thither. Such was his faith. In excess of world-wisdom we say, "Eternity
is here and now." Well and good. But if we lose for a kind of
technicality the dear old trust in a higher and nobler life beyond the
swift-coming night of death, what have we gained? Said our beloved
preacher, our "Saint of the Pacific Coast," as he lay dying, "I see a
great future before me." Without that vision he would not have been
Starr King.



Part V
In Retrospect



Above that of all other men the fame of the orator is transient.
Eloquence may be "logic on fire" as Dr. Lyman Beecher defined it.
Oratory may be, as Emerson said, "the noblest expression of purely
personal energy." But it is so far personal, so allied to grace of
gesture, to charm of manner, to melody of voice, to perfection of
speech, to a commanding presence, that it carries to the future but a
fraction of its power. The cold type and the insentiate page constitute
at best only the record of nature's rarest gift.

Moreover oratory today is at its ebb, as it has been a hundred times
before, and with us the man of eloquence passes to quick oblivion. It
would be futile to deny that the common fate of orators has overtaken
Starr King. Even in California the present generation knows painfully
little of his great services to the State. This is the first serious
attempt, let us hope it will not be the last, accurately to measure the