M>PrfHARLESHALE LWtv .It . There was a slight touch upon my arm, my wounded arm, as It chanced, that lay beneath the blanket, a touch that sent a pang like the piercing of a hot Iron through It, and a sweet voice said: "Can I do anything for you, my poor man? The surgeon will be here Im mediately, and I thought It best to waken you.” It added. aB I opened my eyes upon that neat, quiet little figure which I had long before seen. The recognition was mutual. ■"Captain Hale!” "Mrs. Dnmarcle!" "I did not expect to see you here!” a mutual exclamation, and there was time for no more, for the surgeon, fol lowed by his assistant with a hideous paraphernalia, had come. Then followed an awful hour. I think I received a full Idea of the mean ing of the word torture during its passage. At last they left me, the ball extracted and the arm bandaged, but utterly exhausted by pain, long fasting and want of sleep. I did not wake until the following morning and then to an Intolerable pain and smarting In my arm. The bandage seemed like a ligature, and there was a burning, aB of hot Iron, from finger ends to shoulder. I was writhing with the torture, and feeling strangely weak and powerless when '*he came to me. Her voice roused me from my trance of agony. "Can I do anything for you. Captain Hale?" she said, in those quiet, even tones that were a sedative In them selves. •'Yes, thank you. Send some one to loose my bandage—my arm Is Intoler able." "I will do It myself. I know how perfectly;” and before I could utter an expostulation she had my arm tenderly In her little hands, and was deftly re moving the bandage and loosing the folds. She hurt me very badly, but there was something soothing In her touch that made me bear it without much shrinking. “Your arm is badly swollen, but I think that will be better," she said, at length, as she gently disposed the wounded limb above the blanket. “I will go to the office and procure a lo tion for you.” And with the word she was gone. I had been greatly relieved, and could think of something besides my suffer ings. And my thoughts went back as I followed the quaint little figure with my eyes to the time I had seen It last, and In such different surroundings. It was five years before at a grand ball, at the house of one of the diplo matic corps, In Washington, that I saw Helen Dumarele, a bride. As a child I had known her well, and had met her once or twice as she grew to woman hood, when she paid rare but welcome visits to my sisters. We renewed our acquaintance then, and she Introduced me to her husband, a splendid-looking young officer—a South Carolinian of French-Huguenot descent. I was pleased with his grand, courtly man ner, and Helen seemed equally proud of him. Her father’s reverses had made her a governess in the South, and there she met Paul Dumarele. I heard that the Dumarcles felt the marriage a mis alliance, but I think Paul Dumarele did not feel that he had condescended in marrying the pretty little creature who hung upon his arm. She was splendid that night—In some rich dress from her trousseau— I am not a man milliner to describe it —with the soft gleam of pearls In her golden hair and a necklace, with a great emerald blazing amid the lucent pearls that surrounded it, upon her bosom. She was too little to bear much bravery of dress, and with all her splendor I thought 1 bad seen her look better in the pretty muslins that suited opr village gatherings afar in the old New England home. 1 bad scarcely heard from her since, MKI.EN WOIXD OFTEN TAKE MV THROHHINH IIAM> IN HERN fur my Ufa bad bran oa» of roaming and a»tli*m«*ul. afar from old *mo> i ailoaa. Hut wbai a cbaag*' | «<>uld atva aow atarvaly raalu* II. Wbrra ati |)utuar>la? Muraly ba bad gt*a« »na iba Noaib la tbta war' Aad y«l boar »aa»a »h# bara. a bur** la lb.* I aiou buapllal? Hill la Iba a«i< uf thought. | *aw bar owing batb with Iba amgaoa by bar aida. Tba p«*»r fallow* ou ibr.r (Oil rai*ad tbamaaltaa to look al h,*r (Ml aba paaaad bat h, and fall ba. h *mll lag If aba bat gtanead al lb*m kindly, ur apuba a f*» word* ta ibat wuadar fully aaimlag v«*a Tba aurgatoi luoktd grata a* ha aaw mr arm. Ma ga»a bu urJar* rapidly. I and I could see a shade pass over Mrs. Dumarcle's face as she listened. She followed him Ju3t out of earshot, as be moved away, and spoke to him earnestly. His parting words only reached my ear. "As he lg a friend of yours, certain ly. The room Is empty, and, as the fever Is coming on, he will, of course, be more comfortable where pure air can be obtained. Give your own or ders, If you please, for I am too busy Just now to attend to It." "Do you think you could bear being moved upstairs?" Helen Dumarcle said, coming back to me. "There Is an empty room I shall have prepared for you; but first you must have your breakfast. Do you feel hungry?" She spoke In a quiet, matter-of-fact way, as If she had been all her life a nurse in a hospital, and then sho went away and presently brought me a dainty mess of something that she said I must eat, because she bad cooked It with her own hands. I had no appe tite, but I tried to eat, because ahe bade me, and something of the weary sense of exhaustion left me when I had fin ished. About noon men came, and with Helen to superintend, lifted my cot and carried me away to the quiet, lone upper room that ht,J been pre pared for me. When they had gone Helen bustled In, smilingly, and Introduced to my no tice a big, shlny-looklng contraband, who gave my tired senses a first Im pression of mingled patent-leather boots and piano keys, who, she said, would stay with me all the time, and take care of me when she was obliged to be absent. Then she said some thing to him apart about "erysipelas" and "giving the medicine regularly." I remember feeling an air of comfort I WAS PLACED ON THE FATAL TABLE. In the clean, bare room and a delicious sense of quiet, after the roar of battle and the sounds of pain and anguish that had been ringing in my ears ever since 1 was wounded. Then followed a blank, whether of sleep or delirium 1 know not, with occasional Intervals of waking, always to Intolerable pain and burning in my arm, In my whole side, with a ringing In my ears and a fevered restlessness entirely beyond my control. Through my dreams flit ted Helen, now in the sheen of pearls and satin, now In plain hospital garb. Time passed in this strange, dream like existence, that was peopled by many another sight, scenes borrowed from the fury of battle, the sudden ter ror of attack, quiet mountain bivouacs and picket stations under the stars, on drear plains that seemed stretched to mysterious, unending distances, in the shadowy light. Helen would often come In. sit be side my cot and take my throbbing hand in hers. Sometimes she was ac companied by a sweet-faced Sister of Charity—one of thoee angels of mercy, whose presence in army hospitals Is familiar to all wounded soldiers, and whose gentle ministrations have soothed the agony of many a dying hero. I know that I was carefully tended, but all care could not prevent what fol lowed. One morning I was lifted from my cot and placed upon the fatal table. When they placed me In my bed again the arm was gone, and with It the awful burning pain, and much of the danger that had threatened mv life. It was not long, then, before 1 emerged from the shadowy seml-de Ilrlurn In which my days and nights In that quiet chamber had been passed. 1 began to recognise and Identify Jem. the shiny contraband, as something tangible, to feel amused at his quaint ways, uud odd. Indistinct mode of speech; and to feel pleased when he answered my dim smite by a hearty guffaw and a fearful display of the piano keys And l began to mak> Helen'e visits the events of my monot onous life; to watch for her at her ac customed hours, and to sink back, every nerve soothed and muscle re laved, In the deeps of a measureless content whin she came | had lost my arm my good right arm. :t poor man « emblem of power to do and date, and which was alt that stood between me snd the •mid world's 'harttle*. An 1 j yet I was strung*ly happy Gradually, with strength, my though'- came ha ’« to th< inter.-t* < life. ! bad many brief talks with ! Helen, but they hoi Imvq chiefly uf -*ur ; old home, she had tuner a11 tided | j ; Herwelf, nor told tee why she wav there ' It had been enough. In my lltnev*. to 1 know that however she • ante «h.. a t there, and I getting well in her «»• • nd Jem a; for I will lot Is viiisiviit1 whatever else I am Hut at last I - an v |« w> r»t*»r at this f though I dared a*k no question thinking thus 1 spoke aloud *« on i « >u»eiitue* it ■* i In moving quite urh atr.rger friend* of her own ***» K*tl r«d round her ll*r burden i bad teen too heavy for her, but *h« had t» in* I* * el!, and her monument in in « hundred n ;« hearts that wtil • tun)* b ♦ n llwcil or Ihnlf thought! t*<*r( to her ream ami* I ha i.u<*l *> 41) he* In th« Itoyal t library at Mtm fcbtdm |« a II hie || * 1 ’ • ! ■ • r* t|, 4 ' f»r tta |Mii-hiu«nt tea tea Th »ra tra ;t« ;■«"f anting and aaeh |m«« fall* but one imb *Uort of being a yar| j " letir'h * be » i*»i* *ra ea <4 ylan** , Iww lavhe* thi«h ; TALMAGE8 SERMON. "THE BALANCES." the subject ON SUNDAY. — I I'rnm Daniel 6: 27 a* Fnllairgi—BIrno, M»n« Trkxl Ipharluon — Thou Art Weighed In the UiUancm and Art Found Wantin';. Babylon was the paradise of archi tecture, and driven out from thence the grandest buildings of modern times are only the evidence of her fall. The site having been selected for the city, two million men were employed in the rearing of her walls and the building of her works. It was a city sixty miles In circumference. There was a trench all around the city, from which the ma terial for the building of the city had been digged. There were twenty-five gates on each side of the city; between every two gates a tower of defense springing into the skies; from each gate on the one side a street running straight tlyough to the corresponding gate on the other side, so that there were fifty streets fifteen miles long. Through the city ran a branch of the river Euphrates. This river some times overflowed Its banks, and to keep It from ruining the city, a lake was constructed into which the surplus water of the river would run during the time of freshets, and the water was kept in this artificial lake until time of drought, and then this water would stream down over the city. At either end of the bridge spanning this Euphrates there was a palace—the one palace a mile and a half around, the other palace seven and a half miles around. The wife of Nebuchadnezzar had been born and brought up in the coun try, and In a mountainous region, and she could not bear this flat district of Babylon; and so, to please his wife, Nebuchadnezzar built In the midst of the city a mountain four hundred feet high. This mountain was built out into terraces, supported on arches. On the top of these arches a layer of flat stones, on the top of that a layer of reeds and bitumen, on the top of that two layers of bricks closely cemented, on the top of that a heavy sheet of lead, and on the top of that the soil placed—the soil so deep that a Lebanon cedar had room to anchor Its roots. There were pumps worked by mighty machinery fetching up the water from the Euphrates to this Panging garden, as It was called, so that there were fountains spouting Into the sky. Stand ing below and looking up it must have seemed as If the clouds were in blos som, or as though the sky leaned on the shoulder of a cedar. All this Nebuchadnezzar did to please his wife. Well, she ought to have been pleased. I suppose she was pleased. If that would not please her, nothing would. There was In that city also the temple of Belus, with towers—one tower the eighth of a mile high. In which there was an observatory where astrono mers talked to the stars. There was In that temple an image. Just one Im age. which would cost what would be our fifty-two million dollurs. Oh, what a city! The earth never saw anything like it, never will see anything like it. And yet I have to tell you that it is going to be destroyed. The king and bis princes are at a feast. They are all intoxicated. Pour out the rich wine into the chalices! Drink to the health of the king! Drink to the glory of Babylon! Drink to a great future! A thousand lords reel intoxicated. The king seated upon a chair, with vacant look, as Intoxicated men will—with vacant look stared at the wall. But soon that vacant look takes on intensity, and it is an af frighted look; and all the princes be gin to look and wonder what is the matter.and they look at the same point on the wall. And then there drops a darkness into the room, that puts out the blaze of the golden plate, and out of the sleeve of the darkness there comes a linger—a finger of fiery ter ror circling around and circling around as though it would write; and then It comes up and with sharp tip of flame It inscribes on the plastering of the wall the doom of the king: Weighed In the balances, and found wanting.” The bang of heavy fists against the gates of the palace is followed by the breaking in of the doors. A thousand gleaming knives strike Into a thou sand quivering hearts. Now Death is king, and he is seated on a throne of corpses. In that hall there la a bal ance lifted Ood swung it. On one j aide of the balance are put Uelahaz- j zar'a opportunities, on the other side . of the balance are put Belshazzar's aina. The sins come down. Hla op portunities go Up Weighed in the balance* found wanting There ha* been a great deal of cheating In our country with falw weight* and measure* an I balance*, and the government, to change that •tate of thing* appointed roamueton er» wh we ha«lne*« it wag to *tamp weight* and MMium and balance*, and a great d«al of the wrong haa been corrected Itut atilt, after all, there I* no *uch thing a* a p*ifr<| ba'unc* un «ar« clipped, or in (Mine way the e<|tiip»U* may he dte tarred Van m not atway* d«*i»«r< I upon earthly balance*. \ pound ta n u alw ty* a pound »tt«l you may ,,a« |H i»r.e thing and get a to'-hr*-, but In the balance which ta •uepende t t» in# throne of tM. a pound tt a p*ur an t right ta right and an-ng ta wrong, ami a * mi ta a » ml, and eternity u eternity lo'.l ha* a p rf*> t both ant • perfect (»• h and a perfet g.ii Ion Ah a merchant* weigh Ihoir • ..~n n »n« • o»g th n th» i. •. weigh* the 1 ,1 aga:n If ft on* *h« Imiwrfe*! it ea*uiv ih< rntr -gani ju-' ir* not what p • > itU o > a m* ■» of • and there t* U*• than a gall an. U i knows it. and calls upon his recording angel to mark it: "So much wanting in that measure of oil.” The farmer comes in from the country. He has apples to sell. He has an imperfect measure. He pours out the apples from his imperfect measure. God reg ognlzes it. He says to the recording angel: "Mark down so many apples too few—an Imperfect measure.” We may cheat ourselves, and we may cheat the world, but we cannot cheat God, and In the great day of Judgment it will be found out that what we learned in boyhood at school is correct; that twenty hundredweight makes a ton, and one hundred and twenty solid feet makes a cord of wood. No more, no less, and a religion which does not take hold of this life, a* well us the life to come, is no religion at all. But, my friends, that Is not the style of balances I am to speak of today, that Is not the kind of weights and measures. I am to speak of that kind of balances which weigh principles, weigh churches, weigh men, weigh na tions and weigh worlds. "What!” you say; “is it possible that our world is to be weighed?” Yes. Why, you would think If God put on one side of the balances suspended from the throne the Alps and the Pyrenees and the Himalayas and Mount Washington.and all the cities of the earth, they would crush It. No! No! The time will I come when God will sit down on the white throne to see the world weigh ed, and on one side will be the world’s opportunities, and on the other side the world’s sins. Down will go the sins, and away will go the oportuni tles, and God will say to the messen gers with the torch: "Burn that world! weighed and found wanting!” So God will weigh churches. He takes a great church. That church, great according to the worldly esti mate, must be weighed. He puts it on one side the balances, and the minister and the choir, and the building that cost Its hundreds of thousands of dol lars. He puts them on one side the balances. On the other side of the scale he puts w’hat that church ought to be, what its consecration ought to be, what Its sympathy for the poor ought to be, what It3 devotion to all good ought to be. That is on one side. That aide ccmcs down, and the church, not being able to stand the test, rises In the balances. It does not make any difference about your magnificent, ma chinery. A church Is built for one thing—to save souls. If It saves a few souls when It might save a multi tude of souls, God will spew It out of his mouth! Weighed and found want ing! So we perceive that God estimates nations. How many times he has put the Spanish monarchy into the scales, and found It Insufficient, and condemn ed It! The French empire was placed on one side of the scales, and God weighed the French empire and Na peoleon said: “Have I not enlarged the boulevards? Did I not kindle the glories of the Champs Elysees? Have I not adorned the Tulleries? Have I not built the gilded opera house?” Then God weighed the nation, and he put on one side the scales the emperor and the boulevards, and the Tulleries and the Champs Elysees, and the gild ed opera house, and on the other side he puts that man's abominations, that man's libertinism, that man's sel fishness, that man's godless ambition. This last came down, and all the bril liancy of the scene vanished. What is that voice coming up from Sedan? Weighed and found wanting! Still the balances are suspended. Are there any others who would like to be weighed, or who will be weighed? Yes; here comes a worldling. He gets into the scales. I can very easily see what his whole life is made up of. Stocks, dividends, percentages, "buyer ten days," "buyer thirty days." "Oct in, my friend, get into these balances and be weighed—weighed for this life, and weighed for the life to come." He gets in. I find that the two great questions in his life are: "How cheap ly can 1 buy these goods?" and "How dearly can I sell them?” I find he ad mires heaven because it is a land of gold, and money must be "easy." I find from talking with him. that re ligion and the Sabbath are an inter ruption, a vulgar interruption, and he hopes on the way to church to drum up a new customer! All the week he has been weighing fruits, weighing meats, weighing Ice, weighing coals, weighing confections, weighing world ly and perishable commodities, nut realising the fact that he himself has been weighed. "On your side the bal ances, O worldling! I will give you full advantage I put on your side all the banking-houses, alt the store houses, all the cargoes, all the Insur ance companies., all the factories, all the Silver, all file gold, ail the tuouey vaults, all the safe deposits ail on your side. Hut It does uot add one ounce, for at the very moment we are congratulating you on your fine house and upon yt ur princely income, Uod and the angel* are writing In regard «•» your soul Weigh'd and found wanting!' “ Hut I mu»t go faster and speak of the final scrutiny. The fact is. my fri< nils, we are moving on antld as founding reait'le* t hese pul,, s which now are drumming the march of life may, after a while, rill a halt W* wath on a hair hung bridge over • basins Alt ground u« are dangers lurking, ready to spring ■<». u* from ambush. We lie doan at night not knowing whether we shall arise in tee •Horning We *i irt out N a opal.on« ; not kmining wh«ih»r we shntl torn* ! k frowns being burnished lor thy ; itfow. or l-olu forged for ihy prison kngets of light readt to »h» of at thy deliverance, of Sends of d*?ku**» I king out she!' t«n hue is to pull i thee down Into ruin ruiisnnstr! see Hui snys the fhrte'dan km I to i be allowed to get vfl so easily ’ ’ V• ■ If some one should come and put on the other side the scales all your im perfections, all your envies, all your jealousies, all your inconsistencies of life, they would not budge the scales with Christ on your side the scales. Go free! There Is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. Chains broken, prison houses opened, sins pardoned. Go free! Weighed in the balances, and nothing, nothing wanted. Oh! what a glorious hope! Will you accept It this day? Christ making up for what you lack. Christ the atone ment for all your sins. Who will ac cept him? Will not this whole au dience say, ‘‘I am Insufficient, I am a sinner, I am lost by reason of trans gressions, but Christ has paid it all. My Ix>rd, and my God. my life, my par don, my heaven. Lord Jesus, I hall thee!" Oh, If you could only under stand the worth of that sacrifice which I have represented to you under a fig ure if you could understand the worth of that sacrifice, this whole audience would this moment accept Christ and be saved. We go away off, or back into his tory, to get some illustration by which we may set forth what Christ has done for us. We need not go so far. I saw a vehicle behind a runaway horse dashing through the street, a mother and her two children in the carriage. The horse dashed along as though to hurl them to death, and a mounted po liceman, with a shout clearing the way, and the horse at full run, attempted to seize those runaway horses to save a calamity, when his own horse fell and roiled over him. He was picked up half dead. Why were our sympa thies so stirred? Because he was bad ly hurt, and hurt for others. But I tell you today of how Christ, the Son of God, on the blood-red horse of sacri fice, came for our rescue, and rode down the sky, and rode unto death for our rescue. Are not your hearts touched? That was a .sac rifice for you and me. O thou who dld«t ride on the red horse of sacrifice! come and ride through this world on the white horse of victory! EATING TO MUSIC. A Popular t'ru/.c In Metropolitan Hotel* anil Kt'Stuuruutn. Music at meals is now the thing in the metropolis. The craze is still very young, yet it hus spread all over the town, and looks as if It had to stay. Not long since a certain restaurant of the Bohemian class not far from rcur teenth street encouraged a couple of itinerant performers on the guitar and mandolin to come around two or three evenings In the week and help enter tain the guests. There were three rooms in the restaurant, and the musi cians wandered from one to the other, alternating their instrumental selec tions with really good vocal numbers. When any of the latter happened to be well-known airs, guests around the tables were not slow to join in the re frain, and as the evening progressed one may well Imagine that the musi cians, whose pay was mostly gathered from their happy hearers, were not slow to select such pieces as had a singable chorus. There was frequently a number of persons at the tables with good voices, and the audible result by no means to be despised. The large hotels, almost without exception, em ploy orchestras ranging in number from four to ten men. One of the mose prominent of these places estab lished an afternoon tea service a year or so ago, and the tea drinkers and muffin eaters beguiled an hour listen ing to the yodellng of a blue and white clad Tyrolean quartet, or the guitars and mandolins of a group of Neapolr ltans attired in spotless white trous ers, with gorgeous and voluminous sashes. Another well-known hotel en tertains its after-theater habitues in a palm garden, with seductive music by a hidden harpist. Another place down on the East Side seats its dinner guests at tables in a cellar, on one side of which great casks of wine are ranged, while at the further end of the cob-webbed room a band of gyp sies discourses the weird music of the Hungarian composers. BOOKS OF ADVENTURE, Myatrry mul i rliut* tlie Fnvurlt« I.If tra in r** of ConvIt U. New York World: Criminals, like the people of Htageland and of other professions that exact high nervous pressure, have their superstitions. Nothing Is better proof of the fact than the library list of tflng ding prison und a computation of the favorite books of men who have run the gamut of crime from murder to felony. In a two-' months' record out of the well-fur nished library of upward of 4,000 vol umes of science, travel, biography, re ligion and Action, the Intok that head* the list, with a circulation of 4H3, Is Charles l'e»4*'g "It |« Never Too latte To Mend." lever's "Charles O'Mal ley" |e a close second and (.ytton'g "l*anl Clifford" a* third show* th« standing of the gcutlemen highway man wlih the men of nl* calling A leg Duma*' "('mint of Monte Crlsto" was out UVO times lb those eight weeks, and the lilt ken* tenths which Contested its run mttel closely were 'Oliver Twist.** with Us fantou* history of Ittll Myk»s, and "A Tale of Two Cities," with Its **dr»v ('ation wl i v..|4 v an4 dte4 a hero The Mherlot k Hointea •lories of Conan I*, tie ami With!# Cd tins' Moonstone Woman In White" ami the l*ea4 4»t rti are in run si ant >1*matol (‘apt K eg and ('a|*( Marry* alt both h-tVv a strong following mol dtaaley Wsyntan't spirited romances, *o replete with in td«n(, •land ,1 1* hy side with Mark Twain* "Torn yet In tin animal urn of the prison reader*. The prospermia man who ts i,Ml busy to think <>f lied ts as ting 4ty #* ihu criminal whu Is two yb tvo* t > lo su. -* Ham’s I lor n.