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 door-nail.
Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.
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, and sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain. The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to the point I started from. There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate.
That is, of course, the beginning to Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," that delightful tale of holiday haunting and redemption with which Dickens chose to beat a populace that wanted to ignore the plight of the common man.
Later in the tale, of course, the ghost of Jacob Marley does show up to haunt Scrooge and to warn him of the arrival of three spirits, meant to show Scrooge, possibly, how to avoid the fate Marley suffered: burdened with chains and lock-boxes symbolizing his own guilt of not helping others ease their burdens.
But a close reading, paired with another prophet's description of burdening chains, brought the mission of Marley into new light for me today. Probably old ground for others, but certainly new for me.
The other prophet is Lehi from the Book of Mormon, weary of warning his two sons Laman and Lemuel about the fate they would suffer if they continued the path of ignoring the commandments of God.
From 2 Nephi, Chapter 1:
21 And now that my soul might have joy in you, and that my heart might leave this world with gladness because of you, that I might not be brought down with grief and sorrow to the grave, arise from the dust, my sons, and be men, and be determined in one mind and in one heart, united in all things, that ye may not come down into captivity;
22 That ye may not be cursed with a sore cursing; and also, that ye may not incur the displeasure of a just God upon you, unto the destruction, yea, the eternal destruction of both soul and body.
23 Awake, my sons; put on the armor of righteousness. Shake off the chains with which ye are bound, and come forth out of obscurity, and arise from the dust.
24 Rebel no more against your brother, whose views have been glorious, and who hath kept the commandments from the time that we left Jerusalem; and who hath been an instrument in the hands of God, in bringing us forth into the land of promise; for were it not for him, we must have perished with hunger in the wilderness; nevertheless, ye sought to take away his life; yea, and he hath suffered much sorrow because of you.
Chains, of course, a common symbol in Christianity for the woes of sin. But there's more here. Lehi urges his sons in verse 21 to "be men," to cast aside their pride and their doubts and be united with Nephi, their brother, mentioned in verse 24.
They have their own agency, of course. They can act and think for themselves. But he pleads with them to consdier: You have seen and heard angels. You have seen the fruits of obedience. And yet more than once your pride and your doubt have caused you to put your brother Nephi to harm, even to try to kill him.
Back to Jacob Marley:
"How it is that I appear before you in a shape that you can see, I may not tell." [Marley tells Scrooge.] "I have sat invisible beside you many and many a day." It was not an agreeable idea. Scrooge shivered, and wiped the perspiration from his brow. "That is no light part of my penance," pursued the Ghost," I am here to-night to warn you that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer."
The emphasis here is mine. Marley knows he cannot escape his fate. He also says that watching Scrooge forge his own chains "is no light part of [his] penance," a fate Marley can no longer escape. But for some reason, he says, he is allowed to appear to Scrooge on that night, in the hope to help Scrooge avoid Marley's fate.
That Scrooge is on the same road as Marley the ghost makes clear:
"I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost. "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?"
Again, emphasis mine. But Marley, in saying "Is its pattern strange to you," implores Scrooge to consider the length and weight of the chains and Marley's own willingness to forge them and wear them as a sign that Scrooge is indeed doing the same thing.
He goes on to say:
"Or would you know," pursued the Ghost, "the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since. It is a ponderous chain!"
Scrooge glanced about him on the floor, in the expectation of finding himself surrounded by some fifty or sixty fathoms of iron cable: but he could see nothing.
"Jacob," he said, imploringly. "Old Jacob Marley, tell me more. Speak comfort to me, Jacob!"
"I have none to give," the Ghost replied. "It comes from other regions, Ebenezer Scrooge, and is conveyed by other ministers, to other kinds of men. Nor can I tell you what I would. A very little more, is all permitted to me. I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere. My spirit never walked beyond our counting-house -- mark me! -- in life my spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our money-changing hole; and weary journeys lie before me!"
Lehi warns his sons of walking in more than the narrow limits of their "money-changing hole." He wans them to be men:
Again, 2 Nephi 1:
14 Awake! and rise from the dust, and hear the words of a trembling parent, whose limbs ye must soon lay down in the cold and silent grave, from whence no traveler can return . . .
15 But behold, the Lord hath redeemed my sould from hell; I have beheld his glory, and I am encircled about enternally in the arms of his love.
Lehi again and again offers his two oldest sons the hope Scrooge longed to hear from Marley; he was the other ministers which conveyed the comfort to other kinds of men. Marley can't even deliver the full message he had hoped, as his journey of penance has to continue. Even Marley leaves on the hope that his penance need not include the life of his partner Scrooge, if Scrooge can be turned to see the light.
Whether Dickens believed in an afterlife, and in a life lived now where penance could be accomplisehd to break such abominable chains, I don't know. But he certainly understood how to talk to an audience that expressed Christian charity but in the same breath denied help to Ignorance and Want, looked to the workhouses or the prisons to help those in need and not being the "ministers that conveyed the comfort to other kinds of men."
I'll ponder this more, and see where I lack, lest one night a crumb of cheese or a blot of mustard visit me to proclaim "You will be haunted by Three Spirits."
But even then, for Scrooge, there was hope, as with Laman and Lemuel, if they would grasp it:
"That is no light part of my penance," pursued the Ghost. "I am here to-night to warn you, that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer."
"You were always a good friend to me," said Scrooge. "Thank `ee!"
"You will be haunted," resumed the Ghost, "by Three Spirits."
Scrooge's countenance fell almost as low as the Ghost's had done.
"Is that the chance and hope you mentioned, Jacob?" he demanded, in a faltering voice.
"It is."
"I -- I think I'd rather not," said Scrooge.
"Without their visits," said the Ghost, "you cannot hope to shun the path I tread. Expect the first tomorrow, when the bell tolls one."
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