MOORE’S RURAL NEW-YORKER: AN AGRICULTURAL AND FAMILY NEWSPAPER, 
I 3se thee, bright and beauteous star, 
In the regions of light anil glory afar, 
With glittering gems 
Of fiir diadem?, 
Which bedeck the sky on a starry night, 
In the clearness and beauty of dazzling light. 
I see thee, Heaven's celestial one, 
Tliou emblem of the rolling sun, 
Thou sparkling ray 
0 f the solar way, 
Which illumes and encircles the skies 
That in holy grandeur o'er us rise. 
I see thee, when Fancy will portray. 
That thou art the realm of endless day, 
That beings bright, 
Of fairy light, 
Inhabit thy clear and beautiful sphere, 
Which to the Garden of Heaven draws near. 
I Ree thee, and I fain would know, 
If joys as pure as spotless snow, 
Da ell ever there, 
In thy starry air, 
Where naught is heard but the chorus song 
Which is chanted by the angelic throng. 
I see thee, and methinks I hear 
The thrilling tones of voices dear, 
Of friends I love, 
In worlds above; 
In the lucid light of thy starry sky, 
Where the happy live and the pure ne’er die. 
Alexander, N. Y. Mrs. P. E. S. , 
KAIL-ROAD BRIDGE AT PORTAGE. 
d&fotttatiflttal. 
| Written for the Rural New-Yorker.l 
IMPORTANCE OF COMMON SCHOOLS. 
“Nothing but a common school, nothing 
but a common teacher, wliat hope can grow 
out of these opportunities?” This remark is 
not unfrequently made by a certain class, who 
put far more value upon the source, than upon 
the actual knowledge communicated. The 
rich and glowing shadow of a College, or 
“High-school,” has far more attraction than 
all the intrinsic value of every primary institu¬ 
tion of learning. 
Now, there is no particular power in any 
title which a learned faculty may bestow.— 
Colleges and schools can confer titles, but close 
and diligent application can alone give knowl¬ 
edge. Money may give station and influence, 
but intrinsic merit and worth can give true 
dignity to character. 
It is the peculiar property of education to 
make all things, around look better — to rub 
off the dross and rust accumulated upon the 
surface of things, and exhibit its own power 
and beauty in the work it performs; but a fair 
exterior, a sounding title, is no infallible proof 
of the thorough interior work, which is of 
primary importance. All our institutions of j 
learning are to be estimated according to their 
actual or relative benefit, and not from any 
pretensions or professions. It is the glory of 
our republicanism, that it establishes and 
patronizes so many institutions, designed to 
spread knowledge and morality over the land. 
And that this patronage is ‘ l common,'” that 
the poor as well as the rich may become 
learned and useful, is an interesting and pecu¬ 
liar feature in the policy of our government. 
The Common School syslem is a great and 
magnanimous scheme to bring all classes of 
mind under the influence of education. It is 
not to the Iligh-school and College alone that 
we owe those benignant influences, which ferti¬ 
lize and make glad the heritage of intellectual 
and moral development. These are powerful 
auxiliaries in the work of intellectual advance¬ 
ment, to be sure, but these are not the first; 
these are not, in my mind, of the greatest im¬ 
portance. The greatest men of our time, or 
many of them, have laid the foundation of 
their greatness in the common school. Daniel 
Webster, whose fame for intellectual greatness 
and power is woild-wide, took great pains when 
a boy, to avail himself of the advantages of a 
common school. It is said he walked daily 
three miles to attend a common school. There 
the basis was laid, there, perhaps, the corner¬ 
stone of the proud superstructure of his great¬ 
ness was placed. Who knows but the un¬ 
tiring and effective energy of his teacher, in 
connection with his own faithfulness, while in 
that common school, gave his mind the direc¬ 
tion towards the proud eminence upon which 
he stood in after life? No doubt it was by a 
practical use of those things taught there, that 
he became great. Franklin Pierce, who 
now occupies the proudest eminence of worldly 
fame, spent many of his youthful days in a 
common school. And you will now find him 
the warm friend of that system of education. 
The common school is to the development 
of the human mind, what the hand of a careful 
mother is in the parental management and 
training. It is the nursery, the place in which 
the die is cast, and the impression made in a 
multitude of minds. But the very thing that 
renders common schools unpopular with a cer¬ 
tain class, is their chief excellence and glory, 
and that is because they are common. They 
are planted upon the general basis of the edu¬ 
cation of man — the development of mind.— 
As far as the peculiar privileges and advanta¬ 
ges which they afford go, they are a distin¬ 
guished leveler of the human race. The boy 
or girl whose fortune it may be to have been 
born of poor parents, is here made equal to 
the most affluent. This is the reason why 
many who make money the basis of character 
and knowledge, talk of common schools with 
such apparent indifference. The “poor boy” 
is obliged to endure the name of being educated 
in a “common school”—of having nothing 
but a “ common school education.” But there 
is not unfrequently an unmistakable illustration 
of the misapplication of terms in future life. 
Go with them through life — follow them 
along amid its responsibilities and cares, and 
you will see the boy who has grown to man¬ 
hood amid the false flatteries of affluence, re¬ 
lying mainly upon money for his fancied great¬ 
ness and intellectual development, very poorly 
qualified to meet the stern realities of life.— 
But the lad of a “ common school education,” 
who has arisen by the power of close applica¬ 
tion, comes to the arduous duties of manhood 
with a ready and able hand. lie knows where 
he is, and how he came there. He has marked 
his way step by step. He knows every inch 
of eminence he has gained. It has been no 
miracle — no phenomenon. He toiled and he 
has conquered. This is the sequel to his suc¬ 
cess — no matter where, no matter how—only 
“get wisdom.” J. W. Barker. 
Brockport, N. Y. 
[Written for Moore's Rural New-Yorker.] 
LINE3 TO A STAR. 
t Crabehr. 
[Written for the Rural New-Yorker.] 
PORTAGE FALLS. 
No one who is fond of gazing at the more 
striking exhibitions of Nature’s grandeur and 
beauty, who has ever visited the falls of our 
fair Genesee, at Portage, has failed to be deep¬ 
ly impressed with the view. These Falls, sit¬ 
uated about fourteen miles from the village of 
Mt. Morris, and a short distance bTlow Port- 
ageville, are three in number, distinguished as 
the Upper, Middle, and Lower Falls. The 
Upper Falls, by the constant action of the 
water, have, within a short time, assumed a cir¬ 
cular form, which has given to them the name of 
the Horse-Shoe Falla The bank upon the 
west side, stretching upward from the channel 
of the river to the height of more than two ! 
hundred feet, with its broad side of rugged 
rock, here and there decked with some wan¬ 
dering Evergreen or Wild Honey-Suckle, pre¬ 
sents to the eye of an attentive observer, a 
grand and imposing aspect. The great body 
of the water is thrown over the eastern side of 
the precipice, which is about eighty feet in 
height, and, raging and foaming in the great 
reservoir beneath, the iris-forming spray is 
thrown to a great distance above and around, 
and the surface of the river far 1 down, is cover¬ 
ed with the white foam. What now makes a 
visit to these falls still more desirable, is the 
immense bridge, eight hundred feet in length, 
and nearly two hundred and fifty feet from the 
bed of the river, over which passes the Buffalo 
and N. Y. City Railroad. The eastern bank 
is far less rugged and steep; but the spray, 
continually falling upon it like gentle showers, 
gives it through all the summer months, the 
appearance of early spring time. 
Passing down the river a short distance, we 
come to the Middle Falls, which in general 
appearance differs but little from the Upper. 
Here, spanning the whole width of the river 
with its broad arch, may be often seen a beau¬ 
tiful rainbow. Though inferior, perhaps, in 
several respects to the Upper Falls, there is, 
however, associated with them something which 
has rendered them quite as famous. Nearly 
under the Falls, and on the western side, is a 
wide-yawning chasm in the solid rock, said to 
extend inwards nearly sixty feet, which from 
time immemorial has received the strange name 
of “The Devil’s Hole.” I must acknowledge 
myself totally unprepared to account for the 
origin of this strange cognomen, unless it be 
that that aged gentleman himself took up his 
residence there in those times when hideous 
visages, horns, cloven-feet, and unaccountable 
long tails were to be seen in every cave and 
mountain-glen. Be this as it may, this is a 
fitting place (if we mortals are allowed to judge 
of such things) for the “ Prince of Darkness ” 
to conceive and consummate his fiendish machi- 
nationa Notwithstanding these horrid associ¬ 
ations— or for that very reason —many a 
daring navigator has cheerfully endured a wet 
skin from the falling spray, in order to get a 
peep into this mysterious cavern. Below, the 
banks on both sides are rugged and steep, ris¬ 
ing to the height of more than two hundred 
feet Along the eastern bank, at that giddy 
height, passes the Genesee Valley Canal, at in¬ 
tervals passing through wooden trunks or 
ducts, which have the appearance of being 
fastened upon the edge of that awful precipice. 
Stand upon one of these, and look far down 
into the channel of the river below, its breadth 
dwindles to that of a mere brooklet — a man 
becomes a pigmy, and a boy somewhat less 
than a pigmy. 
Still farther down the river are the Lower 
Falls, which, in the richness of their natural 
scenery, far surpass the others. These are not 
like the others, perpendicular, but the waters 
tumble down the sloping rocks for some dist¬ 
ance, before they fall into the channel below. 
Where they begin to descend, the width of 
the river gradually decreases, until the whole 
body of waters, pressed into the compass of 
about twenty feet, through a channel which 
they have hewn out for themselves in the solid 
rock, rushes with impetuous fury down the de¬ 
clivity, writhing and foaming in their mad 
career, as if endeavoring to wreak their ven¬ 
geance on the stubborn rocks. Here, finding a 
horizontal bed, the waters, ere they are done 
boiling and foaming, are thrown full against a 
towering rock, and turning at right angles arc 
finally precipitated into the river below. 
Formerly the whole valley constituted the 
channel, and the waters had but one fall, and 
that a perpendicular one. No rocks, rugged 
and barren, are here to be seen on either side; 
but the banks, gradually sloping upwards, are 
covered with trees and shrubs, whose green 
foliage, in the glad summer time, presents every 
shade of color to delight the eye and inspire 
the brush of the painter. Niagara herself,' 
with all her world-wide glory, cannot boast of 
such beauty, as is collected here. Niagara 
may awe her votaries by her sublimity, but 
these please with their great beauty. Art, 
with its degenerating influence, has never en¬ 
tered this retreat of Nature; and the old forest 
trees stand unshorn of their ancient glory, and 
make music to the passing breezes, as when the 
wild Savage first launched his bark canoe upon 
these waters. Untratnmeled by modern inno¬ 
vation, here Nature utters a language all hei 
own, and thus she talks with man. 
On the north side (for the river has assumed 
a different course) is a broad rock, on which 
the stream once ran, and from its tabular ap¬ 
pearance has been called “Table Rock.” It 
is a venerable specimen of its kind. Its aged 
face has glistened with many a joyous pic-nic 
party, in which sweet-cakes, ice-cream, and 
jokes between merry “ lads ” and smiling 
“ lasses,” formed the chief feature. For many 
years, no Fourth of July has found this Table 
destitute of the choicest viands the country 
could afford; and for weeks after the birds dine 
on “dainties.” There is probably no spot in 
our section of the country, where are concen¬ 
trated so many objects of real interest and 
beauty—so many objects to attract the travel¬ 
er, as at “Portage Falls” and the vicinity; 
and no one who has once paid them a visit, at 
that season when Nature having doffed her 
wintry garments, and assumed the bright green 
dress of summer, will fail to return often to this ' 
lovely spot. s. a. e. 
Nunda, N. Y., 1854. 
There is to me a daintiness about early 
flowers, that touches me like poetry. They 
blow out with such a .single loveliness among 
the common herbs of pastures, and breathe 
their lives so unobtrusively, like hearts whose 
beatings are too gentle for the world.— JY. P. 
Willis. _ 
Constantinople has been besieged twenty- 
four times—eighteen times without success.— 
The place is one of the easiest to defend in the 
world, and Nicholas would find it hard woik to 
get inside of its walls afier he had reached their 
outside. 
RULES TO AVOID RAILWAY ACCIDENTS. 
In the last number of a very useful publica¬ 
tion called The Museum of Science and Art, Dr. 
Lurdner publishes the following: 
PLAIN RULES FOR TRAVELERS 
1. Never attempt to get into or out of a 
railway carriage while it is moving, no matter 
how slowly. 
2. Never sit in an unusual place or posture. 
3. It is an excellent general maxim in rail¬ 
way traveling, to remain in your place with¬ 
out going out at all until you arrive at your 
destination. When this cannot be done you 
go out as seldom as possible. 
4. Never get out at the wrong side of a rail¬ 
way carriage. 
5. Never pass from one side of the railway 
to the other, except when it is indispensably 
necessary to do so, and then not without the 
utmost precaution. 
6. Express trains are attended with more 
danger than o dinary trains. Those who de¬ 
sire the greatest degree of security should use 
them only when great speed is in lispensable. 
7. Special trains, excursion tuains and all 
other exceptional trains on railways are to be 
avoided, being more unsafe than the ordinary 
and regular trains. 
8. If the train with which you travel meet 
with an accident by which it is stopped at a 
part of the line, or at a time, when such stop¬ 
page is not regular, it is more advisable to 
quit the carriage ratlu r than to stay in it, but 
in quitting it remember rules 1, 4 and o. 
9. Beware of yielding to the sudden impulse 
to spring from the carriage to recover your 
hat which has blown off, or a parcel dropped. 
10. When you start on a journey, select if 
you can, a carriage at, or near as possible to, the 
centre of the train. 
11. Do not attempt to hand an article into 
a train in motion. 
12. When you can choose your time, travel 
by day rather than by night; and if not urgent¬ 
ly pressed, do not travel in foggy weather. 
THE GREAT NAVIES OF THE WORLD. 
We find in our exchanges a table showing 
the extent of the five first navies in the world, 
it purports to come from a pamphlet publish¬ 
ed by an intelligent American naval officer, and 
is doubtless correct, or nearly so. Here it is: 
Vessels of War. No. of Guns. 
England.607.* • •.13,380 
France.338.7.J44 
Russia.170.5,h!)6 
Holland.102..2.319 
United Stales.09. 2,029 
The same writer says: 
“ I find from the British navy List of 1852, 
that the government of Great Britain had 480 
war vessels, besides those employed for harbor 
and coast defence, of which there are quite a 
large number. They do not, according to my 
computation, amount to quite so large a num¬ 
ber as that stated above. But since the list 
was prepared an addition has been made, in 
view of the Russo-Turkish war, which would 
doubtless make the number as great as that 
stated above. Great Britain has now, accord¬ 
ing to a statement in an English paper, two 
i hundred and two Steam vessels of war, or fif¬ 
ty-five thousand three hundred horse power. 
According to our last Navy Register, the 
United States have two thousand one hundred 
and fifteen guns, instead of two thousand and 
twenty-nine, as stated above. It is clear that 
the United States, with a commerce and ton- 
| nage equal to that of Great Britain, has only 
about one-eighth of her naval force. This is 
! too great a disparity. What would she do 
against England and France combined?”— 
Journal of Commerce. 
Whiskey-drinking never conducted wealth 
’ into a man’s pocket, happiness to his family, or 
respectability to his character—therefore whis¬ 
key is a non-conductor, and it is best to let it 
I alone. 
TnE following sketch of a country parson¬ 
age—such a one as our dominies need—is 
from the pen of T. L. Guyler: 
While at Boylston, I enjoyed very much a 
visit to one of the quiet and tasteful rural par¬ 
sonages, such as neotle in many a shady court¬ 
yard throughout Yankee land. It was a place 
to study Edwards in—to write calm and tlio’t- 
ful discourses, undisturbed by the buzzing of a 
fly—a place, as “ Mercy” says, in the immortal 
allegory, “to think, and to break at heart,and 
to melt in one's spirit.” This sweet haunt, sa¬ 
cred to theology and quietude, is but a type of 
a thousand others. In just such a one, only 
a few miles distant from Boylston, the patri¬ 
arch Emmons spent his fifty years of patient 
toil, seldom moving during the four and twenty 
busy hours from that study-table, where his 
sharp eye pored over mighty folios, and his 
steady hand wrote out whole reams of “ New 
Divinity.” It was from such sequestered man¬ 
ses that the Hopkinses and Smalleys and Bel¬ 
lamys ruled for nearly a century over a large 
portion of New England Israel. Books have 
been written under the shadow of those old 
elms, that will live when the ancient trees 
themselves shall have fallen piecemeal to the 
earth. The “Freedom of the Will” and the 
immortal “Treatise on the Affections” were 
bom in one of these silent nooks, and their 
fame has gone out into all lands. 
I wish that every church in our wide bor¬ 
ders had just such a manse as this one which 
so charmed my fancy. Oh! how much better 
sermons the congregations would have if they 
gave their pastors such places to prepare them. 
m! 1 observed that the good minister had his 
yard filled with w ell-laden fruit trees, where he 
might “sit down under the shadow with great 
delight, and find the fruit sweet to his taste.” 
Across the graveled walk was reared an arbor, 
which reminded me of the one under which the 
pilgrim rested when he had clambered up the 
hill Difficulty—and it was overhung with a 
vine whose *• tender grapes gave forth a goodly 
smell.” Hard by the parsonage was the village 
church; and how while it was! How green 
was the tidy churchyard! How hospitable 
looked the long array of sheds for meeting¬ 
going horses! llow nicely swept and garnish¬ 
ed was the cool interior of that church! And 
what a place to worship the God of order and 
of love it was! Peace be within thee, sweet, 
lowly sanctuary; and may the well-guarded 
fiock who are led through these green pas¬ 
tures, and who feed by these waters of quiet¬ 
ness, gather once more about their shepherd 
beside the river that Jloweth out of the throne 
of God and of the Lamb. 
THE HOUSE OF GOD. 
The glory of a sacred edifice lies not in its 
vaulted roof, and lofty spire, and pealing or¬ 
gan, but in the glory that fills the house—the 
divine presence; not in its fabric of goodly 
stones, but in its living stones, polished by the 
hand of the Spirit; nut in its pointed windows, 
but in its Gospel light; not in its choir of 
singing men and of singing women, but in the 
music of well tuned hearts; not in its sacred 
priesthood, but in the great High Priest. If 
every stone were a diamond, and every beam 
a cedar, every window a crystal, and every 
door a pearl; if the roof were studded with 
sapphire, and the floor tesseluted with all 
manner of precious stones; and yet if Christ 
and the Spirit be not there, the building has 
no glory. The house of God must have a 
glory beyond what Solomon’s cunning work¬ 
men can give it, even the Lord Got), who is 
“the glory thereof.”— Remains of Rev. Wil¬ 
liam Jackson. 
I riTY the unbeliever. He sees nothing 
above, around, or beneath him, that evinces 
the existence of a God; he denies.—yea, while 
standing on the footstool of Omnipotence, and 
while gazing upon the dazzling throne of the 
Eternal, he shuts his intellect to the light of 
reason, and denies there is a God. — Chal- 
I am a man of peace. God knows I love 
peace. But I hope 1 shall never be such a 
coward as to mistake oppression for peace.— 
Kossuth. 
Those who obey divine precepts, shall have 
the comfort of divine promises. 
In connection with the communication of this height the fall below of eighty feet, the | thousand dollars. Two hundred and fifty acres 
our correspondent, S. A. E., describing the fine spectator looks out of a car window, at the j of heavily timbered land weic denu cd to 
scenery at Portage, we republish an illustration moment of transit, a distance sheer down of i furnish the materials, and the frame-work is 
of the magnificent Railroad Bridge which over three hundred ! The fall is not in sight j fastened together with no less than sixty tons 
spans the Genesee just above the verge of the upon the plate, as the view is taken from a j of iron bolts. 
Upper Falls. This Bridge was constructed for point above the bridge, and on the left bank, All that our correspondent says of Portage 
the Buffalo & New York City Railroad, at the looking down the stream. j Falls is true, and there are few localities either 
height of two hundred and thirty-four feet This gigautic structure is a triumph of engi- j in or out of the State, that furnishes more 
above the bed of the stream, and, adding to neering skill, and cost one hundred and forty 1 sublime or interesting scenery. 
