A Model for Modern Life?

Possibly the very best description of a person who cares little for anyone but himself was written many years ago by a Christian author who powerfully communicated what it meant to be redeemed. Charles Dickens wanted to write a story of positive hope and change in redemption but first he needed to place in the reader's mind a character so cold and uncaring, so callous and cruel that there could be no doubt about the fact that only a supernatural force could bring about love from a lump of coal. Dickens did this in a marvelous manner when he introduced us to Ebeneezer Scrooge.

STAVE ONE-MARLEY'S GHOST

MARLEY was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change for anything he chose to put his hand to.

Old Marley was as dead as a doornail.

Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don't know how many years. Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, his sole mourner.

Scrooge never painted out old Marley's name, however. There it yet stood, years after wards, above the warehouse door, -- Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known as Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley. He answered to both names. It was all the same to him.
Oh ! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, was Scrooge! A squeezing, wrenching grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! External heat and cold had little influence on him. No warmth could warm, no cold could chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't know where to have him. The heaviest rain and snow and hail and sleet could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect, -- they often "came down" handsomely, and Scrooge never did.

Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, "My dear Scrooge, how are you? When will you come to see me?" No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of Scrooge. Even the blind men's dogs appeared to know him; and when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and then would wag their tails as though they said, "No eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!"
But what did Scrooge care! It was the very thing he liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance.

**This description of Scrooge is the best illustration I have ever seen of a hardened, callous sinner whose heart and mind and spirit are so deadened to human life and nurture that he prefers loneliness and rejection to warm fellowship.

Just imagine the cold, hard, penetrating eyes and lack of compassion that covered his face like a steel mask. No knight in armor ever had a more forbidding visage than Scrooge. Here is a person we moderns can appreciate because we see it in operation far too often on TV news and in the papers.

Recently an airline steward, who is charged with serving the passengers and keeping them safe, cursed them, grabbed a beer and exited the airplane before the people on board. This guy seems like a modern Scrooge. He cared for himself not others. He failed to serve their interests and abandoned them when they needed his leadership. He, like Scrooge, needed a supernatural intervention of love.