"The Blood of Jesus Christ Cleanseth From All Sin."

ONE day a Christian was preaching from this text, “His blood be on us and our children,” in the suburbs of a large and wealthy city of Germany. For some time previous, the speaker’s attention, and that of his hearers, had been attracted by seeing a lady—her figure hid by a large mantle, and her face veiled—enter noiselessly, and take her place in a vacant seat near the door. She came regularly, but always slipped out before the conclusion of the last hymn. She was always very much affected, and often her sobs were heard; but on this particular day the words were more than usually impressive, and as the preacher dwelt upon the fulfillment of that terrible imprecation which the Jewish people had called down upon themselves when they cried out, “His blood be upon us, and on our children,” and spoke of their miserable condition as scattered and peeled among the nations, he was suddenly arrested by a piercing shriek which ran through the building: the veiled lady had fallen down in a fit. She was carried out and left alone with the wife of the preacher, to whom she told her history. She was the only child of one of the richest and most influential merchants in that city. She had been sent by her parents, when a child, to a Protestant school, and, whilst she was there, these words, “The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin,” had taken root in her heart; they were the means of her conversion. She told the words to her mother, and the Lord had given the increase and the blessing to that precious seed, both in the heart of the mother and of the daughter. Some years after, when her mother was dying, her father ordered everyone to leave the room during her last hours; and then he found out that the faith which sustained and cheered her soul was expressed in these same words, “The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.” His resistance to the truth was long and determined. He had disowned his child and forbidden her his presence; he had cursed the name of her Saviour; but she remained steadfast in the faith. His health broke down under the conflict, and then he sent for his daughter. She nursed him with the greatest tenderness and care, and felt that there was ground of hope. When he got well the conflict raged worse; he treated her harsher; and one day, when she was reading the Bible, he tore it out of her hand, flung it across the room, and, trembling with rage, was going to curse the Sacred Name; but, ere he could do so, he fell senseless. Yet God had mercy, and again restored him, and gave him pardon and peace through the One whom he had so lately despised. He could then well say, “Herein is love—not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:1010Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:10)).