Another Christmas [Carol] Question

Status
Not open for further replies.

Andrew35

Puritan Board Sophomore
Greetings All!

Wondering if some of our historians could provide some of the context here.

I was going through Dickens' A Christmas Carol with my students in class, when I came across the following (the context is Scrooge in conversation with the Ghost of Christmas Present, after seeing various Christmas celebrations all over merry ol' England):

"Spirit," said Scrooge, after a moment's thought, "I wonder you, of all the beings in the many worlds about us, should desire to cramp these people's opportunities of innocent enjoyment."

"I!" cried the Spirit.

"You would deprive them of their means of dining every seventh day, often the only day on which they can be said to dine at all," said Scrooge. "Wouldn't you?"

"I!" cried the Spirit.

"You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day," said Scrooge. "And it comes to the same thing."

"I seek!" exclaimed the Spirit.

"Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your name, or at least in that of your family," said Scrooge.

"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 our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us."

I'm assuming Sabbatarianism is in view here, but was wondering if any clarity could be shed on the foregoing.

Thanks!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top