joining their
horny hands over the rough table at which they sat, they
wished each other Merry Christmas in their can of grog; and
one of them: the elder, too, with his face all damaged and
scarred with hard weather, as the figure-head of an old ship
might be: struck up a sturdy song that was like a Gale in
itself.
On board a distant ship:
Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving sea
-- on, on -- until, being far away, as he told Scrooge, from any
shore, they lighted on a ship. They stood beside the helmsman at
the wheel, the look-out in the bow, the officers who had the watch;
dark, ghostly figures in their several stations; but every man
among them hummed a Christmas tune, or had a Christmas
thought, or spoke below his breath to his companion of some
bygone Christmas Day, with homeward hopes belonging to it. And
every man on board, waking or sleeping, good or bad, had had a
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kinder word for another on that day than on any day in the year;
and had shared to some extent in its festivities; and had
remembered those he cared for at a distance, and had known that
they delighted to remember him.
Much they saw, and far they went, and many homes they visited, but always with a happy
end. The Spirit stood beside sick beds, and they were cheerful; on foreign lands, and they
were close at home; by struggling men, and they were patient in their greater hope; by
poverty, and it was rich. In almshouse, hospital, and jail, in misery's every refuge, where
vain man in his little brief authority had not made fast the door and barred the Spirit out,
he left his blessing, and taught Scrooge his precepts.
The Spirit of Christmas’ (Christian Fellowship) Concern for the Poor:
From his earliest original planning, Dickens had always intended for his Christmas book
to be a critique of his “Christian” society’s treatment of the poor. For a long while it was
tentatively entitled : “The sledgehammer.” The pictures on this page and the next are
drawn from London: A Pilgrimage by Gustave Dore (1832 – 1883). Although published
at the end of Dickens life rather than at the beginning when he wrote the Carol, Dore’s
images show some of the terrible conditions in which the poor lived. A natural
companion to Dickens comments about
vain man being unable to stop
Christmas’ presence there is the
powerful image of some volunteer
reading the scriptures to the sick and
dying. Another is the image of the
communities of the poor who live
under the shadow of the new railroad
system. Although they never worked
together Dore’s eye for the poor
matches that of Dicknes.3 This would
have been
what the
Cratchet
backyard
would have been like, a small enclosed space where an
outside caldron was used to do laundry (and to make
Christmas puddings).
Contrary to what you have seen, the Cratchets did
not have enough to even cook meals regularly in their home
but sent them out to the bakers to be heated up. According
to C. Z. Barnett in his play A Christmas Carol or The
3
Although a commercial success, many of the critics disliked the book. Several were upset that Dore had
appeared to concentrate on the poverty that existed in London. Gustave Dore was accused by the Art
Journal of "inventing rather than copying". The Westminster Review claimed that " Dore gives us sketches
in which the commonest, the vulgarest external features are set down".
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Miser's Warning (1844) Cratchit would have spent a week's wages to buy the ingredients
for the Christmas feast: seven shillings for the goose, five for the pudding, and three for
the onions, sage and oranges. This was a time when the poor were looked upon as either
an unwanted reality or a drag on the economy. There were literary tread mills put into
place where the poor walked on machines so that they could grind flour. Dickens sees
the poor as especially needing the kindness of Christmas:
And at the same time there emerged from scores of bye-streets, lanes, and
nameless turnings, innumerable people, carrying
their dinners to the baker' shops. The sight of these
poor revelers appeared to interest the Spirit very
much, for he stood with Scrooge beside him in a
baker's doorway, and taking off the covers as their
bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their dinners
from his torch. And it was a very uncommon kind of
torch, for once or twice when there were angry
words between some dinner-carriers who had
jostled each other, he shed a few drops of water on
them from it, and their good humour was restored
directly. For they said, it was a shame to quarrel upon Christmas Day.
And so it was. God love it, so it was.
Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from
your torch.' asked Scrooge.
`There is. My own.'
`Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day.'
asked Scrooge.
`To any kindly given. To a poor one most.'
`Why to a poor one most.' asked Scrooge.
`
Because it needs it most.'.
The Spirit’s 12 day Journey:
The Poor Man’s Christmas
There was nothing of high mark in this. They were not a handsome family; they were not
well dressed; their shoes were far from being water-proof; their clothes were scanty; and
Peter might have known, and very likely did, the inside of a pawnbroker's. But, they were
happy, grateful, pleased with one another, and contented with the time; and when they
faded, and looked happier yet in the bright sprinklings of the Spirit's torch at parting,
Scrooge had his eye upon them, and especially on Tiny Tim, until the last.
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The purpose of the believer is to be the sharer of love the giver of help. In spite of
what some believe, it is NOT to be the bestower of God’s righteous wrath.
We lack the knowledge of others.
We lack the power to know ourselves.
We are running out of time.
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