to her about her sins. He did not want to be her father-confessor to be told any of them, but exceedingly wanted that she should be brought to see them herself and confess them to God; and so he laboured hard to fasten conviction of sin upon her. She ransacked her life for anything she had done wrong. The only thing she could think of was that once, when she kept a small shop, she had given wrong change by mistake, which she corrected as soon as she found it out. This, which of course was not wrong at all, was the only wrong thing she could remember having done in all her life. All his efforts at that time to get her on any further than this in the knowledge of her sins were entirely in vain.

He went to her again and again and spoke to her with all the earnestness he could-but still with no better success. He had presently to tell her that he feared if she went on in her ignorance as to her state as a sinner he might in one of his calls find the blinds down, and have to go away sorrowfully saying, "Ah! there's another poor soul gone to hell for want of knowing her state as a sinner, that she might come to the Lord Jesus as the Saviour of sinners and be saved."

But God did at length in mercy begin to teach her (John vi. 45; Job xxxvi. 22), and brought her down by degrees into the depths of conviction of sin. She told the visitor that she saw herself such a sinner that she was afraid to look over her shoulder lest the devil should be there waiting to take her away.

This might be an ignorant way of speaking, but it expressed the real feelings of her heart as to the terror she was now in because of her sin. And the visitor was as powerless to lift her up out of it into the joy of salvation in Christ as he had at first been to bring her into this knowledge of her lost state.

He had also two others at that time to whom God had used him to bring them into deep repentance, but with no power to lead them on to joy and peace in believing.

But it pleased God to send up from the country to London on business a dear Christian brother, whom he knew to have been much used of Him to bring souls both to repentance and into liberty in Christ. So he took him to these three with whom he was stuck fast, and in each case the poor sick repentant one was rejoicing in Christ within a few minutes of the two friends entering the room; the one from the country simply going to the bedside, without waiting for a word of introduction, and without a word of preamble further than "My brother," or "My sister, I have brought you good news," telling out in a few words the "Gospel of Christ," which they at once believed, and found it "the power of God unto salvation" to them according to His Word (Rom. i. 16).

His friend made a remark to him as to this quick way of going to work, and how God had blessed it. But he said, "You told me where they had been brought to already. But for that I should have set to work in a very different way."

The poor woman did not know how to pour out her thanksgivings in sufficient abundance to the two friends for what God had done to her by them. She used an expression again and again in speaking to them which her first visitor had not heard before from any convert-" My heavenly brothers." "God bless you," she said, "my heavenly brothers! O, God bless you, my heavenly brothers for what you have done for me!" and then she turned to her first visitor: "Oh! to think of your coming to me, a poor, blind Pharisee as I was, and bearing so long

with me! But I thought you so hard. I thought you were crushing me to the earth. But I see now it was just what I needed. God bless you, my heavenly brothers! God bless and reward you, my heavenly brothers !"

The visitor went to her again next day, in case the devil should have come in, as he often does with young converts, to tempt her to turn her thoughts upon herself instead of keeping them fixed on Christ, and thus bring her into darkness again for a time. But he found her still rejoicing in the Lord, and received a fresh outpouring of her thanksgivings to him as her "heavenly brother" for what the Lord had been pleased to do for her by him and by the friend from the country.

The next day he did not call on her, but called again on the following day, when she remarked to him on his having missed calling the day before.

He told her that it was because she being now right with God and he having but little time for visiting, and knowing many dear souls who were not yet right with Him, he wanted to go to them in the hope God might bless them also as He had blessed her.

She said, "O, go away, go away; but come and see if I don't look a happy woman." She meant come and see her after her death, which she knew was now very near, to see if even upon the face of her poor dead body there did not still shine the joy

of salvation.

Not many days afterwards she died in the same bright happiness in the Lord.

"The eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped" (Isa. xxxv. 5).

CHAPTER VI.

EYES OBSTINATELY CLOSED.

Their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.—Matt. xiii. 15.

THE visitor of the poor woman whose conversion was given in the last chapter had been aware that the curate of the parish had been seeing her from time to time, but he knew enough of him not to have a shadow of hope that he had any knowledge of the things of God either for himself or for those whom he visited. It was only too evident that he was one of the sadly large number of young men who go into holy orders, not, we may hope, insincerely, but yet without the least idea of salvation and therefore of course without any of the real work of a minister.

He hoped that God might use the joy of salvation in the poor woman to open his eyes to the fact of such blessedness being attainable; might make him, according to our Lord's words, "know the gift of God" (John iv. 10), that he might ask and receive the living water, to be" in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life," and "rivers of living water" flowing out of him for blessing to those to whom he was called to minister (John iv. 14, vii. 38).

But he did not make allowance for the strength of that "armour" of blind ignorance and unbelief with which the devil as the strong man armed keeps

the unconverted as his palace, with all that they have and all that they are as his goods, held by him in peace (Luke xi. 21, 22). For not many days after the poor woman's death, happening to fall in with the vicar, with whom he was on very friendly terms, he heard from him the curate's report of the case, with which he, the vicar, entirely concurred. "You went to her," the vicar said, "and told her she was going to hell, and so made her very miserable; and then you went to her again, and tol her she was going to heaven, and so made her very happy; and that is what you call conversion."

The good Lord, if they are still in this utter blindness of the natural man to the things of the Spirit of God, make them first miserable, and then happy, in the same misery and happiness into which He led that poor soul. And then they, in their turn, will be used of Him for the same blessing to others, and also will, in their turn, have his work by them misunderstood by the unconverted about them.

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"I work a work in your days, a work which ye shall in no wise believe though a man declare it unto you" (Acts xiii. 41; Hab. i. 5).

"The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Cor. ii. 14).

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Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John iii. 3).

"In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes: even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight" (Luke x. 21).