Opposite Pittsburg--that is, across the Alleghany River--is Alleghany, which of itself would make quite a large city. It is at least as large as New-Haven, or Salem, or, perhaps, Troy. And now, though I am soon to proceed, yet as the cars are not yet ready, I have a little time for reflection, and I avail myself of it. The world, itself, seems to me like a great steamboat--larger, indeed, than the Pittsburg, and yet a huge passenger-boat. People are continually coming on board, and continually leaving it. To-day we form an acquaintance with a few of the vast variety of faces we see; to-morrow, perhaps, they are separated from us, to go, we know not whither. One striking difference there is in the two cases. When the passengers separated at Pittsburg--and so also of other separations at Wheeling and other places below--it was not with a certainty that the separation was final, for this world. There was, at the least, a possibility of meeting again, somewhere, and at some time. But when we separate in the great steamboat of the world at the verge of eternity, when we step forth upon its immeasurable shore, it is with positive certainty of meeting no more in this world. We _may_ meet again--we shall, most undoubtedly. We shall meet at the sound, not of the little bell to which we are accustomed on board the boats of Western rivers, but of the trump of God. We shall meet, but it will be at the general judgment. We shall meet, but it will be in the immediate presence of God. Will our meeting be a pleasant one? Will it be pleasant to all, or only to a part? And who will be the happy ones, and who the unhappy? Shall you, reader, or I, be of the former number; or shall it be our lot to be of the latter? God, in his mercy in Christ, has left the matter to our own choice. This is right, is it not? He has made us free to choose about other matters--why not about this? He certainly would not compel us to a joyful meeting. Be it our first business, then, our great business, our only business, so to conduct while on the passage-boat of life, that whether we are sailing on the Ohio River, or traveling elsewhere, we may always be found in the path of duty, and always ready for anything whatever to which we may be called, here or hereafter. THE END. End of Project Gutenberg's Three Days on the Ohio River, by William A. Alcott