Our fathers used to have a phrase in their prayers that expressed this idea. They used to say: “Lord, we thank Thee that it is as well with us as it is.” That old prayer, so often on their lips, is worth repeating each time we come to the Throne of Mercy and Grace. How much worse things might have been than they are! God has blessed us with incalculable good. He has also preserved us from incalculable evil. Let us not forget to praise him for the storms that did not break, the tears that did not fall, the problems that did not arise, the disappointments we did not suffer, the heartaches we did not feel, the blossoms that did not wither, the hopes that were not shattered, and the graves that were not made. The Redemption of Jean Valjean (1922) Among all the characters of fiction, Victor Hugo’s Jean Valjean stands out in a light of special distinction. The author intended him to indicate the limiting influence of social law and custom. However, he accomplishes a much better thing than that. He furnishes us a master picture of the upward struggle of a soul despite the influences acting within and without to keep it down. In certain broad and general features, the redemption of Jean Valjean is a picture of the redemption of any person in any place or time. The opening chapters of the story of _Les Miserables_ reveal a man with sullen features, suspicious eyes, and unkempt appearance, entering the town of D. at evening time. He has just escaped from nineteen years in the galleys. His crime was a serious one. He thrust his hand through a baker’s window, and stole a loaf of bread to feed the hungry children of his poor sister. Nineteen years at the oars have been the expiation of this and his various efforts to escape. He is now a fugitive, forever branded a criminal by society. The law pursues him. Every man’s hand is against him. Turned with suspicion from every other place of entertainment, he is finally received in the home of an aged priest—the first stranger who has ever trusted him. He yields to his criminal propensity, cultivated by his years in the galleys, and steals away in the night with the bishop’s silver. On the way, he meets a little savoyard, and robs him of his scanty store of money. The helplessness of the child touches him. Remorse lays hold of him. He sits down upon a stone and weeps. Restoring the bishop’s silver, he kneels in prayer at the gate. In a word, Jean Valjean has found himself. He has taken the first step on the road to better things by seeing himself as he is. An angel has held a mirror before his face, and in it he has beheld himself aright.