Pike County Democrat, Volume 26, Number 27, Petersburg, Pike County, 15 November 1895 — Page 3

€ht fib Count)) fmomt tL M«a 8TOOP8, Editor *nd PropritUr. PETERSBURG. * • - INDIANA. HIS CHINESE WALL. BY MARY DAWSON. The “Artist’s Court” is very far out 'of the way, on the extreme bordersof the Latin Quarter. And if, when yA) visit Paris, your apartments are on the “Champs,” you have probably never •dreamed of the existence of such an Brrondissement. ( The court from the outside is little -to look at—only a long extent of dreary prisonlike gray wall, at one end surmounted by a headless bust of Julius Caesar, with a plaster east of Bonaparte In somewhat better condition at the •Other. In April of *93 Ned Wilkes and his wife, young married people, moved into -the court. They rented numeral vingt-neuf. It is from them that I had -this story. During the first three days after moving in Mrs. Wilkes made little ruffled •curtains for the casement windows. She persuaded Ned to plant their own little parterre in myosotis and pansies. And she took an inventory of the neighborhood. “I know the names of everyone in •the import, Ned. dear.” said Mrs. Wilkes. "“I’ve spoken with all the women.” ' “How about the girl in twenty-six?” lied asked, lazily. “I thought you couldn’t make her out.” “Oh, I’ve spoken with her since then. She’s very nice. A little queer, but nice. She’s from the west at home— Hiss Chandler.”

“And the fellow in twenty-seven. That odd crow,” continued Wilkes. ■“Do you know who he is?” “1 had forgotten him,” she answered; “I don’t even know his name. He looks .nice, too. Queer, but nice.” “You said that about'the girl in twenty-six,” said Ned. “It’s a bit of a •coincidence that the girl in twenty-six and the fellow in twenty-seven should be both queer but nice. They ought to fall in love with each other.” The following morning Mrs. Wilkes’ “‘bonne” went out to the little village ■of t lainart to attend the funeral of a •deceased relative. Wilkes was obliged personally to extract the household -water from the court hydrant, a Job of -which he was not fond. It was in no srentle mood that, having rolled up his sleeves, he took a pail in each hand and -tucked a heavy cruche under one arm. The pump stood in the shallow of the ^schoolhouse wall., " When Wilkes reached the pump he ■found some one before him—the man from twenty-seven, the odd crow. His hair, long and black, was blown in all directions about a face at once •odd and ugly, beautiful and interesting. He wore loose black trousers anil the white blouse of an art-worker. And he stood some six feet in a pur of 1'rench house slippers with red-wool dinings. He looked up as Wilkes deposited his burden and smiled in a friendly manner. “You’ve taken number twenty-nine, haven’t you?” the stranger said. “We’re pretty close neighbors. My name is Penroyd—Waltham B. Penroyd, New Tor!; state.” Wilke* exchanged his own name anil 'birthplace, after which Penroyd extended a long white paw, and they shook hands. “You’ve got too much to carry,” ob~ ^served the new neighbor, glancing at the various vessels. “Hive me that jug; I’ll see it home for you.” Wilkes remonstrated, but the neighbor was firm. “Come ahead! ” he cried. •“Like as not your wife is waiting for the water. I haven’t any wife, Wilkes. I wish 1 had.” He carried the heavy cruche and set it down on the doorstep of number twenty-nine. “Come in and see us some time,” said

Ned. “Thank yon,” he answered, earnestly. '“I have often been tempted to since you moved in.” “Well, if temptation comes again, •don’t resist it,” said Ned, laughing. He came the following afternoon. Ned and his wife were sitting* ns usual upon the stoop. Ned himself was more “than half asleep. The kitten, drowsy, too, sprawled across her master’s knees in an ecstasy of purring. Suddenly the latch of the gate snapped. Ned drew himself up and passed a hand across his eyes in bewilderment. That styl-ish-looking fellow could not be Penroyd? But Penroyd it was. He had discarded the loose pantaloons and the blouse of his working hours. He nowblossomed forth in a tasteful, perfectlyrfitting suit «f dark material. His long hair had been brushed back within bounds and the red-lined slippers exchanged for patent-leather boots, with All the addenda necessary to make a well-dressed man. He brought a handful of roses for .Mrs. Wilkes—a rare and beautiful Spanish variety. His most cherished rose -tree, idolized and pampered throughout the winter, had been ruthlessly despoiled to yield them. “Lucy, dear,” said Wilkes to his wife, '“this is Mr. Penroyd. Sit down, Penaroyd.' Glad to see you.” “You see, I didn’t wait for a second invitation, Wilkes and Mrs. Wilkes,” he <said, smiling. “We wanted to know you,” said Mrs. ^Wilkes, burying her pretty face in the roses. . * • “Yes,” said Ned. “We had caught a glimpse of you here and there—at the pump, in fact—and there was something about you that made us want to Apeak.” Penroyd brought his open palm down sharply on the wooden step, so sharply

that the sleepy kitten started up and blinked at him inquiringly. “Why. Wilkes, I that the coincidence is remarkable. Mow, the first minute that 1 clapped eyes on you and your wife 1 wanted to talk with you. Wilkes and Mrs. Wilkes, 1 am going to come down with the whole truth at once and ask your opinion. To speak mildly. I'm in the dickens of a mess.” Ned struggled to retain his gravity. “There’s a girl in it, 1 suppose,” he said. “There is, Wilkes. That is why 1 am presuming enough to trouble you both with my personal affairs. I said to myself: ‘Wilkes there and Mrs. Wilkes have just successfully steered their vessel into the sea of matrimony. They probablly found that it wasn't all smooth sailing to get there. Here is Waltham Penroyd struggling in the same direction, with every wind that blows blowing in his teeth. Who knows but they will let him benefit by their experience? . “Wilkes and Mrs. Wilkes,” he saitl, “if you permit me, 1 am going to tell you about this thing from beginning to end. Unfortunately for me, that’s a very short distance.” Ned and his wife were most anxious to hear. “You must have noticed,” began Penroyd, “that there is a young lady . in twenty-six—a very handsome and extraordinary girl, Mis3 Chandler. She has a sister—a cripple. They moved into twenty-six just one month yesterda> * . “Wilkes, you know what asses we young fellows are when there’s a girl in the question. Well, I heard, of course, that I was to have a young lady neighIjor. I was Sick almost from curiosity. | They came in the evening, and I hadn’t | u glimpse in the dark even. The fol- [ lowing morning about seven o’clock I heard her casement open. Her shutter creaks just as mine does. I sprang to the window, wrapping myself in the curtains to be invisible. And I got nty first glimpse of Kdith Chandler. That was the glimpse that laid me out, Wilkes and Mrs. Wilkes. I knew in that moment that I could love no girl but that girl. That I should love hes ! for life and death if I never set eyes on her again, I knew as well as if I heard it from a burning bush. I left the window with a cold ]*»rspiration on my forehead. I recognized one of ; those traps of fate in which a man is weaker than a hummingbird in a cat’s

claw. ”U was fully an hour before she left that window, but I didn't venture another look. 1 sat there in a stupor with that first image of her burning- itself in on my brain, the image of her looking out over those orchis-pots, with that unearthly sadness in. her eyes and I the new sunlight on her face.** Penroyd stopped speaking and stroked the kitten’s forehead meditatively with his thumb. “Cood heavens, man!** cried Ned. “Are you desparing of a girl before you have had an introduction ?” “Oh, I have been introduced, Wilkes. I mean I introduced myself and we | have spoken together a little over the ; gate. In fact, the first day or two I almost began to hope. They were so | kind—she and her sister—neighborj fashion, you know. But two weeks did ! for that. I have found out that she avoids me.” i ‘‘How do you know, in heaven’s name?” asked Ned. “The hydrant unfolds the tale,*' said Penroyd, dreamily. | Wilkes brushed back the hair from his eyes and looked at his visitor in astonishment. “What has the court hydrant to db with your ease, man?” he demanded. Penroyd broke into a laugh. "I forgot,” he said. “I was pretty obscure,' wasn't I? This is what I meant. At first Miss Chandler used to come at six o’clock to draw water for household purjioses—and I got into the habit of drawing mine at six, too. In fact, Wilkes, to tell the truth, I went there every morning to meet her and to carry her pails for her. At first she must have thought it coincidence. But she couldn't remain long in ignorance. And the moment that she got on to the idea she stopped coming at six; came at five instead. Now, I leave it to you, Wilkes and Mrs. Wilkes, if that ,girl comes out an hour earlier of a chilly morning isn’t it sign enough that she avoids me?”

On May 8 Miss Wilkes made the following entry in her Journal of days: “Ned and I have begun to hope. Mr. Penroyd sat with Miss Chandler all afternoon. from three to six, on her back steps. The sister came over and sat with us. I love them both.** On May 9 Ned wrote in the same volume: “Penroyd turned up here this afternoon. Stayed half an hour. Said he had told Miss Chandler that he loved her. She asked him not to talk of such things, to be her friend. FV says his brain is splitting with the agony.** On May 10 Mrs. Wilkes as follows: “Mr. Penroyd sitting with Miss Chandler again. Three till six. Oh. if she doesn't marry that fellow she*s an idiot. He’s as good as gold. 1 like to look at his face. I can’t make her out.** On May 11 her husband: “The plot thickens. Penroyd told Miss C. again that he loved her. She confessed the same thing with regard to him. but says they can never marry. There is an insurmountable barrier. P. says he can step over any barrier—the Chinese wall Itself. for example.** May 13 Mrs. Wilkes as follows: "Poor Mr. Penroyd. Miss Chandler has refused to speak aghtn on that subject, the only subject that he wants to hear discussed. She asked him to forgive her for all the unavoidable pain she brought Into his life. Mr. Penroyd asked her to put an end to the pain as only she could. Poor hoy and girl, poor children.* May Id Ned's entry: “God help W. P. and E. C. This is one Of the saddest cases of the thing whose course doesn’t run smooth. Hang it. I should like to know what that fine girl ,has on her mind. They have sub-let twenty-six. Will move July h Heaven knows where.** June came—the Parisian June—a

mingling of spring freahness with nun mer languor, of cool night* and mornings with sunny afternoons. In the affairs of Waltham Penroyd and the girl from the west, very little was changed. Penroyd’s latest things were ‘exposed at the salon and well hung. He knew of his success through the congratulations of brother artists. lie lamself had not gone that year to the Champ de Mars. In those few weeks he had become thinner. A look of constant abstraction had taken possession of his face. Wilkes rallied him from time to tiine concerning this. “Penroyd*** he said once, “your thoughts are wanderingin Africa.” Penroyd laughed, recovering himself with a start. “In Asia, Wilkes,” he said. “4 am trying to climb the Chinese walk” Wilkes repeated this conversation to "his wife. “Ned, l think something will hopper to help them, don’t you?** “1 hope so,” said Wilkes. “1 think something is going to happen,” said Ned’s wife. ~ A young cousin of Mrs. Wilkes re* turned from a winter in Italy, a boyish young fellow, living from hand to mouth, and speaking half a dozen languages with equal facility. On the afternoon oi the young fellow’s arrival Penroyd also called at twenty-nine. He sat on the steps with Mrs. Wilkes and the visitor. Ned himself was sprawling in a hammock swung between the little apple tree and a part of the garden fence. In the midst of talk and sketching the door of twenty-six opened. Miss Chandler stepped out to gather up a basket of needlework standing in the doorway. The young cousin wus making a sketch in that direction, lie caught a glimpse of her and sprang up, shading his eyes with one hand. *Mon Dieu!” he said. A moment more and the girl had recovered' her basket and reentered the house. The young cousin sat down. “Miss Chandler is living here, then*?** he observed.

i es. Do you know her? asked Mrs. Wilkes, quickly. She looked at Penroyd. He was gently stroking’ the kitten's head wihh his thumb. One could not have said that he listened. “Yes, I know her a little. I know a good deal about her—more than most l»eople. You know she lived in the Rue Racine when I was there. Poor girl. 1 don't know whether it's the same thing now. but she had a ridiculous mystery hanging over her head—avoided meeting the lellows and all that kind of thing—*’ “It is just the same at present,” observed Penroyd, calmly. “Well, another fellow and myself ferreted out that little mystery. I am ashamed of the thing now. It seems such an unmanly business. But we kept it to ourselves.” “What was the mystery?”asked Penroyd. <• “Her father was in the penitentiary. He died there.” Penroyd looked down and continued his engagement with the kitten. He gently refused Mrs. Ned's invitation to supper. Mrs. Wilkes’ journal for that day contained: “Went to the opera with Ned and Cousin Dick, ‘I.ohengrin.’ It was sublime, but I didn't enjoy it. I thought every moment of poor Mr. Penroyd. I wonder what he thinks of the discovery—of his Chinese wall, as he calls it. and how he proposed to ^ale it. She* will never marry him if what Cousin D-said is true.” The following morning came Penroyd himself. He found Ned and his wife in the atelier. The young cousin had gone down to Charenton for a day 's sketching. “Now, don't interrupt your work,” said the visitor. Ned had laid down iiis palettte and brushes. “I just dropped in for a moment. You have been so good to me, both of you, that I know you will be anxious to.hear the end of it all. WUkes and Mrs. Wilkes, it is finished, and happily. I have cleared the wall of China.”

“How?” cried Ned and his wife, in one breath. “It was all that fortunate chance of your cousin. My success has come tbrought you, AYiIkes and Mrs. Wilkes. But for vour cousin’s instrumentality I should be the inmate of some padded cell. After that discovery, however, things were easy—as easy as breathing the breath of life. At se-ven o'clock last evening I went to call on Miss Chandler. “ ‘Edith,’ I said, ‘I leave to-morrow for Australia or some other desert place, for any land is a desert away from you. I shall haunt you and dog your footsteps no longer. But before I go let me confess. My dearest one, I know your secret. It was that which made me presumpt uous enough to look into your face. I thought: ‘She has | suffered through her father’s trouble. ! She will be more merciful of mine.’ 11 had no right to love you, no right to breathe a word of low into your ears. Even now it is a crime. I was temptj ed beyond my strength. But now we 1 are about to part forever, and I will make my confession. I am not an honest man, Edith. I served five years oi penitentiary myself. My own dearest, I beg you to forgive me.’ “ ‘Dearest,’ she said, ‘if that is true there is no need for us to part. Why haven’t we been honest together before and saved ourselves this misery?* ” Penroyd finished. He was sitting on a couch by the window. He spread out his long, white hands, and mechanically raised each finger in succession. Mrs. Wilkes wiped away a couple of tears which were rolling down her cheeks. “Penroyd, that yarn of yours was a complete lie, wasn’t it?” said Ned. “Yes, it was a complete lie;” assented Penroyd, smiling. “How iu heaven’s name did you invent it?” “Oh, I don’t know,” was the answer. “I’d invent a good many things tc marry Miss Chandler.” — Peterson'* Magazine.

TALMAGE’S SERMON. Lessons Derived From the Orest Feast Of Belshazzar. OmUTi of the Handwrltlac on tho W»H—Tho frail of 81a to Oaullac. Sot Ita KMIaOralk. Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage chose for the subject of his regular Sunday sermon to his Washington congregation “The Handwriting on the Wall*” taking for his text: In that night was Belshazzar, the king of the Chaldeans, slain.—Daniel v.. 3ft Sight was about to come down on Babylon. The shadows of her two hundred and fifty towers began to lengthen. The Euphrates rolled on, touched bv the fiery splendors of the setting sun; and gates of brass, burnished and glittering, opened and shut like doors of flume. The hanging gar-j dens of Babylon, wet with the heavy j dew, began to pour, from starlit flowers and dripping leaf, a fragrance for rnapy miles around. The streets and | squares were lighted for dance and j frolic and promenade. The theaters j and galleries of art invited the wealth j and pomp and grandeur of the city to i rare entertainments. Scenes of riot and wassail were mingled in every street; and godless mirth, and outrageous excess and splendid wickedness came to the king's palace, to do their mightiest deeds of darkness. A royal feast to-night at the king’s palace! Rushing up to the gates are chariots, upholstered with precious cloths from Dedan, and drawn by fireeyed horses from Togarmah, that rear and neigh in the grasp of the charioteers, while a thousand lords dismount, and women, dressed in all the splendors of Syrian emerald, and the colorblind ing of agate, and the chasteness of coral, and the somber glory of Tyrian purple, and princely embroideries, brought from afar by camels across the desert, and by ships of Tarshish across the sea. Open wide the gates and let the

guests come in. The chamberlains and cupbearers are all ready. Hark to the rustle of the silks, and to the carol of the music! See the blaze of the jewels! Lift the banners. Fill the cups. Clap the cymbals. Blow the trumpets. Let the night go by with song, and dance and oration; and let that Baylonish tongue be palsied that will not say: “O, King Belshazzar, lire forever.” Ah! my friends, it was not any common banqnet to which these great people came. All parts of the earth had sent their richest viands to that table. Brackets and chandeliers dashed their tight upon tankards of burnished gold. Fruits, ripe and lustrous, iu baskets of silver, entwined with leaves, plucked from royal conservatories. Vases, inlaid with emerald and ridged with exquisite traceries. filled with nuts that were threshed from forests of distant lands. Wine brought from the royal vats, foaming in the decanters and bubbling iu the chalices. Tufts of cassia and frankincense wafting their sweetness from wall and table. Gorgeous banners unfolding in the breeze that came through the open window, bewitched with the perfumes of hanging gardens. Fountains rising up from inclosures of ivory, in jets of crystal, to fall in clattering rain of diamonds and pearls. Statues of mighty men looking down from niches in the wall upon crowns and brought from subdued empires. Idols of wonderful work standing on pedestals of precious stones. Embroideries stooping about the windows and wrapping pillars of cedar, and drifting on floor inlaid with ivory and agate. Music, mingling the thrum of harps, and the clash of cymbals, and the blast of trumpets in one wave of transport that went rippling along the wall and breathing among the garlands, ami pouring down the corridors, and thrilling the souls of a thousand banqueters. The signal is given, and the lords and ladies, the mighty men and women of the land, come around the table. Pour out the wine. Let foam and bubble kiss the rim! Hoist every one his cup and drink to the sentiment. “O! King Belshazzai‘, live forever!” Bestarred head band and careanet of royal beauty gleam to the uplifted chalices, as again, and again, and again they are emptied. Away with care from the palace! Tear royal dignity to tatters! Pour out more wine! Give ns more light, wilder music, sweeter perfume! Lord shouts to lord. Captain ogles to captain. Goblets clash; decanters rattle. There come in the obscene song, and the drunken hiccough, and the slavering lip. and the guffaw of idiotic laughter, bursting from the lips of princes, flushed, reeling, bloodshot; while mingling with it all I hear, “Huzza! huzza! for great Belshaz

zar. What is that on the plastering of the wall? Is it a spirit? Is it a phantom? Is it God? The music stops. The goblets fall from the nerveless grasp. There is a thrill. There is a start. There is a thousand-voiced shriek of horror. Let Daniel be brought in to read that writing. He comes in. He reads it: “Weighed in the balance and fonud wanting.** Meanwhile the Medes, who for two years had been laying siege to that city, tool? advantage of that carousal anti came iu. I hear the feet of the conquerors on the palace stairs. Massacre rushes in with a thousand gleaming knives. Death bursts upon the scene, and I shut the door of that banqueting hall, for 1 do not want to look. There is nothing there but torn banners, .and broken \* eaths and the slush of ups-1 tankards, and the blood of murdered women, and the kicked aud tumbled carcass of a dead king. For “in that night was Belshazzar, the king of the Chaldeans, slain.** I go on to learn some lessons from all this. I learn that when God writes anything on the wall, a man had better read it as it is. Daniel did not misinterpret w modify the handwriting on the walk It is all foolishness

to expect a minister** of the Goepel to preach si ways thing* that the people like or the people choose. Young men of Washington, what shall I preach to you to-night? Shall I tell you of the dignity o! human nature? Shall 1 tell i you of the wonders that our race has ; accomplished? “Oh! no," you say; : “tell me the message that came from God." T will. If there is any handwriting on the wall, it is this lesson: “Repent! Accept of Christ and be saved!" 1 might j talk of a great many other things; but j this is the message, and so I declare, it. ! Jesus never flattered those to whom i He preached. He said to those who j did wrong, and who were offensive in j His sight: “Ye generation of vipers! | ye whitened sepulchers! how can ye j escape the damnation of hell!" Paul, j the apostle, preached before a man; who was not ready to hear him preach. What subject did he take? Did he say: “Oh! you are a good man, a very fine man, a very noble j man?" No, he preached of righteous- j ness to a man who was unrighteous; | of temperance to a man who was a j victim of bad appetites; of the jndg- j ment to come to a mao who was unfit i for it So we must always declare the message that happens to comes to us. Daniel must read as it is. A minister preached before James I. of England, who was James VI. of Scotland. What subject did he take? The king was noted all over the world for being unsettled and wavering in his ideas. What did the minister preach about to this man who was James I. of England and James VI. of Scotland? He took for his text James first and sixth: “He that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.” Hugh Latimer offended the king by a sermon he preached; and the king said: “Hugh Latimer, come and apologise." “I j will,"* said Hugh Latimer. So the day was appointed; and the king's chapel was full of lords, and dukes, and the mighty men and women of the country, for Hugh Latimer was to apologize. He began his sermon by saying: “Hugh Latimer, bethink thee! Thou art in the presence of thine earthly king, who can destroy thy body. But bethink thee, Hugh Latimer, that thou art in the I presence of the King of Heaven and ! earth, who can destroy both body and i soul in hell fire.” Then he preached j with appalling directness at the king’s !

crimes. Another lesson that comes to ns tonight: There is a great difference be- i tween the opening of the banquet of j sin and its close. Young man, if yon | had looked in upon the banquet in the first few hours yon would have wished you had Wen invited there and could sit at the feast. “Oh! the grandeur of Belshazzar’s feast!” you would have said; but you look in at the close of the banquet and your blood curdles with horror. The King of Terrors has there a ghastlier banquet; human blood is the wine, and dying groans are the music Sin has made itself a king in the earth. It has crowned itselfX It has spread a banquet. It invites all the world to come to it. It has hung in its banqueting hall the spoils Jof all kingdoms and the banners of all nations. It has gathered from all nations music. It has strewn, from its wealth, the tables, and floors, and arches. And yet how often is that banquet broken np; and how horrible is its end! Ever and anon there is a handwriting on the wall. A king falls. A great culprit is arrested. The knees of wickedness knock together. God’s judgment, like an arnied host, breaks in upon the banquet; and that night is Belshazzar, the king of the Chaldeans, slain. llere is a young man who says: “I can not see why they make such a fuss about the intoxicating cup, Why. it is exhilarating! It makes me feel well I can talk Wtter, think Wtter, feel Wtter- 1 can not see why people have such a prejudice against it.” A few years pass on, and he wakes up and finds himself in the clutches of an evil habit which he tries to break, but can not; and he eries out: “Oh, Lord God! help me!” It seems as though God woutd not hear his prayer, and in an agony of body and soul he cries out: “I t biteth like a serpent, and it stingeth like an adder.” How bright it was ht the start. How black it was at the last! I learn further from this subject' that death sometimes breaks in upon a banquet. Why did he not go down to the prisons in Babylon? There yere people there that would like to have died. I suppose there were men and women in torture in that city who would have welcomed death, but he comes to the palace; and just at the time when the mirth is dashing to the tiptop pitch, death breaks in at the banquet. We have often seen the same thing illustrated. Here is a young man just come from college. He is kind. He is loving. He is enthusiastic. He is eloquent. By one spring he may bound to height toward which many men have been struggling for years. He is established in the law. His friends cheer him.

imminent lueu cuuuum^c uuu. ix-itcr awhile you may see him standing in the American senate, or moving a popular assemblage by his eloquence, as trees are moved in a whirlwind. Some night he retires early. A lever is on him. Delirium, like a reckless charioteer, seizes the reins of his intellect. Father and mother stand £y and see the tides of his life going out to the great ocean. The banquet is coming to an end. The lights of thought, and mirth, and eloquence are being extinguished. The garlands are snatched from the brow. The vision is gone. Death at the banquet! ^ ; We saw the same thing on a larger scale, illustrated in our civil war. Our whole nation had been sitting at a national banquet—north, south, east and west. What grain was there, but we grew it on our hills. What invention was there, bat our rivers must turn the new wheel, and rattle the new Shuttle. What warm furs, but our traders must bring them from the Arc

tic. What fish, but our nets must swoop them for the markets. What music* but itjnust sing in our halls. What eloqrence. but It mutt speak in our senates. Ho! to the national banquet, reaching' from mountain to mountain, and from sea to seat To prepare that banquet, the sheep-folds and the aviaries of the country sent their,, beat treasures. The orchards piled upon the table their sweet fruits. Tha presses burst out with new wines. To sit at the table came the yeomanry of New Hampshire, and the lumbermen of Maine, and the Carolinian from tha rice plantation, and the western emigrant from the pines of Oregon, and we were all brothers—brothers at a banquet. Suddenly the feast ended. What meant those mounds thrown up at Chiekamauga, Shiloh, Atlanta, " Gettysburg. South Mountain? What meant, those golden grain fields, turned into a pasturing ground for cavalry horses? What meant the corn fields gullied with the wheels of the heavy supply trpin? Why those rivers of teats, those takes of blood? God was angry! Justice must come." A handwriting on the wall. The nation bad been weighed and found wanting. Darkness! Darkness! Woe to the north! Woe to the south! Woe to the cast! Woe to the west! Death at the banquet. I have also to learn from the subject that the destruction of the vicious, and of those who despise God will be very sudden.' The wave of mirth had dashed to the highest point when the invading army broke through, ft was unexpected. Suddenly, almost always, comes the doom of those who despise God, and defy the laws of men. How was it at the deluge? Do you suppose it came through a long northeast storm, so that people for days before were, sure it was coming? No; I suppose the morning was bright; that calmness brooded on the waters; that beauty sat enthroned on the hills; when suddenly the heavens burst, and the mountains sank like anehors into the sea that dashed clear over the Andes and the Himalayas. The Red sea was divided. The Egyptians tried to cross it. There could be no danger. The Israelites had just gone through; where they had gone, why not the Egyptians? Oh! it was such a beautiful walking place? A pavement of tinged shells and pearls, and on either side two great walls of water—solid., There can be no ^danger. Forward, great host of the Egyptians! Clap the cymbals, and

blow the trumpets of victory! After them! We will catch them yet. and the\* shall be destroyed. But the walls begin to tremble! They rock! They fall! The rushing waters! The shriek of drowning men! The swimming of the war horses in vain for the shore! The strewing of the great host on the bottom of the sea. or pitched by the angry wave on the beach—a battered. bruised and, loathsome wreck! Suddenly destruction came. One half hour before they could not have believed it. Destroyed; and without remedy. : I am just setting forth a fact, which you have noticed as well as I. Ananias comes to the apostle. The apostle says: “Did you sell the land for so much?” He says: “Yes.” It was a lie. Dead! as quick as that! Sapphira, his ivfft comes in. “Did you sell the land Wso much?” “Yes.” It was a lie; and quick as that she was dead! God’s judgments »are upon those who despise Him and deff Him, They come suddenly. • The destroying apgel went through Egypt! Do you suppose that any of the people knew that he was coming? Did you hear of the flap of his^great wing? No! No! Suddenly, unexpectedly, he came. Skilled sportsmen do hot like to shoot a bird standing on a sprig near by. If they are skilled, they pride themselves on taking it on the wing; and they wait till it starts. Death is an old sportsman; and he loves to take men dying under the very sun. He loves to take them on the wing. Oh! flee to God this night! If there ho one in this presence who has wandered far away from Christ, though he may not have heard the call of the Gospel for many a year. I invite him now to come aud be saved. Flee from thy sin! Flee to the stronghold of the Gospel! Now is the accepted time; now is the day of salvation. Good-night, my young friends! may yovu have rosy sleep, guarded by Him who never slumbers! May yon awake in the morning strong and well. Bat oh! art thou a despiser of God? Is this thy last night on earth! Should’st thou be awakened in the night by something, thou knowest not what, and there be shadows floating in the room, and a handwriting on the wall, and you feel that your last honr is come, and there be a fainting at the heart, and a tremor in the Hmb. and a catching of the breath—then thy doom would be but an echo of the words of the text: “In that night was Belshazzar, the king of the Chaldeans, slain.” Oh! that my Lord Jesus wonld now make llimself so attractive to your souls that you can not resist Him; and f you have never prayed before or ihave never prayed since those days when yon knelt down at your mother’s knee, then that to-night you might pfay, saying:

Just as I am. without one plea But that Thy blood was shed for me. And that thou bid’st me come to Thee, O Lamb of God. I come: , lint if you can not think of so long & prayer as that, I will give yon a shorter prayer that yon can say: ‘God be merciful to me, a sinner!” Or if you can not think of so long a prayer as that, I will give you a still shorter one that you may utter: “Lord, save me, or I perish!” Or, if that be too long a prayer, you need not make it. Use the word “help!” Or, if that be too long a word, you need not use any word at alL Just look and live. —In the laat century all ladies earned smelling bottles, and no fashionable dame would venture from her home without her bottle, last her toilet be deemed incomplete.