Near by lay the proud Oregon, apparently boasting that she had tried her strength, and was now willing to contest the point with the stranger boat, and be her pilot down the Sound.  Her decks, too, were crowded with passengers anxious for the approaching race, for which every preparation was making.

The sun was sinking towards the west, and shed his subduing beams over the face of nature.  No cloud hung its fleecy curtains over the canopy of heaven, but the arch of cerulean blue hung in deep solemn grandeur over the gathered crowd, over the boats at their moorings, and over the rippling waves that mirrored back its placid smile from their own tranquil bosom.

The hour came, the cheerful bells pealed their cordial invitation for all to come on board, and so they hastened on; the second bell rang its departure to the multitude on the shore, and soon the sound of the fierce steam whistle, the noise of the machinery, and the splash of the waters, told that the boats were moving like a thing of life over the bounding billows.  The officers of the boat and many of the passengers were hurrying round, with busy feet, and using necessary efforts to propel their speed.  As a bird cuts the air or an arrow wings its feathery course, so sped the boats upon their onward way.

The crowd on the shore watched them till they became small black specks in the distance, and then the tumultuous tide of human life turned towards the city’s mart, and mingled again in its busy fluctuations and its change.

There was a delightful view as the boat passed the beautiful villages and elegant mansions of the wealthy citizens upon the surrounding shore, reflecting the mild radiance of the setting sun.

When the shadows of twilight deepened, and the sable curtains of night hid more distant objects from view, we could see in the dim distance upon the waste of waters, the heated steam pipes of the swift Atlantic, shedding a lurid glare upon the surrounding darkness.

By some failure in the fire works of the Oregon, one of the boilers refused to do its office, and it was a fearful sight to some on board to witness the high pressure principle that was applied to the other to raise the steam.  The blue sky was above us and the blue waters beneath, and midnight shed her mysterious shapes and phantom shadows around us, and awoke memories of steamboat disasters and perishing crews sinking into a watery grave.

The ill-fated Lexington that was burned upon this very track, came up, haunting the imagination with wild, fantastic dreams.

But turning from a land of fancies and of shadows, we raised a trusting eye to the glittering host of silent stars that glistened in all their matchless beauty in heaven’s blue vault above, then listened to the dashing of the briny wave, and felt that God was there, that His eye slumbereth not, and His hand holds not only individual life, but the destinies of nations, and at this solemn midnight hour, when there was no object of His creative power in sight save the spangled arch above and the foaming waters beneath, it was sweet to look up to Him in confidence and trust, feeling that His Almighty arm is omnipotent to save.