“There is no peace,” says the Lord, “for the wicked” (Isaiah 48:22). How well did Jacob Marley, the business partner of Ebenezer Scrooge, know this! In A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, the spectral Marley groans under the weight of the chain he forged in life, links heavy with the cash-boxes,...

  Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35) – but how many of us really believe that? Certainly not Ebenezer Scrooge, the infamous miser of “A Christmas Carol.” Charles Dickens, his creator, described him as “hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had...

  In A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, the first spirit foretold by Jacob Marley is The Ghost of Christmas Past. “It was a strange figure,” Dickens writes — a white-haired apparition with the face of a child and jet of light beaming from its head. The Spirit of Christmas Past...

Everybody knows the story of Ebenezer Scrooge  —  the “squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner” of Charles Dickens’ immortal novel, A Christmas Carol. The very mention of the name “Scrooge” conjures up the image of a stingy, spiteful old man, and his most famous catchword, “Bah, humbug,” has become a staple...