stening
boards, await the signal from the orchestra. The footlights of the
theatre flash up; the bell rings, and the curtain rises; and out from
the gorgeous scenery glide the actors, greeted with the vociferation
of the expectant multitudes. Concert-halls are lifted into enchantment
with the warble of one songstress, or swept out on a sea of tumultuous
feeling by the blast of brazen instruments. Drawing-rooms are filled
with all gracefulness of apparel, with all sweetness of sound, with
all splendor of manner; mirrors are catching up and multiplying the
scene, until it seems as if in infinite corridors there were garlanded
groups advancing and retreating.

The out-door air rings with laughter, and with the moving to and fro
of thousands on the great promenades. The dashing span, adrip with
the foam of the long country ride, rushes past as you halt at the
curb-stone.

Mirth, revelry, beauty, fashion, magnificence mingle in the great
metropolitan picture, until the thinking man goes home to think more
seriously, and the praying man to pray more earnestly.

A beautiful and overwhelming thing is the city in the first and second
watches of the night.

But the clock strikes twelve, and the third watch begins. The thunder
of the city has rolled from the air. Slight sounds now cut the night
with a distinctness that excites your attention. You hear the tinkling
of the bell of the street-car in the far distance; the baying of the
dog; the stamp of the horse in the adjoining street; the slamming of
a saloon door; the hiccoughing of the inebriate; and the shriek of
the steam-whistle five miles away. Solemn and stupendous is this third
watch. There are respectable men abroad. The city missionary is
going up that court, to take a scuttle of coal to a poor family. The
undertaker goes up the steps of that house, from which there comes a
bitter cry, as though the destroying angel had smitten the first-born.
The minister of Jesus passes along; he has been giving the sacrament
to a dying Christian. The physician hastens past, the excited
messenger a few steps ahead, impatient to reach the threshold. Men who
are forced to toil into the midnight are hastening to their pillow.
But the great multitudes are asleep. The lights are out in the
dwellings, save here and there one. That is the light of the watcher,
for the remedies must be administered, and the fever guarded, and the
restless tossing of the coverlet resisted, and the ice kept