The Guilty at the Cross.

A CHRISTIAN minister visiting a pauper establishment, not long ago, in answer to a question asked her, heard a dying woman respond, with a solemn burst of praise, "Is he not a precious Saviour, so great and good, and willing to save us all poor sinners!" She was lying on a hard bed in the dreary infirmary-ward of a workhouse; and the power of faith and love to create a happiness independent of circumstances came out with almost startling force in her answer to the inquiry, "You know him, then, and love him?"—"Yes, I do know him and love him. His presence makes a heaven of this room. If you heaped up my bed with gold.

and silver," she added; "if you could give me the queen's carriage and horses, and her palace and her garden, and all her beautiful flowers, and health and strength to enjoy it

all, I would not take them, if they would hinder me from going home to my Saviour. They talk of the pains of dying; what will they be to me? They will but hurry me to heaven and to Jesus."

THE CLEANSING BLOOD.

A visitor among the poor was one day climbing the broken staircase which led to a garret in one of the worst parts of London, when his attention was arrested by a man of peculiarly ferocious and repulsive countenance, who stood upon the landing-place, leaning with folded arms against the wall. There was something about the man's appearance which made the visitor shudder; and his first impulse was to go back. He made an effort, however, to get into conversation with him, and told him that he came

there with the desire to do him good, and to see him happy, and that the book he held in his hand contained the secret of all happiness. The ruffian shook him off as if he had been a viper, and bade him begone with his nonsense, or he would kick him down stairs. While the visitor was endeavoring, with gentleness and patience, to argue the point with him, he was startled by hearing a feeble voice, which appeared to come from behind one of the broken doors that opened upon the landing, saying, "Does your book tell of the blood which cleanseth from all sin?" For the moment, the visitor was too absorbed in the case of the hardened sinner before him to answer the inquiry; and it was repeated in urgent and thrilling tones, "Tell me, oh! tell me, does your book tell of the blood which cleanseth from all sin?"

The visitor pushed open the door, and entered the room. It was a wretched place, wholly destitute of furniture, except a threelegged stool, and a bundle of straw in a corner, upon which were stretched the wasted limbs of an aged woman. When the visitor

entered, she raised herself upon one elbow, fixed her eyes eagerly upon him, and repeated her former question, “Does your book tell of the blood which cleanseth from all sin?" He sat down upon the stool beside her, and inquired, "My poor friend, what do you want to know of the blood that cleanseth from all sin?" There

was something fearful in the energy of her voice and manner as she replied, "What do I want to know of it? Man, I am dying: I am going to stand naked before God. I have been a wicked woman, a very wicked woman, - all my life. I shall have to answer for every thing I have done ;" and she groaned bitterly as the thought of a lifetime's iniquity seemed to cross her soul.

"But

once," she continued, - once, years ago,

I

came by the door of a church; and I went in, I don't know what for. I was soon out again; but one word I heard there I have never forgot. It was something about blood which. cleanseth from all sin. Oh, if I could hear of it now! Tell me, tell me, if there is any thing about that blood in your book!" The

visitor answered by opening his Bible, and reading the first chapter of the first Epistle of St. John. The poor creature seemed to devour the words; and, when he paused, she exclaimed, "Read more, read more! He read the second chapter. A slight noise made him look round: the savage ruffian had followed him into his mother's room; and, though his face was partly turned away, the visitor could perceive tears rolling down his cheeks. The visitor read the third, fourth, and fifth chapters before he could get his poor listener to consent that he should stop; and then she would not let him go till he promised to come again next day. He never, from that time, missed a day reading to her until she died, six weeks afterwards; and very blessed was it to see how, almost from the first, she seemed to find peace by believing in Jesus. Every day the son followed the visitor into his mother's room, and listened in silence, but not in indifference. On the day of her funeral, he beckoned him to one side, as they were filling up the grave, and said, "Sir, I have been thinking that there is nothing I