But the brief strut of his life is about over. Up-stairs--he dies. No angel wings hovering about him. No gospel promises kindling up the darkness;--but exquisite embroidery, elegant pictures, and a bust of Shakespeare on the mantel. The pulses stop. The minister comes in to read of the Resurrection, that day when the dead shall come up--both he that died on the floor, and he that expired under princely upholstery. He is carried out to burial. Only a few mourners, but a great array of carriages. Not one common man at the funeral. No befriended orphan to weep a tear upon his grave. No child of want pressing through the ranks of the weeping, saying--"He is the last friend I have; and I must see him." What now? He was a great man: Shall not chariots of salvation come down to the other side of the Jordan, and escort him up to the palace? Shall not the angels exclaim--"Turn out! a prince is coming." Will the bells chime? Will there be harpers with their harps, and trumpeters with their trumpets? No! No! No! There will be a shudder, as though a calamity had happened. Standing on heaven's battlement, a watchman will see something shoot past, with fiery downfall, and shriek: "Wandering star--for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever!" With the funeral pageant the brilliant career terminated. There was a great array of carriages. AFTER MIDNIGHT. When night came down on Babylon, Nineveh, and Jerusalem, they needed careful watching, otherwise the incendiary's torch might have been thrust into the very heart of the metropolitan splendor; or enemies, marching from the hills, might have forced the gates. All night long, on top of the wall and in front of the gates, might be heard the measured step of the watchman on his solitary beat; silence hung in air, save as some passer-by raised the question: "Watchman, what of the night?" It is to me a deeply suggestive and solemn thing to see a man standing guard by night. It thrilled through me, as at the gate of an arsenal in Charleston, the question once smote me, "Who comes there?" followed by the sharp command: "Advance and give the countersign." Every moral teacher stands on picket, or patrols the wall as watchman. His work is to sound the alarm; and whether it be in the first watch, in the second watch, in the third watch, or in the fourth watch, to be vigilant until the daybreak flings its "morning glories" of blooming cloud across the arching trellis of the sky. The ancients divided their night into four parts--the first watch, from six to nine; the second, from nine to twelve; the third, from twelve to three; and the fourth, from three to six. I speak now of the city in the third watch, or from twelve to three o'clock.