Elder Thomas S. Monson, Part Two: Charles Dickens and Kicking Off Christmas 2025

 For Part One, Part Three, Part Four or Part Five, click the link to jump.

Welcome officially to the Christmas season of 2025!

Today's quote has a crisp Christmas flavor with a side of service and goodwill - Elder Thomas S. Monson's talk, "With Hand and Heart" brings us to a familiar and beloved story:

 

The Quote

"One who lived much of his life ignoring his fellowmen and living for self alone 

was Dickens’ immortal character, Ebenezer Scrooge. 

But there came that wintry night when the ghost of Jacob Marley 

appeared to Scrooge and lamented:

 

“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 opportunities misused! 

Yet such was I! Oh! Such was I!

 

“Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, 

and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode! 

Were there no poor homes to which its light would conduct me!”

 

In an effort to comfort Marley, Scrooge proffered, 

“But you were always a good man of business, Jacob.”

 

Lamented Marley, “Business! … Mankind was my business!” 

(A Christmas Carol.)"

 

Jacob Marley was such a positive negative figure in this story - a man who sought what he thought was success all his life, only to realize too late what success truly was, and unable to make a change. I can't read his speech aloud myself without being very moved by the end. The pain and the intensity of that last line has such power.

His ghostly visitation to his business partner Ebenezer Scrooge - who was probably as close to a friend as the man ever had in life - led Scrooge to a last-minute change of his own.

I read this story every year at Christmas - and there's so many good movie versions of the same story if you're not a reader.  

But the best way to internalize such a story is to do something about it.

Here's some great ideas for ordinary people to make a difference in someone's life this Christmas season. Enjoy! 

 

Elder Thomas S. Monson, Part One: The Return of Edwin Markham

 For Part Two, Part Three, Part Four or Part Five, click the link to jump.

 

For those who suspect I am biased, I freely, fully admit it.

I love all the apostles' talks. I do.

But I extra-special love Elder Monson...who eventually became President Monson. His talks were always full of stories and poems. He was a reader, and even as a small child I could tell.

In this series, we're going over Elder Thomas S. Monson's talk, "With Hand and Heart", from the October 1971 General Conference. The first of five references he gave in this talk was the following about serving other as Christ serves, and avoiding the all-too human tendency to talk ourselves out of it:

 

 The Quote (with context)

"Time passes. Circumstances change. Conditions vary. 

Unaltered is the divine command to succor the weak 

and lift up the hands which hang down and strengthen the feeble knees. 

Each of us has the charge to be not a doubter, but a doer; 

not a leaner, but a lifter. 

But our complacency tree has many branches,

and each spring more buds come into bloom. 

Often we live side by side but do not communicate heart to heart. 

There are those within the sphere of our own influence who, with outstretched hands, cry out: 

“Is there no balm in Gilead … ?” (Jer. 8:22) 

Each of us must answer.

Edwin Markham observed:

“There is a destiny that makes us brothers;

None goes his way alone:

All that we send into the lives of others

Comes back into our own.”

—“A Creed”"

 

I also love that he gives good references usually. I found this poem right away. 

There's a second verse that goes with the first. The whole poem is below:

 

A Creed

By Edwin Markham

There is a destiny that makes us brothers:
None goes his way alone:
All that we send into the lives of others
Comes back into our own.

I care not what his temples or his creeds,
One thing holds firm and fast
That into his fateful heap of days and deeds
The soul of man is cast.

 

For a throwback to another Edwin Markham post we've encountered before, here's the link.

I couldn't have timed that throwback better if I tried - happy Thanksgiving everyone! Grateful for all of you!