[Side note: Parting glance at the preacher's mission]

In parting we take a glance at the preacher's exalted mission,
and we may well ask: What in the whole range of human occupations
does this world hold worthy of being compared to it?

The battle-field, it is true, has its glories, but it has its
horrors also. Who can paint the pride with which Napoleon saw the
triumph of his skill crush two Emperors at Austerlitz or the
rapture with which he beheld the trophies of great kingdoms at
his feet? The fatigues of winter marches were forgotten when in
the fiery flashes of his veterans' eyes he read his own renown,
while their applauding shouts fell like music on his ears. But
blood soils the proudest trophies of war, and across the
perspective of victory the spectres of murdered men will stalk.

Human eloquence, too, has its conquests, the purest, the most
beautiful in the natural order. How the pride flush heightens on
the orator's cheek as he watches the crusts of prejudice melt and
hostile hearts surrender; when he marks the bated breath and the
hushed silence attesting his victory more eloquently than the
stormiest applause! He sees the varied moods of his own soul
mirrored in the faces around him, as he summons forth what spirit
he lists: tears or laughter, murmurs or applause answer to his
call.

What pen can picture the ecstasies that thrilled the soul of
Grattan as he gave utterance to the spirit of expiring freedom in
those orations that rank among the world's masterpieces? The
snows of age melted and the decrepitude of years was flung aside,