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 everything 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 anything 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 roundthe 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 the 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 should so much like as to spend the rest of my life in telling others of the Blood which cleanseth from all sin."

But not only when the soul is quickened by God's Spirit from its grave of sin, is the Blood of Christ precious. All through the believer's life it is "precious" too. Though accepted in Jesus, and washed in His Blood, he yet needs a cleansing from his daily sins. As he walks through this world his feet are soiled, and he must repair each night to the open fountain, "He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit." (St. John xiii. 10.)

Yes, indeed, precious, most precious is this "Blood" to all believers, to whom God has given "precious faith" to trust in it.

"Precious" to our thoughts for our meditation on it is sweeter than honey, "precious" to our hearts for it brings light and peace and joy-precious to our hands for we can carry the news of it to the sick and sorrowful, and the erring and fallen. We may say of the Blood of Jesus what the Poet says of the Name of Jesus

It makes the wounded spirit whole,
And calms the troubled breast;
"Tis manna to the hungry soul,
And to the weary, rest.

If you are sprinkled with this Blood, your soul is safe. You know how it was at the time of the Jewish Passover: the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel were to kill a lamb, and sprinkle the blood on the two side-posts, and on the upper doorpost. Thus protected, when the destroying angel came, inside the blood-sprinkled houses, each one was safe, for God had said, "When I see the blood, I will pass over you." Inside those houses there was perfect peace and security, the inmates feasting on the lamb. Outside, there was death and destruction. Had the destroying angel entered, he would have had to pass through the blood, and that he could not do. "When I see the blood I will pass over you." So the souls sheltered behind the Blood of Jesus are safe from the wrath to come, and are "accepted in the Beloved."

For note the contrast: each one here either trusts in this Blood for the forgiveness of his sins, or trusts in something else. Each one here is like Cain or like Abel. Abel killed a lamb and offered him for a burnt offering to God. As he beheld the flowing blood of the lamb, no doubt he looked forward to the coming of Christ, the Lamb of God, who would bear away sin. The eleventh chapter of the Hebrews says, Abel had "faith," (Heb. xi. 4), faith in Jesus. In other words Abel said, I am a guilty sinner, and I deserve to die, and I kill this lamb and render its life to God instead of my own; and I look forward to the coming of the Lamb of God to bear sin away. Now Cain did not feel anything of this. He rejected the blood. He would not acknowledge himself a guilty sinner deserving death, and so he went into his garden and gathered flowers and fruit and offered them to God. But God would not accept them. Oh! my brethren, are you like Cain or like Abel? Are you trusting in the Blood, or are you rejecting it? I desire to be only a finger pointing to this "precious Blood."

When I come to die, may God strengthen my faith so that I may see this "precious Blood." "Hold Thou Thy Cross "-Thy blood-stained Cross "before my closing eyes."

And there is the multitude of the redeemed. They have come out of every kindred, and people, and tongue. A crown of gold is on every brow, a palm in every hand. The angels wonder, and ask, Who are these, and these, and these? Then a Voice out of the Throne says, These are My elect, These are My redeemed, who have washed their robes in the Blood of the Lamb. "THEREFORE are they before the Throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His Temple."

THE TRANSFIGURATION.

And, behold, there talked with Him two men, which were Moses and Elias, who appeared in glory, and spake of His exodus which he should accomplish at Jerusalem."—Luke ix. 30, 31.

HERE is no time to go into the whole subject of the transfiguration, but let us consider for what Jesus went up into the mountain. The common opinion is that He went up to enjoy Himself-in search of some spiritual ecstacy. But in this case there would have been no transfiguration. Spiritual rapture comes after earnest labour through eager prayer-it is not found by seeking-we have not to look for feeling or ecstacies; we need "to know the will of God, and to do it.'

Jesus went up into the mount to pray about death-the subject which had a little before been borne in upon His mind-for we read in Matt. xvi. 21, in the narration of events just preceding the transfiguration, that "from that time forth began Jesus to show unto His disciples how that He must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day." When the devil took Him up into a mountain, He shewed him "all the

kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, and said unto Him, 'All these things will I give Thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me." When the Spirit of God took Jesus up into the mountain, He shewed Him the cross, the shame, the suffering,the spear and the crown of thorns, and said, "All these will I give Thee."

The highest experiences of Christian life are close bound up, in the Divine will, with suffering. Jesus went up into the mount to get a better view of His approaching sorrow.

The transfiguration is slightly apprehended and seldom discussed. Very few sermons are preached, or great pictures painted, or hymns sung, on the subject. Almost the only verse one knows about,

"When in ecstacy sublime

Tabor's glorious steep I climb,
At the top transporting light,
Darkness rushes o'er my sight,"

implies that it is a subject beyond human understanding. We have hymns on His Incarnation and Advent, His Divine Glory and Worship, His Mediatorial Character and Titles, Passion, Death, Resurrection, Ascension, Intercession and Reign, and the Second Advent, but none specially referring to the Transfiguration. Yet it contains many wonderful lessons we all need to know. We have felt, perhaps, that it was an experience peculiar to Christwith which we can have nothing to do-but the Scriptures say otherwise; the word here rendered "transfigured" is the same as that translated " transformed" in Romans xii. 2, "but be ye transfigured by the renewing of your minds," &c., and "changed," in 2 Cor. iii. 18, " are transfigured into the same image from glory to glory." We want so to look at the glory of Jesus, that, at the same time, we may see His sorrow as well-and be " transfigured into the same image; for if we suffer with Him, we shall also be glorified together."

There is no man who understands the Transfiguration like John Ruskin. He says-" We are afraid to harbour in our own hearts, or to utter in the hearing of others, any thought of our Lord as hungering, tired, or sorrowful, or having a human soul, a human will, and affected by the events of human life as a finite creature is and yet one-half of the efficacy of His atonement and the whole of the efficacy of His example depend on His having been this to the full. Consider therefore the Transfiguration as it relates to the human feelings of our Lord. It was the first definite preparation for His death......What other Hill could it have been

:

than the southward slope of that godly mountain, Hermon, which is, indeed, the centre of all the promised land, from the entering in of Hamath to the river of Egypt; the mount of fruitfulness, from which the springs of Jordan descended to the valleys of Israel. Along its mighty forest avenues, until the grass grew fair with the mountain lilies, His feet dashed with the dew of Hermon, He must have gone to pray His first recorded prayer about death; and from the steep of it, before He knelt, could see to the south, all the dwelling places of the people that had sat in darkness, and seen the great light, the land of Zabulon and of Naphthali, Galilee of the Gentiles: could see even with His human sight, the gleam of that lake by Capernaum and Chorazin, and many a place loved by Him and vainly ministered to, whose house was now left unto them desolate and, chief of all, far in the utmost blue, the hills above Nazareth, sloping down to His old home; hills on which the stones yet lay loose that had been taken up to cast at Him, when he left them for ever. 'And as he prayed two men stood by him.'"-(Modern Painters.)

"Among the many ways in which we miss the help and hold of Scripture, there is none more subtle than our habit of supposing that, even as a man, Christ was free from the fear of death. How could He then have been tempted as we are? Since among all the trials of the earth none spring from the dust more terrible than that of fear. It had to be borne by Him.........and the presence of it is surely marked for us enough by the rising of those two at His side."

It was Christ's first preparation for death-and, therefore, to understand His Transfiguration we must understand His Crucifixion too; to see Hermon, we must go to Calvary; to descern how the fashion of His countenance was altered, we must witness that other time in the garden, when "His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down on the ground;" to fathom how the three disciples slept through the glory, we must remember how they slept through the sorrow too. The word rendered decease is a strange one. It is literally "exodus""going out." They spake of this exodus which He should accomplish at Jerusalem. The same word occurs in the second epistle of Peter:-"I will endeavour that ye may be able after my exodus to have these things always in remembrance;" and it is worthy of notice that the verses which follow are a reminiscence of the transfiguration.

We have conferences on many subjects on peace, on holiness, on temperance; whoever heard of another conference-(as this was) on death?