Volume 31

The second novel by Victorian England’s most celebrated writer, the Charles Dickens story tells of a workhouse orphan who’s mistreated and branded a troublemaker before being sent to an undertaker who beats him. When young Oliver escapes to London, he’s further victimized by a criminal gang that uses boys for pickpocketing and burglary. There’s only a happy ending because of Oliver’s good character, and an inheritance.

What many readers don’t realize is that Dickens himself spent time in a workhouse. When the future author was 12, his father couldn’t pay some debts and was sent to prison. Young Charles left school to support the family by working in a boot-blacking factory where he put in long hours for next to no pay, just like many other children, some as young as eight, who worked 16 hours a day for little.

Though Charles was able to go back to school when an inheritance got his father out of prison, he never forgot his grim experience. Correcting the plight of exploited children became his mission in life, beginning with Oliver Twist. When the book became wildly popular in 1837, it fueled a movement that pressured the government into passing laws to protect children from harsh working conditions. Though it took years to fully eradicate the problem, the book was key.

It was much the same story when New England author Harriet Beecher Stowe visited the South and saw the cruelty of slavery firsthand. Later, while the mother of seven was grieving the cholera-related death of her 18-month-old son, Charlie, she heard a true story of a slave woman who made a desperate flight to Canada rather than seeher baby sold. Touched and angered, Stowe wove the story into her 1852 novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly.

Her novel tells the story of an elderly Christian slave named Tom who forgives his cruel master, Simon Legree, even for a beating that eventually kills him. Tom’s friend, Eliza takes her baby and makes a harrowing escape across the northern border. When the book sold 300,000 copies, many in the North became passionate about abolishing slavery and the novel is often named as one of the causes of the Civil War. In fact, when Abraham Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1864 he said, “So you’re the little woman who made this big war.”

Though we often fail to recognise it, the Bible is another world-changing book that springs from the Author’s personal experience. By coming to this earth in human form, God lived firsthand the tears and terrors of mortal life. Though divine, Jesus was also “in every way like us.” So “Since he himself has gone through suffering and temptation, he’s able to help us when we’re being tempted... Let us cling to him and never stop trusting him.” (Heb. 2:17,18; 4:14)

Knowing the inhumanity that stems from free will, the Author of the universe uses the true story of his Son to change our hearts, our minds and our world. Jesus, too, was mistreated and branded a troublemaker, but his perfect character — and the inheritance given him by his Father — provided a happy ending, not just for him, but for us, too. That story still fuels a movement that seeks to end the exploitation of all God’s children.

And through his own Life Among the Lowly, Jesus casts the uncompromising light of truth and love upon the ugliness of sin. By exposing our dark side for what it is, he brings us a powerful story of forgiveness, redemption and escape to freedom — a place where families remain intact and slavery to sin is abolished forever. But not everybody embraces the same side of the battle. Our nation, too, is polarized between those who demand the right to do what they want — regardless of the harm to others — and those who demand spiritual responsibility, accountability and sensibility to the rights of others.

By Rick Gamble. Published in Cross Current, the weekly newsletter of the followers of Christ congregation in Brantford, Ontario, Canada. Reprint at will in not-for-profit publications. To subscribe to this free weekly article, send a note to Rick at sgamble@bfree.on.ca