"A Christmas Carol" is one of a few books I try to read each December. I love this book! It's a quick read and has many of my favorite quotes. One of them comes at the part of the book where Marley's ghost is visiting Scrooge. Marley is truly a troubled spirit and is mourning over his wasted life. Scrooge tries to comfort Marley and himself by telling him he was always "a good man of business". Marley replies:
"Business! Mankind was my business! The common wealfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business". He laments and shakes his chains and says, "At this time of the rolling year I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of fellow beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode? Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me?"
Then the story moves on and before Marley leaves he asks Scrooge to join him at the window. Scrooge looks out and sees countless spirits chained as Marley is flying through the night sky reaching out to those around them. And Dickens states:
"The misery with them all was, clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and had lost the power forever."
I just love this whole scene because it's not only a warning for Scrooge but for us all. This life is the time for men to perform their labors---for us to serve one another and in so doing give service to God. To love each other--and to put that errand first in our daily lives. I pray that I can rededicate myself to this First Commandment and let the useless and unimportant fall more by the wayside. (And yep that probably means a little less blogging!!)
And one last quote because I love it:
"It is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself."
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