In search of Jacob Marley
It's quite a few weeks before Christmas, but this Sunday's sermon may evoke a pivotal
character from Charles Dickens' classic novel, A Christmas Carol.
Jacob Marley had been the friend and financial partner to Ebenezer Scrooge for many
years, until his death. Marley had died on Christmas Eve, exactly seven years prior to the
start of Scrooge's story, where Dickens begins to tell it. After the reader has been duly
introduced to the character of Scrooge, the Jacob Marley character, appearing as a ghost,
enters the story.
