Does it not also say, “There is redemption for the penitent thief”? for when one cried, “Lord, remember me when Thou comest in Thy kingdom,” the answer came swifter than light and sweeter than the murmur of the evening zephyrs, “To-day thou shalt be with Me in paradise.”
Christ gave them both the same chance. One died in stubborn rebellion and was lost. The other turned in humble supplication and was instantly transformed from a criminal to a Christian. When heaven lifted up her gates for the King of Glory to come in, and He swept through the celestial portals, He took with Him the penitent thief as a first sheaf of the harvest of prison redemption.
The great poets have as their theme the loss and redemption of the immortal soul. Homer sings the wrath of Peleus’ son in the “Iliad,” and shows how one sin destroyed a building that many virtues support. Virgil sings the wandering of Anchises in the “Æneid,” and describes how youth sails afar, while maturity seeks out ports of peace. Dante sings of the soul’s stain by sin in the “Divine Comedy,” and preaches its purification and perfection. Milton sings of man’s first disobedience and the fruit of the forbidden tree in the “Paradise Lost,” and “justifies the ways of God to man” in the victory of “Paradise Regained.” Tennyson sings of the error that ruins the soul in the “Idylls of the King” and beholds the Divine Friend, whose ceaseless efforts recover the undimmed glory.
Victor Hugo sings of the sin which defaces the divine image and which sears the conscience in “Les Miserables,” and exhibits the melting mercy and lasting love which recover the pristine splendor. That book is unique among the world’s literature in showing that in the heart of the meanest man is a nucleus of good around which a noble character may be grown.
Victor Hugo could never have written this immortal work had he not known Jesus Christ. Jean Valjean, the youthful criminal, after nineteen years, emerged from the prison with a heart as cold as marble and a will as hard as granite. Tides of revenge tossed through his soul like billows in a storm. Society has robbed him, and now he will rob society. The inhumanity of man has all but quenched the last spark of the divine within him.
In front of this convict, furious with the black wolves of hatred, Hugo, with the hand of a master, places the good bishop, sympathetic as divinity and patient as destiny. He speaks as an apostle of love, “We are ourselves ex-prisoners; let us be charitable.” As an apostle of justice, he declares, “The State that permits ignorance and darkness for the youth should now be sent to jail with the thief.”
Landlords close their doors to despised Jean Valjean. A woman casts her bread to dogs while he goes hungry. Coming to the bishop’s door, he is welcomed. “Sit down and be warmed, sir, and sleep and lodge with me. You are my brother. Take this money and never forget you have promised me to employ it in becoming an honest man.”
Conscience whispers, “Jean, you may go up by the bishop and be an angel, or stay below with the demons and be a devil.”
In that hour the sleeping virtues of his nature awoke, and he arose to return to God to sanctify his life. The thought of doing wrong went through him like a knife, and he became incapable of stealing. The bishop’s smiles filled his heart with unspeakable happiness, and the power of God transformed the sinner into the saint.
In the end, when emaciated by suffering, scarred by many battles with wrong, he lay down to die, he said: “My children, remember God is above. He sees all. He is Love.”