The clock on Scrooge’s desk flashed midnight just as a janitor shouldered into the office with his broom and dust rags. “Workin’ late on Christmas eve, Professor Scrooge? Mus’ be sump’m important!”
“Well I’m not just twiddling my thumbs,” growled Scrooge. “I’m writing a biology textbook if you must know – one that incorporates the fact of evolution into every chapter. I don’t believe most students today sufficiently understand the theory of evolution.”
“So?”
“Well I, for one, will not stand for scientific ignorance. If students learn anything in school, it should be how we all descended from the same original living cell; and then from worms, fish, and apes. It’s quite an inspiring story. Students need to know it.”
“Inspirin’ my foot!” the janitor mumbled as he set to work. “Tellin’ kids they’s nothin’ but animals!”
Scrooge looked up with a scowl and the janitor quickly dropped his gaze and busied himself with sweeping the floor. He swept around to the back of the desk; and Scrooge became annoyed that the man was reading over his shoulder. “’Millions a’differnt organisms on Earth share many structur’l and metabolic features.’ What… what’s that mean, boss?”
Scrooge sighed. “It means many creatures share the same basic design! You know – four legs, two eyes, the same basic organs. It proves they all evolved from a common ancestor.”
The janitor nodded as if in deep thought; and Scrooge became a bit uneasy because it suddenly seemed the man was looking right through him. “Well, boss,” the janitor said, “why can’t it also mean there’s a great, really smart Creator, huh? And he figured out some practical parts; and so he used ‘em on a lot of his different animals?”
Scrooge opened his mouth to ridicule such a notion, but a strange light shone from the janitor’s eyes and seemed to pierce his soul. Slowly, as if seeing through a fog, Scrooge began to see the logic of it. He found himself stammering and saying, “Why yes, yes, it could suggest a common designer!” He paused, a bit frightened and shocked at himself. “Who are you? I thought the maintenance staff was off tonight!”
The Janitor smiled. “I’m workin’ hard this Christmas Eve. I always do on Christmas.” He sat down beside Scrooge at his desk. “So why don’t you and me do some work on this textbook, huh?”
“Well… I suppose,” Scrooge stammered. It seemed he had little choice.
“Now, I think,” said the janitor, “the first thing kids should learn is how they came up from worms and fish and apes. Right?”
“Why, why yes,” Scrooge nodded. “They should understand how mutations made gradual changes in key organisms, and the favorable changes were preserved by natural selection, and…” Scrooge stopped because that strange light was again coming from the janitor’s eyes. He could not believe this was happening. “Wait,” he heard himself say, “that really isn’t very likely, is it? I mean… evolution would require new genetic information at all the stages of development! Mutations can’t do that! Why…” Scrooge suddenly chuckled, “I’ve never questioned it before, but we really don’t know what process could drive evolution, do we?”
“Well, let’s put that in your book first thing,” the visitor said.
“Yes,” Scrooge said, “because that is how science should be! Look at all the evidence, pro and con!”
And so Scrooge and the visitor spent an exciting night doing just that. They looked at how the fossil layers show nothing but distinct and separate species, just what you’d expect if they’d been created that way and later buried in a massive flood. They calculated the impossible odds against even a simple living cell forming by chance – not to mention amazing structures like the eye or the brain!
“This is wonderful,” chuckled Scrooge. “If students could study both sides like this, they might conclude they were created by a great wise designer; and human life has value and purpose! Ho! Ho! Ho! What a wonderful Christmas gift for our students!”
“Exactly!” laughed the visitor.
But then Scrooge stopped. “Oh no,” he murmured. “We can’t teach both sides. It’s illegal!”
“What?”
“Well, a great designer could be no one but…you know…God! It’s un-Constitutional to teach scientific evidence if it indicates there’s a God!”
The visitor laughed. “Oh, Ebenezer, there’s nothing so foolish in your Constitution.”
“Oh, so you know the Constitution too?”
“I guided the men who wrote it.”
Scrooge looked in sudden awe at his visitor. “Who are you?” he asked softly.
The strange light shown again as the visitor laid a great hand on Scrooge’s shoulder. “Ebenezer, you’ll find me in the Bible, in the Book of Proverbs. Read Chapter Eight; you’ll see who I am.”
With that Scrooge awoke. He looked out on a bright, snow-covered Christmas morning and sighed happily. For the first time in many years, he had received a gift.
– Tom Taylor
Ronaoke
