Just before we entered the Maumee River, we passed a light house that had been erected on a bare and barren bank of sand, of about an acre in extent, which had risen up in the midst of the surrounding waters. On this barren spot there is a solitary dwelling, the residence, I presume, of the keeper of the light-house. There is something very striking in this lonely residence, pitched in the midst of a wild waste of waters, and forcibly reminded me of the state of the Christian in this life, whose habitation is often in some desolate place, some lonely spot amid a surrounding moral desert, but always where he can answer some useful end, can tend upon some light-house to direct the path of tempest-tost mariners towards the haven of rest.
We also touched in our way to Cleveland at Sandusky City and Huron. It was my original intention to stop at one of these places, and make an excursion through the northern part of Ohio, taking Gambier in my circuit. I felt an increased desire to visit that place, after learning as I did in Michigan, the important influence the institution there is silently exerting upon the west, but I found it necessary to deny myself this pleasure for the want of time. From what I heard of Kenyon College, I should think that the standard of attainment there was very high, and that they had wisely guarded against the custom too common in the west of hurrying the student through a rapid and superficial course of studies, and conferring upon him a degree at a time when he ought to be regarded as a sophomore. The course of studies at this institution is very thorough, and the faculty able and talented. Kenyon College cannot fail to prove a most powerful auxiliary to the cause of learning and religion in the west, and its influence for the interests of the Episcopal Church will be more extended than any of us of the present generation can compute.
With Cleveland I have been decidedly pleased. It is principally built on a high table of land, that looks boldly off upon the far-stretching and majestic waters of Erie. It has a population of about eight thousand; its houses are generally handsome and well built. It is separated from Ohio City by the Cuyahoga river, a stream into which the steamboats run up, which stop at Cleveland. Ohio City is a pleasant town, having between two and three thousand inhabitants. They are here erecting a fine stone edifice for an Episcopal Church. This place appears to bear the same relation to Cleveland that Brooklyn does to New York. Unhappily there is no small jealousy between the two places, which it is hoped the experience of a few years will cure. Some of the streets in the eastern part of Cleveland, looking off upon the lake, are beautiful beyond the power of description.
Niagara Falls, August 3d.
In passing from Cleveland to Buffalo over Erie's green waters, we touched at several interesting points, but I omit any description of them or of Buffalo, which has grown up into a large and beautiful city. I have spent the day most delightfully here, silently musing on these vast waters that leap with giant stride over this mighty precipice of rock. I had thought that these falls, when I first gazed upon them from Table Rock, some four years since, possessed all the conceivable elements of sublimity, but I never understood their full grandeur and majesty till I looked at them to-day, and remembered that the water of all those lakes upon which I had travelled more than a thousand miles, was pouring in one gathered column over that precipice! Then, immediately, I felt that the tremendous roar, that rose deafening around me, was the voice of God! I saw that it was His hand that had gathered those waters, and poured them with such resistless force over that vast precipice, and the thought then flashed upon my mind, "How will he speak to impenitent sinners when he riseth up to judgment? How will they escape from his mighty hand when he poureth out his fury like fire?"
Just then a rainbow met my eye that lay beautifully pencilled on the foaming flood below. I remembered it was the bow of promise; and new emotions of gratitude were waked up in my heart, when, at the very moment I was surrounded with such demonstrations of almighty power, and such vivid proof that God could with the breath of his mouth hurl the guilty down to bottomless perdition, I was reminded by the bow that lay on the bosom of the foaming gulf, that through the mercy of God in Christ there was a way for poor sinners to escape! Oh that they might be prevailed upon to lay hold of the hope set before them, and not rush madly on to the precipice of eternal death!