This speech, given by th Christmas Present, is not very well known. Scrooge accuses the Spirit of depriving the poor of nourishment every seventh day (the Sabbath). Scrooge says, by having grocers and bakers and butchers and other businesses close on Sundays (and, by extension, Christmas), the Spirit deprives the needy of possible sources of food and charity. The Ghost's angry reply to Scrooge places the blame for hunger and poverty and injustice directly at the feet of all the Scrooges, the "some upon this earth"--those people whose passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness have created most of the social ills of the world.
I choose this passage from A Christmas Carol on Martin Luther King Day. A day meant to honor a man who dedicated his life to eradicating all of the human failings the Ghost of Christmas Present lists in the passage above. Scrooge, at his mean-spirited and greedy worst, embodies everything King fought against. Really, Martin Luther King's dream was a world without pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness. It was a dream where, in some ways, the Spirit of Christmas--of charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolance, to paraphrase Jacob Marley--guides all of us, every day.
Scrooges need not enroll in Saint Marty's mythology classes.
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