The Gospel According to Dickens

Some months ago I became aware of the existence of a Life of Christ written by Charles Dickens for his own children. I spoke about it with someone, perhaps Johanna, and it showed up in the mail recently, not long after my birthday. My heartfelt thanks to the person who bought it and had it sent to my home. I'm not sure who it is, although, as I said, I suspect it was Johanna.

Sheryl and I read about half of it the other day while traveling to and from Rexburg for a doctor's appointment. There is nothing in it to disappoint the Dickensian scholar. He simply combines all the best parts of the other four gospels and tells them in such a way that anyone, adult or child, could understand and remember them. There is something almost Milne-esque about them, I think. He is personal in his telling of every story and in his explanation of every character or circumstance.

It was his wish that it not be published at all, and it was a few generations after his death that it finally was published, in 1933, the same year as our mother's birth. The foreword to the 1999 edition is written by a fifth-great grandson of the great master who seems to feel that it is time his great ancestor's beautiful testimony of the truths of the Lord's life come to light in the world. When one thinks back to what was happening in 1933, perhaps no better time for such a ray of hope could have been chosen.

The English-speaking world was about to be plunged intoyet another chaotic period of destruction of its families and its lifestyle. The Chancellor of Germany was grabbing power everywhere he could and breaking the Treaty of Versailles in every imaginable way. Those powers which had forced that treaty down Germany's throat in 1919 felt guilty enough to let him get away with it. The leaders of Britain in the thirties were perfectly willing to, in Churchill's definition of appeasement, "feed the crocodile, hoping it will eat him last." And England's once and future allies were willfully turning their faces away from what was happening in Eastern Europe, Ethiopia, China, and elsewhere. After the 9,000,000 dead in the War to End All Wars, they had decided that there would never really be a necessary war again.

It was appropriate that the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ had been organized into missions in all the major countries which were about to spend all their money and all their youth to destroy each other. And it was a sweet little cherry on top that The Gospel According to Dickens should be published that year. Its actual title is The Life of Our Lord. It was read aloud to his children and grandchildren from his handwritten manuscript which was tied together with string. There's nothing new in it, although you might be surprised at what he considers to be the most important parts of the story. It's simply a familiar old story told with an easiness of style that one might expect from someone who could say "Marley was dead to begin with" or "It was the best of times. It was the worst of times." I hope you'll all get the chance to read it some day soon.