of them now. I desire more especially to speak to them. May God give me the right word and help me to utter it in the right way.

There have glided into this house those unknown to others, whose history, if told, would be more thrilling than the deepest tragedy, more exciting than Nilsson's song, more bright than a spring morning, more awful than a wintry midnight. If they could stand up here and tell the story of their escapes, and their temptations, and their bereavements, and their disasters, and their victories, and their defeats, there would be in this house such a commingling of groans and acclamations as would make the place unendurable.

There is a man who, in infancy, lay in a cradle satinlined. There is a man who was picked up, a foundling, on Boston Common. Here is a man who is coolly observing this day's service, expecting no advantage, and caring for no advantage for himself; while yonder is a man who has been for ten years in an awful conflagration of evil habits, and he is a mere cinder of a destroyed nature, and he is wondering if there shall be in this service any escape or help for his immortal soul. Meeting you only once, perhaps, face to face, I strike hands with you in an earnest talk about your present condition, and your eternal well-being. St. Paul's ship at Melita went to pieces where two seas meet; but we stand to-day at a point where a thousand seas converge, ́and eternity alone can tell the issue of the hour.

The hotels of this country, for beauty and elegance are not surpassed by the hotels in any other land; bu. those that are most celebrated for brilliancy of tapestry and mirror cannot give to the guest any costly apartment, unless he can afford a parlor in addition to his lodging. The stranger, therefore, will generally find as

signed to him a room without any pictures, and perhaps any rocking chair! He will find a box of matches on a bureau,and an old newspaper left by the previous occupant, and that will be about all the ornamentation. At seven o'clock in the evening, after having taken his repast, he will look over his memorandum-book of the day's work; he will write a letter to his home, and then a desperation will seize upon him to get out. You hear the great city thundering under your windows, and you say: "I must join that procession," and in ten minutes you have joined it. Where are you going? Oh," you say, "I haven't made up my mind yet." Better make up your mind before you start. Perhaps the very way you go now you will always go. Twenty years ago there were young men who came down the Astor House steps, and started out in a wrong direction, where they have been going ever since.

Well, where are you going?" says one man. "I am going to the Academy to hear some music." Good. I would like to join you at the door. At the tap of the orchestral baton, all the gates of harmony and beauty will open before your soul. I congratulate you. Where are you going? Well," you say, "I am going up to see some advertised pictures." Good. I should like to go along with you and look over the same catalogue, and study with you Kensett, and Bierstadt, and Church, and Moran. Nothing more elevating then good pictures. Where are you going? "Well," you say, "I am going up to the Young Men's Christian Association rooms." Good. You will find there gymnastics to strengthen the muscles, and books to improve the mind, and Christian influence to save the soul. I wish every city in the United States had as fine a palace for its Young Men's Christian Association as New York has. Where are

you going?"Well," you say, "I am going to take a long walk up Broadway, and so turn around into the Bowery. I am going to study human life." Good. A walk through Broadway at eight o'clock at night is interesting, educating, fascinating, appalling, exhilarating to the last degree. Stop in front of that theater, and see who goes in. Stop at that saloon, and see who comes. out. See the great tides of life surging backward and forward, and beating against the marble of the curbstone, and eddying down into the saloons. What is that mark on the face of that debauchee? It is the hectic flush of eternal death. What is that Woman's laughter? It is the shriek of a lost soul. Who is that Christian man going along with a phial of anodyne to the dying pauper on Elm street? Who is that belated man on the way to a prayer-meeting? Who is that city missionary going to take a box in which to bury a child? Who are all these clusters of bright and beautiful faces? They are going to some interesting place of amusement. Who is that man going into the drug-store? That is the man who yesterday lost all his fortune on Wall street. He is going in for a dose of belladonna, and before morning it will make no difference to him whether stocks are up or down. I tell you that Broadway, between seven and twelve o'clock at night, between the Battery and Unionsquare, is an Austerlitz, a Gettysburg, a Waterloo, where kingdoms are lost or won, and three worlds mingle in the strife.

I meet another coming down off the hotel steps, and I say: "Where are you going?" You say: "I am going with a merchant of New York who has promised to-night to show me the underground life of the city. I am his customer, and he is going to oblige me very much." Stop! A business house that tries to get or