SCROOGE, SOLs, AND THE MIDNIGHT VISITOR
By Tom Taylor
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. He nodded toward an open newspaper on
his desk. “I’m working on some changes in the Standards of Learning. According to this item in the
Associated Press, our students aren’t getting a proper education about evolution. Virginia is in the
bottom half of 41 states surveyed!”
“So, is that sump’m bad?”
“Well I, for one, will not stand for such a low rating. If students learn anything in school, it should be
how they 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. “Students are ‘spected t’ learn millions a’differnt organisms on
Earth share many structur’l and metabolic features...’ 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 animal 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 beginning to see 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 these SOLs, 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. Seems they should learn that right off the bat, huh?”
“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...mutations can
make changes within a species. Like all the different breeds of dog came from changes in the genes of
the original wolf parents. But for one species to evolve into another....”
“That’s an entirely different thing, isn’t it?” the visitor smiled.
Scrooge wondered what was happening to him. He was thinking in a logical way he’d never
experienced. “Yes, that is different!” he said. “Because evolution would require new genetic information
at all the stages of development! Why, mutations can’t do that! They can only re-arrange or degrade
what was already there! Why...” Scrooge suddenly chuckled, “I’ve never questioned it before, but we’re
really not sure what process could cause evolution, are we?”
“Well, let’s put that in the SOLs 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 examined evidence that the earth isn’t nearly old enough
for evolution to have occurred. They calculated the impossible odds against even a simple living cell
forming by chance – not to mention an amazing structure like the eye!
“This is wonderful,” chuckled Scrooge. “If our students could study both sides like this, they might
conclude they were created by a great wise designer; and their lives have 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, in spite of what some of your misguided judges say, there’s
nothing so foolish in your Constitution.”
“Oh, so you’re an expert in 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 Old Testament, 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, made
beautiful by the handiwork of the Creator. He sighed happily. What a wonderful Christmas! For the first
time in many years, he had received a gift.