28 Wm. D. Fenton Wilbur at Taylor Street Church, October 30, 1887, speaking of him, said : "So long had he been a chief, if not the chief, figure in our Methodism on this coast, that it is not at all strange that his loss is so widely felt and unusually mourned His place in our church work was unique; and perhaps it might be said there was place for but one Father Wilbur in our work. His was a history and a work that can never be repeated, nor even imitated on this coast. He was essentially and by nature a pioneer." Summarizing what Dr. Hines has so well said of the man whom he knew, it may be said that Father Wilbur as an ad- ministrative and executive officer had rare discernment and force. His address was familiar, his carriage imposing, and his presence indicative of great will force. He was benevo^ lent to a fault, and for many years prior to his death it is said that he disbursed about $3,000 a year in benevolences, al- though he was a man of small fortune. By his will he be- queathed $10,000 to the Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, $10,000 to the Church Extension Society, and $10,000 to the Freedman's Aid Society, and the remainder of his estate, amounting to about $17,000, over and above these specific bequests, was bequeathed to Willamette University. Speaking of his work among the Indians, Dr. Hines said : "Twenty-two years of the life of James H. Wilbur were breathed out into what was such a moral desolation when he and his companions went there: Lost some would say, in the all-absorbing and unresponsive soul of paganism." And, while Dr. Flines dissents from this estimate of the sacrifice which Wilbur had made, it is debatable whether such a man should have made so great a sacrifice. A sense of natural justice and desire to bring light to a race in spiritual darkness, would prompt such men as Wilbur to give the best of their lives to such work. It is not true, as Dr. Hines has said, that "very much that was greatest in the character and most widely in- fluential in the life and reputation of Mr. Wilbur himself, was
the fruit and growth of that work and these years of conse-----
