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Text (Gutenberg Project)
Making of by the Mormon Channel
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(also made) The Light of Men: The Birth of Our Savior Jesus Christ (1 of 12)
President Monson: “Anonymous” – general-conference 1983
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The classics of literature, as well as the words from holy writ, teach us the endurability of anonymity. A favorite of mine is Charles Dickens’”A Christmas Carol.” I can picture the trembling Ebenezer Scrooge seeing in vision the return of his former partner, Jacob Marley, though Jacob had been dead for seven years. The words of Marley penetrate my very soul, as he laments, “Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness. Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life’s opportunity misused! Yet such was I!” (“A Christmas Carol,” in The Best Short Stories of Charles Dickens, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1947, p. 435.)
After a fretful night—wherein Scrooge was shown by the Ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas Present, and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come the true meaning of living, loving, and giving—he awakened to discover anew the freshness of life, the power of love, and the spirit of a true gift. He remembered the plight of the Bob Cratchit family, arranged with a lad to purchase the giant turkey (the size of a boy), and sent the gift to the Cratchits. Then, with supreme joy, the reborn Ebenezer Scrooge exclaims to himself, “He shan’t know who sends it.” (“A Christmas Carol,” p. 481.) Again the word anonymous.
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My Christmas reading each year helps bring to me the spirit of the season. I always read the same three texts and have done so for more years than I can remember. I read once again a very small volume entitled The Mansion, by Henry Van Dyke. Its message always touches my heart. Also, I read the timeless Dickens classic A Christmas Carol. Who could fail to be inspired and taught by the changes which come to Ebenezer Scrooge as he is instructed by the ghosts of Christmas past, Christmas present, and Christmas future? Finally, I read from the second chapter of the Gospel of Luke, where the birth of the Savior of the world is recounted.
footnote:
Author: Henry Van Dyke
Posting Date: July 23, 2008 [EBook #704] Release Date: October, 1996
More President Monson references to A Christmas Carol
Press Release:
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Dec 12, 2013
“Listen to one of President Monson’s favorite Christmas stories. Full dramatized version of the complete novel.”
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ADDENDUM: as literature
A Christmas Carol Study Guide & Literature Essays