and most important, as well as most blessed of all subjects, quite bewildered as well as appalled me.

The first speaker was a young, respectable-looking, married woman, about three-and-twenty, the wife of a bookbinder, with good wages. The second speaker, who seemed a little ashamed that the other should display such ignorance before me, was her mother-in-law, an active-looking, decently-dressed woman, about five-and-forty.

I could not then, and cannot now, account for this utter ignorance, for the younger woman had been in the hospital ward, in which I met her, a fortnight before this conversation took place, and it was the daily custom for a portion of the Scriptures to be read in the ward, and a prayer said; and even this, I should have thought, would have made her acquainted with the blessed name of Jesus. I had noticed her pleasant, cheerful face several times as I had gone in and out, but the ward was so very large, and I knew so many in it, that the time for leaving had always come without my being able to make her acquaintance.

On this day, however, as I passed her bed, to go to a dying woman in the corner very near to her, she smiled and said, "Will you not try to give me a visit to-day?"

I promised to come back to her after I had seen my friend in the corner, about whom I was very anxious, for I knew death was nearly approaching her, and to her he was still the "king of terrors," as she had been trusting to her own good deeds for

acceptance with God, and had just awoke to the discovery that they would avail her nothing as a ground of entrance to Heaven, of which she had all her life before felt secure.

When I came back to Mrs N

(my new friend), it was quite with the hope of finding a Christian, for I thought it was surely for that reason she wished to speak with me; and after she had spoken calmly of her illness, which it was feared would prove an incurable one, and moreover was a very trying one, I said, "But you know what it is to have Jesus as your Saviour and Friend, do you not, making all your bed in your sickness?"

Then came the words which so utterly astonished me, that I can never forget them, "But who is Jesus?" and the answer of her mother-in-law, who had been allowed to come in to see her, though it was not the usual visiting-hour, "Oh, do you not know that, my dear? He is a great Spirit."

I had met those who hated, those who despised, the things of God, or those who were careless and indifferent about them, but never before had I met one, beyond the age of childhood, who knew no more of the story of the life and death of the Son of God, than the one who heweth down a tree, and "burneth part thereof in the fire, residue thereof he maketh a god, prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me; for thou art my god" (Isa. xliv. 16, 17).

and the

and

For a few moments I felt quite bewildered; then sitting down by her side, and in my heart asking

the Lord for suited words, I tried to put before her, as simply as to a child, the story of man's utter ruin, and of God's wondrous love,-the old, old story, yet ever fresh and new. She listened with eager attention. I read to her Luke xxiii., and she wept when I came to the part where the dying, suffering Son of Man, yet Son of God, prayed for his murderers, and promised the Paradise of God, in company with Himself that day, to the thief dying by His side, who had recognised the glory of His person, and owned Him Lord and the coming King, though hanging between heaven and earth on a cross of wood, nailed there by wicked hands.

It was all new to Mrs N- and it thrilled and captivated her heart. "Did God then love me?" she said, "and did His Son die like this,—die such a cruel, cruel death for me? And yet I never knew it till to-day, and I have never thought about Him, never loved Him. Oh, I do love Him for it. I do love Him to-day. I must tell my husband; he cannot know, or he would have told me. Mother, did you know God loved us, and God gave up His Son to die instead of us? And Jesus is God too, and yet He died! Oh, He died such a cruel death for us,—for you and me, mother. Oh, is it not strange, He died for me, and yet I never heard about it until now?"

The love of God, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, won her heart; she listened to God's word, telling of His Son's work, and she received it and believed it like a little child. She pondered over it all, and wondered at it, but she never thought of doubting it.

I offered to leave with her my little Testament, which had good print, but then I found she could not read, did not even know her letters. "You will come back soon and tell me more," she said. When I went in next, I took with me a large card with the alphabet and tiny words printed on it, and offered to begin to teach her to read. She was very grateful, and got on with surprising rapidity. The first name she wanted to learn to spell was the name of Jesus, and then she used to lie for hours trying to find out in the New Testament wherever that name, now become so precious to her, occurred.

She was full of her newly found joy, and could not hold her peace. She spoke of it to the patients in the beds each side of her; she spoke of it to the nurses, as well as to her husband, and to each one who came in to see her," Jesus died for me! God gave Him, and I never knew it,-never loved Him. Oh, I love him for it now. I do not mind about getting well now; I shall see the One who loved me and died for me."

Even when afterwards, in the light of God's presence, she learned more of the utter evil of her own heart, Satan could never shake her confidence.

He loved me; He gave Himself for me," was always her rest and her joy. It was not her need that drove her to Him, it was "His mighty love" that attracted her, and took her heart captive,-" a captive in the chains of love."

Before she went out of the hospital, four months after, she could spell out verses quite nicely by her

self, and often learned them by heart; and would say to me all her new ones, and ask me to find out others for her, that she might go over them by herself when I had gone.

She left for her home in the month of April, not cured, there was no hope of that, but her condition ameliorated for the time, it was hoped; but before the year had run its course she was back there again, and this time she came back to die. Yet not to die, but there to be put to sleep by Jesus, in the "sure and certain hope" of being raised again by Him; and, meanwhile, of resting with Him, waiting with Him, for the day for which He waits, the day of the gladness of His heart; when He will have every one of His blood-bought ones with Himself.

My husband has promised to meet me there with Jesus," she cried; "I have nothing now to keep me here. I wanted to tell him all. He could not see it at first; he thought his sins must keep him from the Saviour; but now he sees the Saviour died on purpose for those sins, and he trusts Him. Mother, you will yet learn to trust Him entirely too," she added, turning round to the one I had first seen with her, her husband's mother.

With the older woman the case had been very different. The Lord began to work in her heart from the day her daughter-in-law received the truth so simply; but she had gone through months of doubt, and trouble, and distress, and, as yet, the question of sin was unsettled between her and God; for to her the Bible was no new book, as it had