RING 
 
 ■'RE AC HER, 
 
 \A/trMriTP 
 
-.^r^mT^ 
 
 ^?R 10 1931 . 
 
 V. 
 
 '^fr. 
 
 :ALSt 
 
 .t^\^> 
 
 BX 9869 .K5 W4 1921 
 Wendte, Charles William, 
 
 1844-1931. 
 Thomas Starr King, patriot 
 
« GREEN STREET 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 Patriot and Preacher 
 
 7. SREEN STREEX 
 
BROTHERS' fl'- / 
 
 iV. GREEN STREET 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 Patriot and Preacher 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES W. WENDTE 
 
 Nationality and Humanity are equally sacred. 
 To forget humanity is to suppress the aim of 
 our labors ; to cancel the nation is to suppress 
 the instrument by which to achieve the aim. 
 
 Joseph Mazzini. 
 
 THE BEACON PRESS 
 
 BOSTON -:- MASSACHUSETTS 
 
 L 
 
 '^ G^^SN 
 
 sr/$ 
 
 ^^27/ 
 
Copyright, 1921, by 
 THE BEACON PRESS, Inc. 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
TO 
 
 DAVID STARR JORDAN 
 
 IN 
 ADMIRATION AND FRIENDSHIP 
 
 iT. GREEN STREET 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 Foreword 
 
 FAGB 
 
 xi 
 
 PART I 
 THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 OHAPTEB 
 
 I Antecedents and Education . 
 
 II In the Ministry 
 
 III On the Lecture Platform 
 
 IV Call and Transfer to California 
 V The New Field in San Francisco 
 
 VI Lecturing on the Pacific Coast 
 VII A Eulogist of California Scenery 
 
 3 
 17 
 49 
 69 
 86 
 no 
 120 
 
 PART II 
 ORATOR AND PATRIOT 
 
 I Patriotic Activities 153 
 
 II Oratorical Campaign for the Union . 179 
 
 III Dedication of the New Church . . . 207 
 
 IV Death of the Patriot and Teacher . 213 
 V In Appreciation 221 
 
 i7 GREEN STREET] 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Portrait of Thomas Starr King . . . Frontispiece 
 
 Starr King Mountain, White Hills, New Hampshire 62 
 
 Mt. Starr King, Yosemite, Sierra Nevada . . .148 
 
 Statue of Starr King, Golden Gate Park, San Fran- 
 cisco 210 
 
 Church and Tomb of Thomas Starr King in San 
 Francisco 220 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 My first acquaintance with Thomas Starr King 
 was when, in the spring of 1861, a youth of seventeen, 
 accompanied by my widowed mother and younger 
 brother, I arrived in San Francisco, by way of the 
 Isthmus of Panama, in search of health and oppor- 
 tunity. Our family physician had warned me to ex- 
 change at once the harsh climate of my native city 
 of Boston for the sunshine and out-of-door life of 
 California. I had little or no acquaintance with con- 
 ditions on the Pacific Coast. My only reliance was 
 on the Providence which had hitherto guided our 
 family destinies, and my earnest purpose and modest 
 capacity for service. Kind friends had provided me 
 with letters of introduction to residents of San Fran- 
 cisco. One of these addressed to the Rev. Thomas 
 Starr King of that city proved to be the golden 
 key which not only opened to me the riches of his 
 opulent and generous nature, but also the door of 
 social, business and religious opportunity. 
 
 On landing, our little family found a temporary 
 abiding place. The next step was to present our 
 letters of introduction and seek some bread-winning 
 employment. 
 
 I was fortunate enough to secure employment for 
 a few weeks as Secretary of the San Francisco Board 
 
 [xi] 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 of Port Wardens, a position which had become va- 
 cant. At the close of this brief term, however, the 
 Democratic incumbents would go out of office, the 
 Union party having triumphed at the recent state 
 election. The incoming governor, Hon. Leland 
 Stanford, would have the appointment of the new 
 board and its secretary. The duties of the latter 
 office proved to be congenial and not exacting. The 
 salary attached to the place would enable me to sup- 
 port my mother and myself and put an end to our 
 domestic anxiety. The desire to retain the position 
 naturally arose. But I had rendered no party serv- 
 ice whatever, and hence, according to the political 
 ethics of that day, had no claim on the office. Only 
 one possibility remained. Thomas Starr King, who 
 had come to California the year previous, had al- 
 ready made himself widely influential through his 
 eloquence and patriotism. The recent success of the 
 Union cause at the polls was in no slight degree at- 
 tributable to him. The incoming governor was his 
 personal friend and parishioner. If now Mr. King 
 were to ask for this small post for me it would surely 
 not be denied him. But could a newcomer like my- 
 self, known to him only through a letter of introduc- 
 tion, venture to ask such a favor? The necessities 
 of the situation made me bold. Mr. King had re- 
 ceived me kindly and expressed an interest in our 
 family fortunes. He and his wife had called upon 
 us. He had inquired about my studies and aims in 
 life. I felt encouraged, therefore, to appeal to the 
 
 [xii] 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 man whose discourses on Sunday and expressions of 
 personal good-will had given me an exalted idea of 
 his intellectual and moral qualities and his goodness 
 of heart. 
 
 Mr. King received me with cordiality, and listened 
 sympathetically to my story and timid suggestion of 
 his possible ability to aid me in this critical juncture 
 of my life. He assured me of his readiness to do all 
 in his power to further my aim, and that he felt par- 
 ticularly drawn to it because he himself when a youth 
 of sixteen had secured a similar office in the Charles- 
 town Navy Yard, which had enabled him to support 
 his mother and sister for some years until he entered 
 his present profession. He felt he had been of some 
 aid to the Union cause in California by his public 
 addresses. Governor Stanford was to be in town the 
 very next day. He would call upon him and ask my 
 appointment. It was very uncertain. The position 
 might already be disposed of. I must indulge in no 
 undue hopes. He would do his best for me. It was 
 arranged that I should call on Mr. King in the eve- 
 ning of the next day and learn the result of his inter- 
 view with the Governor. 
 
 The next day was an anxious one. So much de- 
 pended on its issue for me and mine. At noon a 
 terrific storm burst over the city. The rain fell in 
 torrents, overflowing the lower streets, while the surg- 
 ing waters of the bay swept over the wharves. Alone 
 in the office, I mechanically put the records in the 
 safe and waited for the fury of the storm to subside 
 
 [xiii] 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 before venturing homeward. I was indescribably 
 sad. My usual hopefulness had entirely deserted me. 
 Suddenly I was surprised to hear a sharp rap at the 
 door. I opened it, and there without, to my amaze- 
 ment, stood Starr King, his cheeks flushed, his lumi- 
 nous eyes filled with joy, and his hand extended as he 
 cried: "It's all right, my boy! It's all right! I've 
 seen Governor Stanford. He was very cordial, and 
 you are to retain your position for the two years of 
 his administration. I congratulate you. I'm so 
 glad!" But I, though rejoicing at the happy news, 
 could see only the rain-drops that dripped from his 
 long, lank hair and saturated garments: "O, Mr. 
 King, why did you come so far in such a deluge to 
 tell me this? Why, I was to call on you this evening 
 and learn my fate!" "Never mind, my dear fellow. 
 It's only a little rain — my umbrella was blown to 
 bits at the corner. I knew you must be very anxious 
 to learn the result of my interview with the Governor, 
 so I came right down to tell you. I thought I might 
 make you happy a few hours earlier." 
 
 Such was Starr King! It is no wonder that the 
 men and women, both East and West, who had the 
 privilege of his friendship were attached to him with 
 a devotion which neither death nor the lapse of years 
 can diminish, and treasure his memory with gratitude, 
 as an inspiration for their higher faith in goodness 
 and an incentive to nobler living. 
 
 The narration of this incident, which in his early 
 manhood brought the writer close to the generous 
 
 [xiv] 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 heart of Starr King, will make better understood the 
 tribute to that eminent man which follows this intro- 
 duction. The friendly regard thus displayed at the 
 outset Mr. King continued to show throughout the 
 remainder of his brief life on earth, with an ever- 
 increasing veneration on the part of the younger man 
 for the brilliant gifts, the public services and personal 
 character of his pastor and friend. Just before Mr. 
 King's lamented death, as I afterwards learned, he 
 had interceded with the new governor-elect, that I 
 might retain my position, a request which was 
 granted. The whole tenor of my life was changed 
 and determined by my acquaintance with Starr King. 
 I eagerly availed myself of my opportunities to hear 
 him preach and lecture, listening with delight to his 
 great orations in behalf of the Union and the Consti- 
 tution in that critical hour of American, and espe- 
 cially of Californian history. I sought his society 
 and counsel. His death was the first great sorrow 
 of my life, and the impression produced upon me by 
 his character and career so profound, that not long 
 after I decided to give up all thoughts of a business 
 future and devote myself to the vocation of a Liberal 
 Christian minister. Returning to the East I gradu- 
 ated from the Harvard Divinity School in 1869 with 
 the fixed purpose of returning to California to labor 
 for the ideal causes which Starr King had represented 
 in his life and ministry. But it was not until nearly 
 twenty years later that I was enabled to carry out 
 these plans. Returning to the Pacific States for 
 
 [XV] 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 twelve years of ministerial and public service, I 
 sought everywhere and always to magnify the person- 
 ality and career of Starr King as the type of religion 
 and citizenship demanded by the young civilization 
 of the Coast. 
 
 It was a privilege to renew acquaintance with the 
 surviving family and friends of Mr. King, and espe- 
 cially to take an active part in the popular movement 
 to honor his memory which led to the erection, in 
 1892, of a noble statue and monument to this Chris- 
 tian patriot of California in the great public park of 
 San Francisco which overlooks the Golden Gate, and 
 at whose unveiling I uttered the dedicatory prayer. 
 
 One other service I fain would have rendered the 
 memory of my friend, the preparation of an adequate 
 biography of him, for which I had begun to collect 
 materials. 
 
 His surviving family were divided in opinion as 
 to the advisability of a more extended life of Mr. 
 King than the admirable but all too brief memoir by 
 Edwin P. Whipple which had been prefixed, at their 
 instance, to the published collection of Mr. King's 
 orations and discourses. 
 
 In the meantime the interest in Mr. King's career 
 and public services has not diminished but increased. 
 Constant references are made to his personal gifts 
 and qualities, and his religious and patriotic activities 
 during the great Civil War as one of the moral foun- 
 ders of the new Commonwealth of California. Vari- 
 ous addresses and monographs have appeared on the 
 
 [xvi] 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 subject. In my own case a lecture on this congenial 
 theme has been delivered all over the Eastern and 
 Western States of the Union. The interest it has 
 called forth, especially in these recent years of world 
 war for freedom, righteousness and democracy, has 
 encouraged the writer to amplify and put into per- 
 manent form this personal tribute to the hero of his 
 younger days. The narrative is enriched by the in- 
 clusion of as yet unpublished letters of Mr. King to 
 his friends: also by extracts from Mr. King's journal 
 of his voyage, via the Isthmus of Panama, in i860, 
 to San Francisco, and his letters to the Boston Eve- 
 ning Transcript on California scenery and life, as 
 well as by illustrative citations from his writings. 
 
 The author ventures to hope that these features 
 may contribute to a fuller knowledge and better ap- 
 preciation of this champion of Nationality as the ap- 
 pointed way to World-Brotherhood, and of Patriot- 
 ism as an exalted virtue of individual character and 
 civil society, and so help to inspire a future genera- 
 tion, as it has aided in redeeming a past one. 
 
 Acknowledgments are due to many friends who 
 have aided his undertaking, especially to Miss Flor- 
 ence Cushman, a niece, and the Misses Wiggin, of 
 Newton, relatives of Starr King. 
 
 Charles W. Wendte. 
 
 [xvii] 
 
PART I 
 THOMAS STARR KING 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 ANTECEDENTS AND EDUCATION 
 
 THOMAS STARR KING, patriot and 
 preacher of Civil War fame, lying on his 
 death-bed in San Francisco in the fortieth 
 year of his age, said sadly, as he thought of his friends 
 on the other side of the continent: ^'To-day is the 
 fourth of March. Sad news will go over the wires 
 to-day." A few moments later, after a touching 
 farewell to his family and friends about his bedside, 
 with avowals of trust in the Eternal and full assur- 
 ance of immortal life, this champion of country and 
 humanity passed calmly away, leaving not only his 
 friends, but the state, the nation, in sorrow at the loss 
 of one of the most eloquent advocates of the national 
 idea and the virtues of patriotism in American his- 
 tory. 
 
 There is no danger that those among the living who 
 were permitted to know Mr. King personally and 
 were eye-witnesses of his public career will ever for- 
 get that gifted and radiant being. They treasure 
 the memory of his unspotted life, his ardent love of 
 country, and his eloquent appeals for the preserva- 
 
 [3] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 tion of the Union and the emancipation of the slave. 
 They do not cease to mourn the early death which 
 came to him because of his utter devotion to the un- 
 divided nation and the public honor and welfare. 
 
 But a new generation has come into being since 
 those crucial days of the republic, to whom the name 
 of Starr King is only a tradition vaguely associated 
 with eloquent utterances and patriotic service ren- 
 dered the State of California during the Civil War 
 of 1860-65. To inform these more fully concerning 
 this leader of the national sentiment, and thus help 
 preserve his influence in our American democracy, 
 is the purpose of this tribute to Starr King by one 
 who was his contemporary in California, who knew 
 him personally, and was an admiring witness of his 
 public activities. For, as Starr King himself told 
 us in an early lecture on George Washington, if we 
 cannot have sight of great men it is well that we 
 should learn what we can of their character and 
 career, and take their example to heart as an incen- 
 tive to equal devotion. 
 
 Certainly no public man associated with the early 
 history of California better deserves this recognition. 
 More than any other citizen Starr King assured the 
 loyalty and preserved the internal peace of California 
 in the critical hour of her history, and was the elo- 
 quent voice of her patriotism, the eulogist of her 
 magnificent scenery, the quickener of her intellectual 
 life, the prophet of her coming greatness, and the type 
 of her broad, humanitarian religion. 
 
 [4] 
 
ANTECEDENTS AND EDUCATION 
 
 Starr King had already a national reputation when 
 he came to California in the spring of i860 as minis- 
 ter-elect of the Unitarian Society in San Francisco. 
 Looking back on his personal history it is interest- 
 ing to note that his immediate ancestry on the mater- 
 nal side was German, his maternal grandfather, 
 Thomas Starr, having emigrated from the Rhine 
 lands to the United States, with his wife and son 
 Thomas, in the latter part of the eighteenth century. 
 This son Thomas became a business man in New 
 York City and married Mary Lavinus of French de- 
 scent. Their second daughter, Susan Starr, married 
 Rev. Thomas Farrington King, of English antece- 
 dents, whose eldest child was Thomas Starr King, 
 born in New York City on December 17th, 
 1824. Thus three nations contributed to his endow- 
 ment. 
 
 The father was a man of high character, good 
 abilities as a preacher and fine social qualities. 
 From him "Starr" inherited his sunny disposition, 
 keen sense of humor and companionable nature. 
 His intellectual gifts seem to have descended to him 
 chiefly through his mother, a woman of character 
 and intelligence, who early noted and sedulously 
 fostered the studious bent of her talented son. His 
 father, settled at first in Hudson, N. Y., accepted an 
 invitation to become pastor of a Universalist Society 
 in Portsmouth, N. H., and in this picturesque old 
 seaport Starr passed six years of his boyhood. He 
 was sent to a private school where, besides the usual 
 
 [s] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 branches of study, he acquired a good knowledge, 
 for his age, of Latin and French. In 1835 the family 
 removed to Charlestown, Mass., whither Rev. Mr. 
 King had been called as pastor of a large Universalist 
 church, and here Starr spent his youth and early 
 manhood. He was educated in the excellent public 
 schools of Charlestown, whose residents in that day 
 were chiefly of American stock, and whose proximity 
 to Boston and Cambridge imparted an unusual degree 
 of culture to its society, while the traditions cluster- 
 ing about Bunker Hill and the early struggle for 
 national independence made it one of the shrines 
 and nurseries of American patriotism. There being 
 no high school in the town, an arrangement was made 
 by which pupils could be fitted for college under 
 the excellent tuition of the principal of the grammar 
 school, Mr. Joshua Bates. Starr's manifest ability, 
 graceful and impressive declamation and talented 
 compositions attracted the attention of his teachers 
 and indicated his future distinction. He seemed 
 mature beyond his years, while his sincerity, gentle- 
 ness, modesty, consideration for others, and sunny 
 nature made him a universal favorite. "A bright- 
 eyed, vivacious, lovable lad of slender form, golden 
 hair, ruddy complexion, winning ways; uncommonly 
 mirthful, he was as fond of books as he was of fun, — " 
 reported one of his early teachers. 
 
 Even as a child his sense of humor was displayed. 
 A parishioner of his father in Charlestown told the 
 writer that she recalled seeing the boy at church one 
 
 [6] 
 
ANTECEDENTS AND EDUCATION 
 
 Sunday, sitting alone in the minister's pew. In the 
 pew in front of him sat a woman with vividly red 
 hair. Little Starr amused himself and his neighbors 
 by repeatedly thrusting his finger at her fiery locks, 
 and then quickly withdrawing it to blow upon it, with 
 a comical simulation of agony on his roguish young 
 face. 
 
 This mirthfulness was accompanied, however, by 
 a deep sense of reverence. At table, we are told, 
 when his father said grace, little Starr would fold 
 his hands, close his eyes and bow his head, saying 
 "Amen!" at the close — a habit he had not been taught 
 but had himself adopted. He was faithful at church 
 and Sunday School and seemed predestined for the 
 ministerial calling, for which his gifts and inclina- 
 tions, as well as the parental encouragement well 
 fitted him. In his thirteenth year he had written a 
 sermon, which was printed in a denominational 
 paper. 
 
 The long illness and early death of Starr's father 
 compelled him, however, to give up all thoughts of 
 a college education, and the youth entered a store as 
 clerk and bookkeeper, becoming at fifteen years of 
 age the mainstay of his mother and the five younger 
 children. Without murmur or complaint he ac- 
 cepted this disappointment of his hopes of a college 
 education and professional career. One of his sisters, 
 Angela Starr King (Moore) — be it said in passing — 
 was a woman of brilliant parts, and later displayed 
 rare gifts as a dramatic reader. Though now en- 
 
 [7] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 gaged in business pursuits Starr King remained de- 
 voted to study and self-improvement. He formed a 
 club with other like-minded young men for serious 
 reading and discussion. He was an omnivorous and 
 rapid reader of books, with a peculiar aptitude for 
 philosophical study, reading metaphysical works 
 with the ease and relish with which most young peo- 
 ple devour novels. One of his teachers, Professor 
 Tweed, says of him at this period : " He would read 
 what seemed to me an involved and obscure passage 
 from Kant — and when I began to express a doubt 
 whether I perfectly understood it, he would instantly 
 state it in terms which rendered it as clear as day- 
 light. He was not a hard student; he was incapable 
 of hard study. The most abstruse problems fur- 
 nished him only with intellectual play. He had a 
 natural affinity for knowledge. Its acquisition was 
 not labor, but a delight." His correspondence with 
 his friends on philosophical topics evinced a mastery 
 of metaphysics, a power for generalizing and impart- 
 ing the underlying principles of the dififering schools 
 of thought which would be remarkable in a mature 
 scholar, much more so in a youth of eighteen. At- 
 tending the lecture courses on Natural Religion given 
 by Rev. Professor James Walker of Harvard Col- 
 lege at the Lowell Institute in Boston, he took notes 
 in long hand of the whole series, and wrote out the 
 twelve lectures of the third course in full. Three 
 years later this reproduction was printed in a Boston 
 newspaper. It was deemed an astonishing feat of 
 
 [8] 
 
ANTECEDENTS AND EDUCATION 
 
 mind and memory. He also attended the lectures 
 of Professor Silliman on Chemistry, and other 
 courses. The writings of Drs. W. E. Channing and 
 James Martineau kindled within him sentiments of 
 admiration and reverence, and profoundly affected 
 his religious opinions. For Theodore Parker's 
 school of thought and method of presentation he 
 seems to have had less affinity. I can find no trace 
 at this time of any noticeable influence of Emerson 
 on his thinking. On Sundays he listened to the elo- 
 quent discourses of Rev. E. H. Chapin, who had suc- 
 ceeded his father in the Charlestown pulpit, and 
 formed with that eminent divine a friendship which 
 endured through life. 
 
 In the meantime his daily business duties were per- 
 formed with conscientious care and to the entire sat- 
 isfaction of his employer. He soon, however, ex- 
 changed these duties for the more congenial occupa- 
 tion of a school teacher; becoming at eighteen princi- 
 pal of a grammar school in Medford, Mass., whither 
 the whole family removed in 1842. Here he not 
 only found a larger field of labor and an enlarged 
 income, but the rare good fortune of constant per- 
 sonal intercourse with the Universalist pastor of 
 Medford, Rev. Hosea Ballou, 2nd, who later became 
 the first president of Tufts College. Dr. Ballou was 
 a learned scholar, and one of the most profound 
 minds in the religious life of that day- This contact 
 could not fail to be of great importance to Starr 
 King's intellectual and religious development. He 
 
 [9] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 gratefully spoke ever after of Dr. Ballou as his "the- 
 ological father." 
 
 Theodore Parker, the great radical preacher of 
 Boston, who met him in Medford at this time, records 
 in his diary: ''Saw Schoolmaster Thomas Starr 
 King, capital fellow, only nineteen, has taught school 
 three years, supports his mother, reads French, Span- 
 ish, Latin, Italian and a little Greek, and begins 
 German. He is a good listener." 
 
 In 1843 Starr received the appointment of book- 
 keeper in the Charlestown Navy Yard, which not 
 only increased his income but afforded more leisure 
 for study. He was now deep in the German lan- 
 guage and literature and found it a mine of intel- 
 lectual riches. He always valued his descent, on the 
 maternal side, from that student nation. An aunt. 
 Miss Sarah E. Starr, only four years his senior, was 
 a successful teacher of the German language and 
 literature. A woman of poetic gifts and varied ac- 
 complishments she was highly esteemed by Starr 
 King, as his correspondence with her discloses. 
 
 Hon. Richard Frothingham, of Charlestown, a 
 near neighbor and intimate personal friend of Starr 
 King, in a memoir of the latter published shortly 
 after his death, gives much information concerning 
 this period of Mr. King's life and reproduces some 
 of his youthful correspondence with friends and fel- 
 low-students. He was now having "glorious times" 
 in attending a philosophical class which met every 
 Wednesday evening, and was reading Stewart on the 
 
 [10] 
 
ANTECEDENTS AND EDUCATION 
 
 philosophy of the mind. He read much, and sought 
 rare books on this subject. When Dr. Ott's book on 
 Hegel came out, he invited certain Harvard students 
 to read it w^ith him, and rich were the hours they 
 had over this book. "I am at present," he wrote, 
 '^engaged in the study of a work on the latest school 
 of German philosophy. It is by Dr. Ott, of Paris; 
 and is an exposition of the system of Hegel. Kant's 
 system is pretty difficult; but this ties the brain up in 
 knots." He would attend at times in Boston German 
 religious services on Sunday, in order to familiarize 
 himself with the spoken language. Far into the 
 night he would talk of Goethe and Schiller and 
 their fellow-poets, and the German divines of the 
 schools of Tholuck and De Wette. He read the 
 works of Guizot and Schlegel on the philosophy of 
 history. For Greek schools of thought he had an 
 equal veneration, and would discourse for hours to 
 a sympathetic listener on the greatness of a Socrates 
 and a Plato. 'Well do I remember," remarked his 
 friend, Rev. A. D. Mayo, in an after-dinner speech 
 in Faneuil Hall, "that the first day of our youthful 
 acquaintance he read me into a fit of indigestion and 
 a sleepless night with his Plato and Kant and Cousin ; 
 a night whose watchful hours I improved by matur- 
 ing the resolution that on my return to my country 
 home I would begin those philosophical studies in 
 which he is second to no man of his age in our coun- 
 try." Mr. King, who was present on this occasion, 
 in the course of a speech he made, wittily retorted : 
 
 ["] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 *'Let me say here, that however much interested I 
 may have felt in philosophy generally, there is one 
 system, verbally represented by one of the names 
 just pronounced, which has done so much harm in 
 the religious world that I try to get rid of it, and 
 earnestly desire to see all pulpits and meetings utterly 
 free from its poison — the system of cant." 
 
 Among Starr's most intimate and beloved friends 
 was Randolph Ryer of New York, a young man of 
 similar tastes and aims, engaged, however, in business 
 pursuits, with whom he corresponded for nearly 
 twenty-five years. These letters may almost be con- 
 sidered a diary of his inner life. They abound in 
 quips, banter, puns, and similar displays of his ex- 
 uberant spirits and sense of humor. Whilst their 
 private reading gives one a pleasant insight into the 
 brilliant promise and lovable qualities of the writer 
 and his capacity for friendship, they are, in many 
 cases, of too personal and informal a character to 
 permit extended quotation. Placed at our disposal 
 we allow ourselves such extracts as throw light on his 
 character and career. 
 
 In May, 1841, he tells his friend Ryer gleefully 
 of a visit to O. S. Fowler, the phrenologist, who after 
 the usual examination of the cranium, advises him to 
 study law, as more in accord with his natural dispo- 
 sition because of his smallness of conscientiousness 
 and veneration and the preponderance of combative- 
 ness and destructiveness, with large causality and 
 hope! "On my asking him how I was qualified for 
 
 [.2] 
 
ANTECEDENTS AND EDUCATION 
 
 the ministry, he replied by laughing! telling me that 
 this profession was out of the question, since I was 
 by no means serious, and a lack of veneration would 
 be a real defect." But, on insistence, Mr. Fowler 
 said if he became a preacher his doctrine would be 
 ''thorough-going Universalism." He also proph- 
 esied that he would be a very eloquent speaker what- 
 ever profession he adopted, and would some day be- 
 come an author. 
 
 In October, 1842, Starr asks the same friend : "How 
 are politics in your quarter? Daniel Webster's 
 speech made a stir in your village, I presume, as else- 
 where. I had the happiness to listen to it as it rolled 
 in burning tones from the 'God-like' lips. It was 
 indeed powerful. That day I shall never forget. 
 My bump of sublimity or idealism was pretty well 
 fed. Webster in the morning and Edwin Forrest 
 as Othello in the evening. Heavens! what a per- 
 formance. I have seen that piece three times and 
 could never tire of it. I think it is truly Forrest's 
 masterpiece." 
 
 Starr was devoted to the drama, and went six 
 times to hear Macready. Concerning Dr. Channing, 
 whose recent death had created universal sorrow in 
 liberal circles, he writes: 
 
 "Channing! All the eulogies that have been 
 pronounced upon him throughout the land cannot do 
 justice to him. The sermon of Dr. Bellows (many 
 thanks for it) is a beautiful performance. I shall 
 show it to Doctor Chapin. I dined with the last- 
 
 ['3] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 named on Sunday. He preached on last Sabbath 
 afternoon. At the close Channing was mentioned in 
 a touching and beautiful manner. 
 
 "Theodore Parker is lecturing here on 'The Times.' 
 He is the immortal Parker. I send you a sermon of 
 his on Channing. I went on Tuesday to a lecture 
 on elocution by James E. Murdoch. Very fine." 
 
 He wrote long letters to the same friend on phil- 
 osophical topics, explaining and summarizing the 
 different schools of thought, ancient and modern, and 
 advising him to read especially Cousin, Constant and 
 Jouffroy. To do this profitably he should acquire 
 a reading knowledge of French. "It will not take 
 much time. In a few weeks you could read quite 
 fluently." 
 
 In 1842 the youth of eighteen writes: 
 
 "I have been somewhat troubled of late by the 
 perusal of a French work on the Eclecticism of 
 Cousin and Joufifroy by Pierre Leroux. I had bid 
 farewell to the last of the immortal dialogues of Plato, 
 so poetic, so inspiring, so lofty, and then to change 
 for a work of the nature of Leroux's was almost in- 
 supportable. The 'Refutation of Eclecticism' is a 
 masterly performance, written in a burning yet logic- 
 al style, occasionally beautified by a pounce upon 
 Cousin personally, which is done, I assure you, in 
 no very measured terms. In short the style is a cap- 
 ital exponent of one of Orestes Brownson's patent 
 philosophers, all feeling and passion. In Leroux you 
 can find the parentage of nearly all Brownson's new 
 opinions. He acknowledges him, I think, as his 
 spiritual Godfather. Well, I have finished the work, 
 
 [14] 
 
ANTECEDENTS AND EDUCATION 
 
 and am now employed in bringing the opposing gen- 
 tlemen, Cousin and Leroux, to a reconciliation. 
 Prejudice may account for much, but of all the 
 writers whose thoughts I ever had the pleasure to be- 
 come familiar with, whether for the style in which 
 they are dressed or the clearness with which they 
 convey the truth, none delights as Victor Cousin." 
 
 In September, 1844, he writes: 
 
 "The current of my earthly existence flows gently 
 and calmly. The inner man also is serene; resting 
 trustfully in the arms of a glorious faith and a noble 
 philosophy. Have you ever reflected on the intimate 
 connection between revelation and philosophy, faith 
 and reason? By many they are put in contrast, set 
 in opposition. Yet they mutually explain and recip- 
 rocally aid each other. Faith in man implies the 
 doctrine of the dignity of human nature. The doc- 
 trines of revelation must conform to the exhibitions 
 which God has given us of his power, wisdom, glory, 
 and goodness, through nature and the soul. Reason, 
 instead of being subordinated to faith, is the very 
 essence of faith, else faith is a blind idolatry. The 
 true faith is the self-renunciation of reason where 
 reason finds that it can know no farther. You, Ran- 
 dolph, take your faith directly from Christianity, 
 and apply it directly to the condition of society. 
 You desire the social manifestation of Christianity 
 as the means of raising the individual. I also find 
 that philosophy, as it is drawn from the crystallized 
 instruction of nature, and from the mysterious depths 
 of spiritual life, is confirmed and sanctified by Chris- 
 tianity. I look rather to the elevation of the individ- 
 ual as one great means of improving society. Both 
 
 [15] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 tendencies are necessary. Neither should exclude 
 the other. Eclecticism is the motto on the banner of 
 the nineteenth century." 
 
 Not always was his mood as serene and cheerful 
 as this. His soul had tasted of the bitterness of 
 sorrow in the death of his father, the passing away 
 of youthful and beloved friends, and the disappoint- 
 ment of his own cherished hopes. "The reality of 
 loss," he wrote, "often oppresses me; exaggerated 
 perhaps by the imagination, which always imparts 
 an ideal hue to the experiences of the past as well 
 as the expectations of the future. But," he con- 
 tinues, "I reverence the great law of compensation, 
 even when it reveals itself to me in the distresses of 
 the inner man." 
 
 Thus, in the companionship of books, by pro- 
 tracted, solitary studies, through daily contact with 
 men and affairs, and the stern discipline of sor- 
 row, self-denial and responsibility, this "graduate of 
 the Charlestown Navy Yard," as he humorously de- 
 scribed himself, acquired an education, and devel- 
 oped a character. It was not the best training for 
 everybody, but it was doubtless sufficient for him, 
 with his rare maturity of powers and balanced moral 
 faculties. It is to be noted that in 1850 Harvard 
 College admitted the adequacy of his preparation 
 by conferring on Starr King the honorary degree 
 of A.M. 
 
 [16] 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 IN THE MINISTRY 
 
 WITH his native gifts and early associa- 
 tions it was natural that Starr King 
 should choose the Christian ministry as 
 his permanent vocation. He took no regular course 
 of theological training. He did not seem to require 
 any. His early environment and courses of study^ 
 as well as his natural gifts, were an adequate prepara- 
 tion. He carefully trained his naturally rich and 
 powerful voice under the best instructors, and this, 
 with his fine artistic sensibilities, made him one of 
 the most impressive and beautiful readers and speak- 
 ers to whom it has ever been my privilege to listen. 
 At the age of twenty he began to preach, Revs. Dr. 
 Chapin and Theodore Parker both recommending 
 him to parishes. His first sermon was delivered in 
 Woburn, Mass. Later he occupied various pulpits 
 in Boston and its suburbs, and also wrote for theo- 
 logical reviews, meanwhile performing his official 
 duties at the Navy Yard with characteristic precision. 
 His reports to his superiors were models. He had a 
 natural aptitude for figures and wrote a singularly 
 graceful and legible hand. In 1846, Dr. Chapin re- 
 ceived and accepted a call to a Universalist church 
 
 [17] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 in Boston. This left the Charlestown pulpit vacant, 
 and the society immediately sought Thomas Starr 
 King for their minister. After much hesitation he 
 accepted, and in his twenty-second year was installed 
 as pastor over the same Universalist parish to which 
 his father had ministered. It was a delicate and 
 difficult situation, but he proved equal to it, and his 
 success as a preacher and pastor was immediate and 
 gratifying. Two years later, however, he broke 
 down with nervous exhaustion and sought restoration 
 to health in a sea-voyage to the Azores. On his re- 
 turn, in October, 1844, he accepted a call — once be- 
 fore made and refused — to the HoUis Street Uni- 
 tarian Church in Boston. This transfer to another 
 denomination, while in accord with his own inclina- 
 tions, caused no little feeling among his Universalist 
 friends; although the theological differences between 
 the two bodies are very slight, being mainly a matter 
 of emphasis. The one lays stress on the fatherhood 
 of God, the other on the innate worth of the human 
 soul, or as Starr King himself wittily paraphrased 
 it, "The one thinks God is too good to damn them 
 forever, the other thinks they are too good to be 
 damned forever," adding that the reason the two sects 
 had not long since united was that they were really 
 "too near of kin to be married." 
 
 The services at his installation as pastor of the 
 Hollis Street Society, on December 6, 1848, were of 
 unusual interest. Rev. N. L. Frothingham, of the 
 First Church in Boston, offered the introductory 
 
 [.8] 
 
IN THE MINISTRY 
 
 prayer; Dr. Hosea Ballou, 2nd, read the Scriptures; 
 Dr. Orville Dewey of New York, whom he greatly 
 admired as a preacher and man, delivered the ser- 
 mon; Rev. William R. Alger brought the fellowship 
 of the churches; Rev. Cyrus Bartol gave the charge 
 to the new pastor; and Dr. E. H. Chapin the address 
 to the people. These were all ministers of superior 
 merit and station and his personal friends. 
 
 The Hollis Street Church was recognized to be a 
 difficult post of duty, the temperance and anti-slavery 
 issues which the former pastor, Rev. John Pierpont, 
 introduced into the society by his drastic preaching 
 having almost disrupted it. The new preacher had 
 definite convictions on these subjects, but he also had 
 tact, patience and a pedagogic training. Yet he did 
 not hesitate to speak his mind on the topics of the 
 hour, as the titles of some of his discourses in Boston 
 indicate — "The Free Soil Movement," "The Fugi- 
 tive Slave Law," and "The Dred Scott Decision." 
 For eleven years he remained at Hollis Street Church, 
 an earnest preacher, a widely admired, much beloved 
 minister, and one of the most potent influences for 
 good in the city. 
 
 On his twenty-fourth birthday, coincidently with 
 his entry on his eleven years' pastorate at the Hollis 
 Street Church, Starr King was married to Miss Julia 
 Wiggin of East Boston, a woman of personal attrac- 
 tions, social gifts, and intellectuality. His home be- 
 came the center of the gracious hospitality in which 
 his soul delighted. While retaining his intimate 
 
 [19] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 relations with Drs. Ballou, and Chapin, and other 
 valued friends of his earlier life, he formed new ties 
 with eminent thinkers and writers, such as Drs. 
 Orville Dewey and Henry W. Bellows of New York, 
 Dr. Cyrus Bartol, Dr. Frederick H. Hedge, Dr. 
 Ezra S. Gannett, Revs. William R. Alger, Edward 
 Everett Hale, Thomas B. Fox, and many of the 
 laity. In the monthly meetings of the venerable 
 Boston Association of ministers Thomas Starr King 
 was an ever-welcome guest. No member contrib- 
 uted more to the life of the proceedings. Brought 
 into close relations through his general culture and 
 public lecturing with literary circles in Boston, in 
 that day deemed the Athens of America, Mr. King 
 found congenial companionship and appreciation 
 among the authors and writers of New England. 
 His amiability, wit and modesty, as well as his mani- 
 fest abilities as a thinker and scholar, won their re- 
 gard and affection. 
 
 Two theological controversies with orthodox op- 
 ponents brought the young minister favorably before 
 the religious public. One was a public discussion 
 on ''The Trinity" with Rev. F. H. Huntington, a 
 prominent Unitarian divine and neighbor who had 
 recently, and, as it was deemed by many, precipi- 
 tately transferred himself to the ranks of the Episco- 
 palian priesthood, and now sought to justify his 
 changed ecclesiastical relations by what seemed an 
 equally hasty and ill-considered defense of the tradi- 
 tional faith against the liberal school of opinion from 
 
 [20] 
 
IN THE MINISTRY 
 
 which he had just seceded. Mr. King's discourses in 
 reply, afterwards put into permanent form, were held 
 to be masterpieces in argument, scholarship, fair- 
 ness and courtesy, disclosing an aspect of his abilities 
 which came as a surprise to many who had not real- 
 ized the many-sidedness of the man. 
 
 The other controversy was with Dr. Nehemiah 
 Adams, a leading orthodox divine of Boston, on the 
 Doctrine of Eternal Punishment. Having listened 
 to Dr. Adams on this subject, the young preacher 
 invited him to repeat his discourse in the Hollis 
 Street pulpit. This was done, and to an overflowing 
 audience. The two discourses in which Mr. King 
 replied to the unrelenting Calvinism of his adversary 
 were greatly admired and deemed unanswerable. 
 
 As a pastor his devotion was unceasing, his quick 
 and tender sympathy, his spiritual insight, tact, 
 and unselfishness qualifying him rarely for the 
 delicate and often difficult relation of a shepherd 
 of souls. Meanwhile the poor, the distressed, the 
 unfortunate, found in him a sympathizer, adviser 
 and friend, a benefactor who gave not only of his 
 means, but himself to their need. A more generous 
 nature never breathed the air of New England. 
 
 Theodore Parker called Starr King the best 
 preacher in Boston. It is certain that he had but 
 one rival, and that was the radical preacher of the 
 Music Hall himself. No clergyman was so much 
 sought after socially. Wherever he went he was the 
 life of the company, yet his popularity did not make 
 
 [21] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 him self-conscious or self-satisfied. He was in very 
 truth "The people's darling, yet unspoilt by praise." 
 
 From Starr King's unbroken correspondence with 
 his friend Randolph Ryer we obtain an intimate ac- 
 quaintance with the professional and personal life 
 of the young minister at this period of his career. 
 His letters disclose his thoughts and aims, his occupa- 
 tions and diversions, his admirations and friendships. 
 They reveal the continual growth of his mind in 
 range and insight, his increase in power of expres- 
 sion, and his consecration to his calling and his kind. 
 We permit ourselves further extracts from them. 
 
 On April 2nd, 1849, he writes his friend: 
 
 "Since I wrote you last a project has been started 
 for a large club to consist of free minds of all mental 
 complexions and tendencies. Emerson, W. H. 
 Channing, E. P. Whipple, John Weiss, John S. 
 Dwight, James Freeman Clarke, etc., etc. are deeply 
 interested in it, and I think we shall make it go, and 
 make it a noble thing too. We intend to have a large 
 room or set of rooms, with cafe under them, to pro- 
 cure gradually a library, to divide the club into dif- 
 ferent sections, ethical, scientific, poetic, religious, 
 etc., and so have elaborate reports and discussions 
 once a quarter. The preliminary meeting has been 
 held, and was very fully attended. I was present. 
 The next meeting will be a week from to-mor- 
 row. . . . 
 
 "Write and let me know what is going on in the 
 world of Socialism. My friend Dana ought to have 
 stayed in Europe a little longer; for the interests of 
 harmonious humanity seem to be ajar since his power- 
 
 [22] 
 
IN THE MINISTRY 
 
 ful presence has been withdrawn. . . . Alcott comes 
 to see me often, and we have gloriously muddy talks. 
 He thinks I am a splendid fellow, and the way I 
 pour mysticism into him is a caution. Two of his 
 last Orphic sayings were, — 'I find that everywhere 
 grandmother is a great myth.' 'My instincts always 
 are authentic' He thinks the Devil is the 'Al- 
 mighty's flagellant' ... I am in fine health and 
 spirits." 
 
 To the same : 
 
 "June 4th, 1849. 
 
 "The noise and effervescence of Anniversary 
 Week is over in this city. I attended quite a number 
 of the meetings and by some of them was consider- 
 ably refreshed. It was not my fortune, however, to 
 listen to any great speeches or great speakers. I did 
 not hear Wendell Phillips, nor Channing, nor Sum- 
 ner, nor Parker. The most moving address I heard 
 during the whole week was made by the black man 
 who escaped from Richmond, Virginia, in a box 
 five feet long, two wide, and two deep. It was sim- 
 ply told, but had an immense effect upon the whole 
 audience. I thought while I listened to it, how 
 much more powerful our Anti-Slavery societies 
 would be if they would confine their efforts more to 
 bringing such men and such cases before the com- 
 munity, and so try to make our northern conscience 
 feel the barbarity of slavery, than they are by the 
 methods of denunciation, virulent attacks upon the 
 clergy and the Church, and desperate hostility to the 
 Constitution and the Union. Let them direct all 
 their efforts to exhibiting the curse of negro bondage 
 and the ranks will soon be swelled by double the num- 
 ber of adherents which they possess at present. Why 
 
 [23] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 can't our reformers learn to have more confidence in 
 truth, and less in human passion. I wish I could see 
 a party once that felt they were the organs of im- 
 measurable right, which, if they simply proclaimed 
 it without heat, and violence, and personal allusion, 
 would surely win. It is hard for a reformer to culti- 
 vate humility. It is not we that triumph by our elo- 
 quence and zeal. It is the truth which we state. It 
 goes out on an impersonal mission, and when it has 
 left our lips works by invisible and impersonal 
 agencies. ... A true reformer ought not to expect 
 very speedy visible effects from the words he utters, 
 and if his faith is religious, he will see that to publish 
 his truth carelessly and with personal unconcern is 
 the best method for his own peace and health of mind, 
 and for the interests of righteousness among men." 
 
 It is interesting to contrast this earlier point of view 
 concerning the proper function and method of the 
 minister, with Mr. King's later course in California, 
 in which as a preacher and popular orator he ad- 
 dressed himself so directly and effectively to the 
 social sins and political misdoings which had plunged 
 the nation into the great Civil War. Probably he 
 still would have maintained that under normal social 
 conditions the appeal to the individual reason and 
 conscience, and man's general education in virtue 
 and holiness, are the wisest methods for the religious 
 teacher and reformer, but that in great crises of hu- 
 man society the circumstances and needs of the hour 
 might demand a more drastic treatment, a direct at- 
 tack upon specific evils in the social and political 
 
 [24] 
 
IN THE MINISTRY 
 
 order, the denunciation of the prophet as well as the 
 pleading of the apostle. 
 
 Continuing this subject a week later he wrote his 
 friend : 
 
 "I would insist as strongly las any one on the right 
 and duty of ministers to act as reformers, to speak in 
 Anti-Slavery meetings, and temperance and peace 
 meetings, if they have the power of popular address. 
 Let them act as Reformers in the proper sphere for 
 such social action. And in the pulpit let them at- 
 tack the central throne of sin in the private heart. 
 If I prove to a man that his affections are inactive 
 and cold, that he is not like Christ, and can inspire 
 in his heart a sentiment of broad, comprehensive 
 benevolence, am I not making him a Reformer? If 
 I can make him loathe sin, and love right and good- 
 ness only, am I not leading him to hate slavery and 
 drunkenness, which are only special forms of sin? 
 If I expound to his intellect, and win his heart to 
 feel the glory of the Christian relations of fellowship 
 and brotherhood, am I not effectually aiding the 
 cause of peace? If I lead him to recognize the 
 divinity of self-sacrifice, am I not adding an instru- 
 ment to all true reform agencies in Christendom? 
 I think I am, and besides am making a true Christian 
 in his heart, while many reformers only gain the aid 
 of men's votes and hands to a Christian work, when 
 the hearts of their allies may not be inwardly re- 
 deemed. This is my view of the work of the Church 
 — to make men inwardly Christian by drawing out 
 their affections to what is pure and holy, and thus 
 sending them as reformatory agencies into society to 
 work whichever way their active instincts move. . . . 
 My church can't act as a Fourierite Committee, nor 
 
 [25] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 as an Anti-Slavery Society, but if I can send out 
 through it good men and women with warm, Chris- 
 tion affections and strong religious wills I aid social 
 reform in the highest way of which I am aware." 
 
 Certainly Starr King's conception of the pastoral 
 office and mission of the preacher was an exalted one, 
 and if ever a minister was equal to the moral miracle 
 of transforming indifference into fervor, worldli- 
 ness into character, and selfishness into service, Starr 
 King was that man. 
 
 His next letter is of equal interest, treating of a 
 problem in the work of the Liberal Christian minis- 
 ter which is still a subject of much discussion and 
 pondering. 
 
 "September loth, 1849. 
 "I exchanged yesterday with Mr. Lunt of Quincy, 
 and while there, took tea with Charles Francis 
 Adams at the old family mansion of John Adams and 
 John Quincy Adams. Mr. Adams is quite a student 
 of preaching and preachers, and I had a very in- 
 structive and pleasant conversation with him. His 
 wife is perfectly rich in a tete-a-tete. He com- 
 plained to me that Unitarian preaching is too cold, 
 clear, rational and explanatory. It is too moral, and 
 derives too little inspiration from the great religious 
 principles of the New Testament. Everywhere 
 among the cultivated I hear the same complaint. 
 Is it not strange that a system of theology which was 
 constructed to meet the wants of the intellect should 
 so soon defeat the very purpose of its construction and 
 cease to enlist the interest of the very faculty for 
 which it was found necessary? The trouble is not 
 
 [26] 
 
IN THE MINISTRY 
 
 with the essential principles of the system, but with 
 the preachers. We may keep all our philosophy, 
 and yet preach with fervor. 
 
 "What intellectual conception is there so grand 
 and elevating as that the Infinite Being, architect of 
 Nature, artificer of suns and firmaments, loves hu- 
 manity! . . . 
 
 *'The need is not to go back to the mysteries of 
 Orthodoxy, which paralyze and offend the intellect, 
 but to proclaim more exclusively the great religious 
 relations of the soul — the doctrine of God's paternity 
 and our filial ties, and the spirit of self-sacrifice and 
 disinterested goodness, which can wake the ashy life 
 of the heart like a breeze fanning a coal to flame. 
 These are the essential principles of Christianity: 
 they separate it from philosophy: they will revive 
 the world when the preachers come who can ade- 
 quately proclaim them. Mrs. Adams thought the 
 ministers ought to 'pepper' their sermons more with 
 terrors, but her husband agreed with me." 
 
 His friend Ryer had been impressed with the writ- 
 ings of that brilliant but erratic genius, Orestes 
 Brownson, whose conversion from extreme radical 
 religious opinions and Socialistic experimentation 
 to an ultra Roman Catholicism had created a sensa- 
 tion in the religious world. Starr King writes 
 several times in confutation of this final outcome of 
 Brownson's quest for truth. 
 
 "October i, 1849. 
 "Have you seen the October no. of Brownson's Re- 
 view? If not, get it. It will interest you especially 
 because it contains a review of William Henry 
 
 [27] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 Channing's general creed. The article is one of 
 Brownson's strongest. It is a capital exercise of 
 mind to read it. And the first article in it is also a 
 poser. It is called: 'Protestantism in a Nutshell.' 
 It is without exception the most impudent composi- 
 tion, probably, that ever saw the light. After ex- 
 hausting every form of invective that a crazy fancy 
 can invent, he brings the serious charge against 
 Protestantism that it insults, and has always been 
 hostile to, human reason; while the Catholic Church 
 has always honored and employed it! Brownson 
 ought to have a medal for his ground and lofty 
 tumbling in the arena of logic. 
 
 "Of course you will go to hear Dr. Dewey on 
 Wednesday evening. Write me how you like him. 
 . . . The affairs of our society seem very promising 
 and prosperous. But it is hard work to rebuild even 
 in outward prosperity a broken parish. We had 
 very good audiences yesterday, though the day was 
 not pleasant. I preached two new sermons. One 
 from the text: 'Nothing is secret that shall not be 
 made manifest, neither anything hid that shall not 
 be known and come abroad.' The subject was that 
 all truth reveals itself. First, it is intended by the 
 Almighty that all truth in the sphere of nature shall 
 be known by the human intellect. It is hidden a 
 little, so that our faculties are tasked to detect it, but 
 not so hidden that earnest study cannot disclose it. 
 Second, secret truths of character make themselves 
 manifest. This is so in history. Men become 
 known for what they are. A man that deserves fame 
 gets it; and the kind of fame which he deserves he 
 gets. The secrets of character reveal themselves un- 
 consciously to those with whom we deal. Our looks 
 often betray them. And the influence we exert, 
 
 [28] 
 
IN THE MINISTRY 
 
 separate from our words, tells what we are. Third, 
 all truth, even the minute secrets of the moral world, 
 stands revealed to God. Fourth, the secrets of our 
 lives will one day perhaps be terribly revealed to 
 memory as a punishment. Fifth, the text may be a 
 prophecy of the law of our being in another world. 
 The secrets of character may there be known to each 
 other, and this simple fact may furnish a portion of 
 our reward, and the great portion of our punish- 
 ment. 
 
 "In the afternoon the subject was: 'Thou art the 
 man.' " 
 
 The two friends, in their correspondence, discussed 
 the merits of Socialism as a creed for the conduct 
 of life. Ryer was much inclined to it; King, though 
 ever preserving an open mind, was less so. 
 
 To the same: 
 
 "November 5, 1849. 
 "Perhaps you will consider it an era in my life 
 that I met Henry James (Senior) last Thursday eve- 
 ning at the Association's Rooms on High Street, and 
 heard him read an essay on Socialism. I was de- 
 lighted to meet him. We talked some together. I 
 like him as a man. But his essay was irrational, 
 though very able. He denied that there is any such 
 thing as sin, said that no law of God could be violated, 
 and that the fact of a violation would prove that it 
 was no divine law. The doctrine of free agency he 
 considered puerile and contemptible. Yet he blowed 
 up the existing arrangements of society unmercifully, 
 and showed that they were false in every respect. 
 Now I could not help audaciously querying to my- 
 
 [29] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 self, how it is that God's laws of society could be 
 violated any more than His other laws, and why the 
 fact that Socialism is not triumphant does not prove, 
 according to Mr. James' theory, that it must be false. 
 If no law of God can be violated, then whatever is 
 is right; Society with its false constitution is, there- 
 fore it is right. From this logical dilemma Mr. 
 James cannot save his essay." 
 
 To the same : 
 
 "November, 1849. 
 
 **I preach at times, and perhaps shall preach more 
 freely in future on social aspects and needs. On Fast 
 Day I shall speak on 'The Lights and Shadows of 
 our Age.' Next Sunday afternoon I shall give a 
 lecture on Paul, the first of two. But I must re- 
 spect the intimations of the spirit in my natural 
 conformation, and preach generally from the sponta- 
 neous insights afforded me into the truths of the Gos- 
 pel. 
 
 ''Yesterday morning I preached a sermon on Old 
 Age. Three very old and most exemplary Chris- 
 tians have recently died here who were connected 
 with our parish, and I was moved to notice it in that 
 way. I took up the point that Old Age is a period 
 of Revelation, when the intrinsic repulsiveness and 
 evil of sin is more clearly revealed than in any other 
 stage of life, and when the glory and worth of re- 
 ligious principles and graces seem most powerfully 
 portrayed. If we would know what profanity, 
 avarice, epicureanism, bad temper, etc. are, we must 
 study them in an old sinner, when they have in- 
 wrought themselves thoroughly with the character, 
 and are unrelieved by any accidental graces and neu- 
 
 [30] 
 
IN THE MINISTRY 
 
 tral qualities. If we would see the power and peace 
 imparted by Christian faith and practice, and ob- 
 serve the Christian graces in their holiest attire, we 
 must study them in an old saint in whom they trans- 
 figure the wrinkles, and beautify the tottering steps, 
 and throw a halo about the bleaching hair. 
 
 "Just think of an atheistic childhood and an infidel 
 old age and the shock given to our sympathies and 
 finest sensibilities proclaim that human nature is 
 wronged by such an hypothesis, its beauty soiled, its 
 proper symmetry broken. 
 
 "After dwelling upon the sanctity which Chris- 
 tianity has imparted to old age, the sermon treated 
 fully of the adaptation of Christian principles and 
 promises to the special needs of the aged, and how 
 weak and miserable an old person, in whom the best 
 feelings are not withered, would be without their 
 support. The discourse was closed with a picture 
 of the glory of old age as the Bible reveals it in the 
 aged saints its pages portray — Abraham, Moses on 
 Mount Pisgah, Samuel in the decline of life, David 
 waking the penitential tremors of his harp with fail- 
 ing fingers, Simeon in the temple, John the Apostle 
 when a hundred years old, Paul the aged ready to be 
 ofifered after the good fight of faith. 
 
 "Last night Julia and I went to hear the oratorio 
 of the Creation for the second time this season. It 
 was only second to the original Creation by the Om- 
 nipotent. I think it is the richest piece of music one 
 can hear. Its waves of melody roll over the spirit 
 like floods of ethereal joy from the New Jerusalem. 
 I grow more and more impressible to music. A few 
 years ago it was a blank to me. Now a sixth sense 
 is opened." 
 
 [31] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 After a long and serious illness Mr. King wrote 
 his friend: 
 
 "February, 1850. 
 
 "I am quite well again with the exception of a 
 little hoarseness. I lecture to-night in Methuen, talk 
 in the Bible-Class an hour to-morrow night, address 
 the Mercantile Library Association Wednesday eve- 
 ning, and lecture in Brookline on Thursday. Yes- 
 terday I preached three times — in the afternoon on 
 'Samson, or Waste of Powers.' I like it better than 
 any sermon I ever wrote. 
 
 "Next week I am to be engaged in preparing a 
 sermon on 'Life, a Trust, a Discipline, an Achieve- 
 ment,' to be preached on Sunday evening as one of 
 a course in the Bedford Street Church. I shall try 
 to make it the best I ever wrote, for certainly the 
 subject is magnificent. In the morning I am to 
 preach before the students and professors of Harvard 
 College — a trying service." 
 
 To the same: 
 
 "April I, 1850. 
 
 "I have just left the Supreme Court Room, and 
 heard what I never heard before, the sentence of 
 death pronounced on a prisoner. Chief Justice Shaw 
 completed the terrible drama that has thrilled every 
 one here for the last few weeks, by the solemn words 
 of judgment upon Professor Webster. I cannot say 
 anything in relation to it. It was awful in the ex- 
 treme. God save him, for his family's sake, from 
 the scaffold! Yesterday morning I preached in the 
 college chapel at Cambridge, where Professor Web- 
 ster attended church. It wrung my nerves beyond 
 anything I ever experienced in the pulpit," 
 
 [32] 
 
IN THE MINISTRY 
 
 On his return from his summer vacation at the end 
 of July, 1850, spent among his beloved White Moun- 
 tains and at Rockland, by the sea, he writes to the 
 companion of his journeys: 
 
 "I presume you got home safely. But how do you 
 bear business again? For myself, I am homesick 
 already, and long to be again among the mountain 
 peaks. Isn't your mind also stored with rich images 
 of Lake Winnepiseogee and Red Hill, and North 
 Conway, with Mt. Kearsarge, and the ride to Old 
 Crawford's and the Willey House and Mt. Willard, 
 and Tom the Mountaineer that saw the Transfigura- 
 tion, and caught a deer by the horns and opened its 
 jugular vein with a penknife! And Mt. Washington 
 and the gullies, the Old Man of the Mountains, and 
 Echo Lake, and the bath in the Pemigewasset, and 
 that divine walk, and the basin where that poor stick 
 still waltzes round, and the Flume! O Randolph, 
 shall we ever have another such walk as that? I 
 fear not this side of Jordan. There must be grand 
 mountain scenery in Heaven. I hope we shall see 
 it together — if I am found worthy. In my musings 
 it seems as if North Conway might be the entrance 
 gate to Paradise. . . . You know, I presume, that I 
 am now an A.M., by the grace of Harvard College. 
 Only think of it. Wonder when I shall be P.M. 
 Probably not till after the meridian of life." 
 
 Mr. King was exquisitely sensitive to Beauty in 
 all its forms, particularly so to the art of music, which 
 had not disclosed its full charm and delight to him 
 until this stage of his development. In October, 
 1850, he writes his soul-friend: 
 
 r33] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 "I have heard Jenny Lind. Five times in all I 
 have listened to the inspired Swede, thanks to her 
 manager P. T. Barnum's kindness. What shall I say 
 of her singing? She put her voice underneath the 
 vast audience and fairly lifted them up on its sea- 
 like swells, and tossed them like toys upon the crests 
 and sparkling foam of her warbles and trills and 
 ornaments. The whole orchestra accompaniment at 
 times was as nothing to her flood of easy, revelling 
 melody, and it seemed as if the stars must be moved 
 at last to pipe out again in chorus, and all the sons 
 of God shout for joy. ... I have never before ap- 
 preciated music, never conceived the glory and sweet- 
 ness of the human voice, never understood the capac- 
 ity of music to bear the burden of great sentiments, 
 and interpret, by a cadence or a single note, a truth 
 as broad as the universe and deep as the soul." 
 
 To the same : 
 
 ^'October 29, 1850. 
 
 "I preached in Concord on Sunday. The great 
 Transcendentalist, Ralph W. Emerson was at church 
 in the afternoon. In the evening I took tea in com- 
 pany with him and passed a portion of yesterday 
 morning in his study. I enjoyed seeing him, as al- 
 ways, and on some points we had a good talk. He 
 belongs in the same cabinet of Nature's Jewels with 
 Plato and Jenny Lind. Plato the ruby, Emerson 
 the white, cold, flashing diamond, Jenny Lind the 
 pearl. ... I shall commence writing my lecture on 
 Socrates this week." 
 
 Filling an important pastorate in a great city, the 
 young minister was daily brought into contact with 
 the moral and social problems of urban life, and 
 
 [34] 
 
IN THE MINISTRY 
 
 the responsibility of the more favored and privileged 
 classes to ameliorate the evils, and equalize the con- 
 ditions of the existing order of society. 
 
 "April 28, 1851. 
 
 "A splendid present, my friend, those volumes of 
 Fourier! I delight to look at them. The first lei- 
 sure day or two I have shall be thoroughly pledged 
 to Fourier, and I will make faithful report to you. 
 As yet, you know, I have not read a line of his writ- 
 ings. 
 
 "What a day's work I had yesterday! Spoke to 
 the Sunday School in the morning, preached a long 
 Easter sermon, delivered a lecture of an hour and a 
 quarter in the afternoon on Paul as a writer, and 
 made an address in the evening at the Warren Street 
 Chapel of nearly half an hour. You would have 
 been satisfied with the dispensation yesterday, I think, 
 for in the morning I gave the people Christianized 
 Science, and in the evening Christianized Social- 
 ism. The sensual objections to the idea of immor- 
 tality was the theme in the forenoon, ... a glorious 
 meeting we had in the evening. It would have filled 
 your soul, and given you a foretaste of the millenium. 
 Robert C. Winthrop presided, and made a most ele- 
 gant and noble speech. It was Christian duty set 
 to music. I moved the adoption of the Report of the 
 doings of the Chapel for the past year. Let me give 
 you one passage from the speech, of which I wrote 
 the heads before I went. The time has come when, 
 as a Christian community, we must either openly re- 
 ject, or ingrain with our conscience, the truth — 'we 
 that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the 
 weak, and not to please ourselves, for Christ pleased 
 not himself.' Not only in His word does God call 
 
 [35] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 on us to obey this law, but also by unveiling to us, as 
 in fiery hieroglyphics, the visible necessity of obey- 
 ing it. The question of absorbing interest to society 
 itself is this — how shall the Church, which contains 
 the regenerative principles of truth, be brought from 
 its serene and comfortable elevation into redeeming 
 contact with the streets, lanes, and cellars of the 
 world, with the Pariah caste of society in our 
 modern cities, with the uncivilizing elements of our 
 civilization, with this wide chaos of irresponsible 
 and neglected vice, that lies outside our order and 
 threatens to engulf it. The question is shall our light 
 encroach upon the shadows and dispel them, or shall 
 the shadows absorb the light? If we will not take 
 up this problem of pauperism and ignorance in the 
 large spirit of Christian duty and love, and consider, 
 through some constructive methods the rights of the 
 poor, it will be pressed upon our self-interest as in- 
 volving the existence, or at least the health of society. 
 God is showing us, by uncovering the horrors in our 
 large centres of civilization, and the efifects they are 
 producing upon our welfare, that in the very warp 
 of the social fabric is woven the law — 'Whether one 
 member suffer all the members sufifer with it' . . . 
 Directly those classes cannot get the life, truth, hopes 
 and life of the Gospel. It must go from us, the more 
 favored, who have our hands upon the great electric 
 force, and by touching them, convey to them its 
 blessed and enlivening stream. Especially in this 
 country, with our theory of the State, should we ear- 
 nestly consider this social problem. Our lower 
 classes clutch the ballot-box, and we are indissolubly 
 united with them in our interests and our life. They 
 are every way bone of our bone. Our highest classes, 
 like the apex of a pyramid, are lifted up from the 
 
 [36] 
 
IN THE MINISTRY 
 
 broader base gradually widening below. What hope 
 is there for us, if that base is rotting at its lowest tier, 
 or slumping in a moral marsh? Will the pyramid 
 stand with such insecurity of foundation, with such 
 chemistry gnawing the bottom of its structure? It 
 is safer, in our land, to have atheistic scholars than an 
 atheistic, barbarous people; as it is safer for any 
 frame to have diseased or blinded eyes than a canker 
 spot on the heart" 
 
 Mr. King's letters during these early years of his 
 Boston ministry disclose the new gained happiness of 
 his wedded and home life and the brighter aspects of 
 his residence in Boston. Their summer vacations 
 were spent at the seaside and the mountains. 
 
 "Pigeon Cove, August 19, 1851. 
 "Would you could know the perfect accord here 
 of the country and the sea. Rev. Mr. Bartol and 
 family are here as usual, so that delightful and ele- 
 vating companionship completes the circle of rich 
 and reviving influences. We do a little reading. 
 De Quincey's new book, 'Life and Manners,' Ruskin's 
 'Seven Lamps of Architecture,' a fine book on Paul's 
 Letters to the Corinthians by Rev. J. H. Thom of 
 Liverpool, some reviews, and an excellent volume 
 called 'Companions of My Solitude,' by an English 
 lawyer, make up my stock of literary exercises." 
 
 The following summer, 1852, he is again at Cape 
 Ann, where in subsequent years a portion of his vaca- 
 tion season was almost invariably spent. 
 
 "It is glorious here. Would you could see our 
 horizon line of ocean and take a promenade with us 
 
 [37] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 in the woods. Our church is closed for four Sundays 
 and I have entire rest. Mr. Bartol is with us, serene 
 and mellifluous as ever. He preached gloriously last 
 Sunday. I hold forth to-day. Chapin is here and 
 is boiling over with fun, recasting language in all 
 shapes of pun-gency." 
 
 Writing in September following he tells of preach- 
 ing two sermons on the recent Railway Jubilee in 
 Boston, discourses which were printed and rapidly 
 taken. Theodore Parker, whose own church serv- 
 ices were suspended because of repairs in the edifice, 
 was present at both the morning and evening services. 
 
 In January, 1852, his first child, Edith, was born, 
 an occasion that brought great joy to the household. 
 His friend Ryer also was happily married, and the 
 two friends exchanged their congratulations and kind 
 wishes. 
 
 "March 5th, 1852. 
 
 "Last week was another season of hard work. 
 Lectured on Monday night at Dorchester, Tuesday 
 in New Bedford, Wednesday in my vestry, Thurs- 
 day at Salem, Friday at Newburyport, and on Satur- 
 day went to hear the Oratorio of St. Paul, one of the 
 greatest of Mendelssohn's compositions. One lives 
 an age during the two hours and a half that such 
 music sweeps the strings of the soul. I was so ill 
 that I could hardly hold up my head when I went 
 to the Concert, but sat through the whole, though it 
 was the third time I had heard it this season. I was 
 hardly strong enough to preach yesterday, having a 
 cold on all the nerves, but got through the two serv- 
 ices of the day." 
 
 [38] 
 
IN THE MINISTRY 
 
 "April 1 2th, 1852. 
 ''Last week I wrote two sermons, one for Fast Day 
 on Public Sentiment, in which I opened distinctly 
 on slavery, much to the delight of Rev. Dr. Fran- 
 cis, head of the Cambridge Divinity School, who 
 was present and said, 'God bless you for that dis- 
 course!' " 
 
 A warm admirer of the philosophic thinker, James 
 Martineau of England, Mr. King, 'in 1852, edited a 
 volume of selected essays by his pen under the title 
 "Miscellanies," the first American reprint of any of 
 his writings. He also collaborated with his friend 
 William Rounseville Alger in the republication of 
 other of his books. 
 
 Efforts were made to induce the young minister to 
 accept the vacant Unitarian pulpit in Brooklyn, New 
 York. Born in the latter city, Mr. King always had 
 a strong affection for it, and by repeated visits had 
 made many friends and become as well known in the 
 great metropolis of American life as in Boston itself. 
 In January, 1853, he writes: 
 
 "As to church matters — poor Brooklyn! Unfor- 
 tunate Chauncy Place! Happy Hollis Street! It 
 is all settled. Last night capped the climax. The 
 people at Hollis Street won't listen to my going. 
 More than forty pews have been sold, our debt has 
 been paid. We shall have funds over. They raise 
 my salary to $3000, and will build a new and hand- 
 some pulpit and otherwise improve the church. 
 This will stop my miscellaneous lecturing, except 
 when the fee is $50. Isn't that doing bravely? I 
 
 [39] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 shall stay. Yet my heart yearns towards Brooklyn. 
 If I could I should have gone to them." 
 
 "March 14, 1853. 
 "We were quite disappointed, I assure you, that 
 your letter only and not yourself arrived on Satur- 
 day. Little Petty was not reconciled to the arrange- 
 ment. She could not read the epistle, but she could 
 have had a good time with you and had made up her 
 mind for a grand frolic. She never has been so good 
 and cunning as yesterday, partly because it was her 
 birthday (13 months old), and partly because she 
 expected you and meant to have a jubilee. You must 
 come this week or her little nerves won't stand the 
 shock. . . . Bless her delicious heart! She's playing 
 on my study floor, now while I write, and chirping 
 with delight as sweetly as the spring birds sang by 
 our own windows yesterday morning — forty of them 
 in a row — the first gush of spring!" 
 
 His love of music and the drama continued to pro- 
 vide him with opportunities for relaxation and artis- 
 tic enjoyment which did much to ease the strain of 
 his professional life. 
 
 "May 2nd, 1853. 
 "I have been engaged in opera-ting. Not in stocks 
 but on benches in the Howard Athenaeum. 
 Madame Sontag's opera troupe is in Boston. Some 
 kind friend has sent us tickets thus far for every per- 
 formance, and I have attended six times, four times 
 with Julia. It has been a great treat. We have 
 never had an opera troupe that has done everything 
 so well, that has given us such a complete artistic 
 whole, and finished ofif the minor effects, such as dress, 
 
 [40] 
 
IN THE MINISTRY 
 
 position, scenery, chorus and subordinate parts so 
 elaborately. And then Madame Sontag's voice, so 
 clear, so bright, so cheerful, so perfectly cultivated, 
 is like a sheaf of sun-rays, fluted and nodding w^ith 
 Corinthian luxury and grace. O that I understood 
 music as a science! It is the most subtle and mighty 
 vehicle of expression, and perhaps is the rudiment 
 of the speech through w^hich our souls are to gain 
 and utter vs^isdom in the w^orld to come." 
 
 "March 28, 1853. 
 "Preached tv^ice in the Harvard College Chapel 
 yesterday. I didn't enjoy it at all. Dined with Dr. 
 Walker, president of the college, and had a glorious 
 nooning with him. He never heard me in the pulpit 
 before and said that I preached better than he had 
 expected. ... I am to lecture before the Benevolent 
 Fraternity of Churches on behalf of the Ministry at 
 Large. Last Saturday night the Germanians gave a 
 superb concert, the best of the season. A Portland 
 paper recently made an attack on my style of lectur- 
 ing, which drew out a beautiful reply from an artist 
 of that city, very complimentary." 
 
 In a more serious vein he writes his friend, on 
 entering the thirtieth year of his life: 
 
 "January ist, 1854. 
 "How ominous that figure (18 154) looks! We are 
 fast getting to be old fogies, Randolph. Fourteen 
 years since we first met! What changes, what 
 growths of mind, what slippings away from old moor- 
 ings, what scootings out from narrow circumstances 
 and little lakes of experience into wider bays, to- 
 wards the great sea! Little did I imagine, fourteen 
 
 [4'] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 years ago, that I should ever have such a position of 
 trust in the world as Providence has gently lifted me 
 up to, by the easiest inclined plane oif continuous ac- 
 cident. But here I am, a little wiser than then, with 
 some serious purpose, I believe, hidden somewhere 
 in my bosom, with some little gratitude, I trust, to- 
 wards Providence that has done for me so much better 
 than I deserve, and with a love for a few old friends 
 which I hope the year 1874, if it sees me here, will 
 find only riper, and which, I pray, may be perfected, 
 if we shall then have passed on. 
 
 "You, Randolph, always believed that I would 
 come to something, when I did not dream that I had 
 the capacity for adorning any pedestal. Your attach- 
 ment has been a great comfort to me; your friendship 
 has been pure enough to be accounted a choice privi- 
 lege in any life. Your household and William 
 C 's belong to the selected circle around the fire- 
 side of my heart. God bless you with a happy New 
 Year! 
 
 "As to presents. Such a New Year's present as I 
 have had! Champney's great picture of the White 
 Mountains ! And who could send me such a princely 
 gift but that glorious Mr. Thaxter. He made the 
 church a New Year's gift of a christening font of 
 marble. Exquisite. You have no idea how su- 
 perbly our church looks now (since extensive im- 
 provements)." 
 
 To the same : 
 
 "February 13, 18154. 
 
 "Pet is two years old to-day. How much enjoy- 
 ment we have had with her these two short years! 
 People talk of the indebtedness of children to parents, 
 our debt is the other way. Pet has done more for us 
 
 [42] 
 
IN THE MINISTRY 
 
 than we for her. There is great beauty in the old 
 prophecy of the triumph of righteousness on the 
 earth — ^'and a little child shall lead them.' It tells 
 of a time when domestic life shall be the brightest, 
 and the joy and wisdom of mature natures shall flow 
 from the training of childhood. 
 
 "Last evening I spent with Bayard Taylor at E. P. 
 Whipple's. Bayard came to hear me preach yester- 
 day morning, and said he was glad once to hear a 
 sermon that he could agree with. We had a glorious 
 time last evening talking of the Himalayas, the des- 
 ert, the Nile, Etna, Gibraltar and the Arabs. He is 
 delightful." 
 
 To the same : 
 
 "March 19, 1854. 
 
 "This morning I preached on Liberal Christianity 
 as a positive faith, showing that all the positive ele- 
 ments which can belong to a religion are in ours, 
 if preachers only have vitality enough to make them 
 glow. It produced quite an impression on our peo- 
 ple. O that we might wake them up to a feeling 
 of the rich elements our faith contains, so that this 
 weak, compromising twaddle would be banished 
 from the pulpit and press. Dr. Orville Dewey is 
 to preach in our church this evening before the Young 
 Men's Christian Union. I had a very pleasant talk 
 with him yesterday. He is noble and sound in re- 
 ligious thought. I like his views and Martineau's 
 better than those of any living men I know. I see 
 light ahead — am almost out of the thicket of lectures. 
 Two more and I am free. 
 
 "P. S. I am just come from hearing Dr. Dewey. 
 It was grand. He is a sentimental Webster. His 
 
 [43] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 subject was the Worth of Virtue. It was compre- 
 hensive, practical, poetical, tender and majestic. It 
 took hold of me. Preaching is the great business." 
 
 Starr King was not among the foremost of Anti- 
 Slavery agitators. His youth and gentleness of na- 
 ture, as well as his views on the methods and mission 
 of the ministry precluded this, yet how deeply his 
 sympathies were enlisted on this side, and what ad- 
 mirable service he rendered is shown by the following 
 letter: 
 
 "June 12, 1854. 
 
 "I didn't write you last Monday, for I was used up 
 after the great week of excitement in anniversaries 
 and fugitive-slaveism. 
 
 ''The slave excitement here was intense. I never 
 knew such a stirring up, such inward gnashing of 
 teeth. We were under martial law on Friday, and it 
 turns out illegally so, and if anybody had been shot 
 by the troops, the soldiers would have been liable for 
 murder. The indignation is very deep against the 
 mayor, and that poor Burns, by marching down State 
 Street at noon under military guard, made more Abo- 
 litionists than Parker and Phillips have made in a 
 year. 
 
 "The Sunday after the slave capture the churches 
 were vocal with strong preaching. Hunkers were 
 in great distress, having no rest for the soles of their 
 feet. I preached on the arrest, trial and condemna- 
 tion of Jesus, and the features of it as a judicial pro- 
 cess which have made it infamous in after times. It 
 made a great stir. The features of the trial corre- 
 spond most wonderfully to that of poor Burns. The 
 character of the evidence on which Jesus was con- 
 
 [44] 
 
IN THE MINISTRY 
 
 demned, the manner of his arrest, the unsuccessful 
 attempt at rescue, the conspiracy of the two sets of 
 officers — the city authorities of Jerusalem, and Pilate, 
 the commissioner of Rome, the Court Room filled 
 with brutal scamps, the efforts to release Jesus, and 
 the refusal because Caesar would be offended, the 
 Condemnation, which in Jerusalem was on Friday 
 morning, at 9 o'clock (just the same as in Boston) 
 the military escort to the place of execution, the giv- 
 ing of a new robe to Jesus (here they gave Burns a 
 new suit before he left) , and the triumph of the new 
 religion because of that brutal show in the Passover 
 Anniversary Week in Jerusalem — made a picture 
 that delighted the majority of the parish and quite 
 enraged the Hunker brethren. Some threatened to 
 leave, etc., but they were all out yesterday, and I 
 guess I shall triumph." 
 
 A pleasant picture of Mr. King's friendships and 
 literary pre-occupations at this period is given in a 
 letter to Rev. William Rounseville Alger, the author- 
 divine of Boston. 
 
 "Pigeon Cove, Rockport, 
 "August I, 1854. 
 "My Dear Alger: 
 
 \ meant to write you, in reply to your kind and 
 welcome note, before I left here for Down East, but 
 procrastinated and failed. I have just returned. 
 Loammi Ware was ordained last Wednesday. I 
 took part. Dr. Bellows was there, preached only 
 so so, but personally, spherically, conversationally, 
 was glorious. We had a rich time together. Some- 
 how we fit handsomely. His railroad talk, going 
 down, was brilliant and inspiring to a degree I have 
 
 [45] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 never known equalled. About Robert Schuyler, 
 who was his parishioner, he monologued as wonder- 
 fully as De Quincey. Ware has a difficult post 
 Sylvester Judd's daguerreotype is in every heart in 
 Augusta, and the spirit of his thoughts in all their 
 souls. 
 
 "After leaving Augusta I went to the White Moun- 
 tains and Dixville Notch with James T. Fields. The 
 weather was splendid and we had an unsurpassable 
 time. I want once to take you on the Eastern side 
 and taste the scenery, mesmerically, through your 
 delight. We must do it another season. 
 
 "On the way I read Thoreau's 'Walden' in an ad- 
 vance copy. The first half disappointed me as being 
 poorer than 'Concord and Merrimac' But the 
 latter half is wonderful; the chapter on 'Spring,' 
 'Winter Animals,' with a description of squirrels, the 
 'Conclusion' being more weird and winding farther 
 into the awful vitalities of nature than any writing 
 I have yet seen. I envy you your approaching rap- 
 ture. Alas, I left my copy in the cars. I have read 
 Hurlburt's 'Gan Eden,' on Cuba; it is written with 
 honey instead of ink." 
 
 In the spring of 1855 ^^ hear for the first time of 
 a literary project. "Would that I could study more 
 and write less! I am at work on a book to interpret 
 the landscape of the White Hills." He tells us also: 
 
 "I have been looking into spirit rappings again, 
 somewhat. The spectres seem to be more powerful 
 than they were. Some of the developments are really 
 wonderful. Such antics as I have seen with pianos 
 and tables ! Hard to account for except on the theory 
 
 [46] 
 
IN THE MINISTRY 
 
 of an outskirt of imps let loose over the border of 
 the spiritual world." 
 
 Later experiences made him sceptical of any spirit- 
 ual content in such "manifestations." As a member 
 of a committee of investigation, headed by Professor 
 Agassiz and other scientists, he became disillusion- 
 ized. When one medium, who caused lurid written 
 messages to appear on his arm, was found to have 
 employed phosphorus in their production, Starr 
 King ruefully remarked, "It only resulted in 'fuss- 
 for-us.' " 
 
 The unveiling of the Benjamin Franklin statue 
 in Boston, his birthplace, September 14, 1856, on 
 which occasion Dr. E. H. Chapin delivered an ora- 
 tion, was followed by a supper at Starr King's house 
 with Chapin, E. P. Whipple, James T. Fields, and 
 Daniel Haskell, editor of the Boston Transcript, 
 among the guests. We can image the cheer and 
 wit of the occasion. This was only one of a long 
 succession of such hospitalities. In November, 1857, 
 Mr. King invited a company of his friends to meet 
 Charles Mackay, the English reformer and poet, at 
 a breakfast. Drs. Bellows, Hedge and Bartol, 
 Whipple, James T. Fields, George Sumner, talented 
 brother of the statesman Charles Sumner, William 
 R. Alger and William B. Green were among the 
 guests. "It was a brilliant three hours," writes Starr 
 King. 
 
 Starr King's public attitude on the subject of Anti- 
 Slavery became more and more pronounced. Thus 
 
 [47] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 at the opening of a series of lectures on slavery de- 
 livered in Boston in the winter of 1856 he read — with 
 what effectiveness we can imagine — Whittier's some- 
 what lengthy poem "The Panorama," a powerful ar- 
 raignment of both the Northern and Southern States 
 for their course with regard to the national sin of 
 slavery. 
 
 To his friend Ryer he writes : 
 
 "April 4, 1857. 
 "Boston is in full bloom intellectually. Whipple 
 is lecturing twice a week on the literary men of 
 Shakespeare's time. They are marvellous lectures. 
 I attend them all, and feel that is a great privilege. 
 Emerson also lectures on Wednesday evenings. I 
 go to them also. They are very interesting, but not 
 up to his tide-line. Beecher is to be here. Tuesday 
 night he will trot out the ghost of Burns. Thursday 
 night Winthrop lectures. And we have been enjoy- 
 ing great music. Moreover, I am working hard on 
 my White Mountain book. It is well along. They 
 want me to settle in Chicago and offer a new church 
 and $5000 salary. I seriously think of going." 
 
 [48] 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 ON THE LECTURE PLATFORM 
 
 MR. KING'S talents soon called him into the 
 lecture field. It was the era of the Lyceum 
 system, that great lecture campaign which 
 preceded the Civil War, and afforded the best writ- 
 ers and speakers an opportunity to discuss before au- 
 diences of the most thoughtful and earnest people the 
 great moral and social topics of the day. It was 
 natural that Starr King should be attracted to this 
 enlargement of his sphere of influence. As he told 
 his Boston congregation: "The lecture offers a 
 noble medium of influence. Many of the gifted men 
 who pour their power through that channel speak 
 from a consecration as manifest as the best preach- 
 ing betrays. I cannot regret that I have been drawn 
 so widely into that field, for it has been simply a 
 necessity." The inadequacy of the salary which the 
 church was able to pay Mr. King compelled him to 
 add to his resources by lecture engagements. One 
 third of his income from the Hollis Street Society 
 he devoted to his mother and a brother incurably 
 ill. He speedily became very popular on the lecture 
 platform and extended his real parish from Boston 
 all the way north to Bangor, and west to Chicago 
 
 [49] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 and St. Louis. Yet his earnings from this source 
 were small, as compared with the fees received nowa- 
 days by lecturers of equal rank. From ten to twenty- 
 five dollars was considered a sufficient remuneration 
 for a lecture in New England, and fifty dollars if 
 delivered at the West. It is probable, Mr. Whipple 
 tells us, that Mr. King's income was not increased 
 over fifteen hundred dollars a year by his lecture 
 engagements; while their drain on his physical and 
 nervous vitality was tremendous, Mr. King's lec- 
 tures, like those of many of his contemporaries, were 
 largely sermons extended and popularized for Ly- 
 ceum use. They dealt with the ethical and social 
 life, and were designed to upbuild the spiritual side 
 of man's nature, to strengthen faith in the true, the 
 beautiful and the good as the chief and permanent 
 interests of the human soul. 
 
 It is noteworthy that Starr King selected as the 
 topic of his first lecture the great and many-sided 
 German writer Goethe, of whose life and works he 
 had made a close study. It was much admired. Dr. 
 James Walker, the scholarly president of Harvard 
 College, said that it was not merely remarkable that 
 so young a man should have delivered such a lecture, 
 but that any man could have given it. It was but 
 thq prelude to an output of brilliant and popular 
 utterances on the lecture platform which soon placed 
 Thomas Starr King in the very front rank of lyceum 
 orators, and made him widely known and admired 
 throughout the United States as a clear and forcible 
 
 [50] 
 
ON THE LECTURE PLATFORM 
 
 thinker, a gifted rhetorician, and a persuasive advo- 
 cate of the higher interests of American life and 
 letters. He w^as ranked as one of the four great 
 luminaries of the lecture platform, the others by gen- 
 eral consent being Wendell Phillips, Dr. E. H. 
 Chapin and Henry Ward Beecher. Starr King was 
 the youngest of this quartette of orators, and held 
 his own by gifts different from the others yet none 
 the less fascinating and meritorious. As Dr. Henry 
 W. Bellows tells us: ''Starr King was more versa- 
 tile, more scholarly, more artistic than they. His 
 lectures were more balanced, finished and ornate. 
 His keen analytic sense and philosophic acumen gave 
 to his addresses an intellectual basis and breadth often 
 wanting in those of his great rivals," who, be it said 
 in passing, were also amongst his warmest friends 
 and dearest companions. "His keen intellect caught 
 at the laws immersed in bewildering details. He de- 
 lighted to link together the most opposite and incon- 
 gruous things; by some subtle association of thought 
 to give a local habitation and a name, a costume and 
 a character to the vague notions, ideas, fancies and 
 impressions floating in men's brains." Of such a 
 nature, as their very title indicates, were his famous 
 lectures: ''Substance and Show;" "Sights and In- 
 sights;" "The Ideal and the Real;" "Existence and 
 Life." To this subtlety and analytic power was 
 added an acquaintance with the latest developments 
 of scientific thought, making his lectures brilliant 
 summaries of the latest philosophy illustrated by the 
 
 [SI] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 newest scientific disclosures. The gorgeousness of 
 his rhetorical imagination, the incessant play of his 
 humor and the electric character of his delivery, all 
 contributed to make him the idol of the lecture plat- 
 form. 
 
 On January 29th, 1849, Starr King writes his 
 friend Randolph Ryer: 
 
 "January 29th, 1849. 
 
 ". . . The first of the week I was engaged in re- 
 touching my lecture (before the Mercantile Library 
 Association) on History. I improved it, in my 
 judgment, considerably. Such a house you never 
 saw. It was jammed and crammed, the largest of 
 the season, except when Webster spoke. Every seat 
 was filled, two hundred extra ones were provided, 
 and then at least a hundred people stood around the 
 doors. It took with critics and people, the audience 
 were amazingly still, except when they applauded, 
 which was not seldom. 
 
 "Emerson gave us last Monday evening the most 
 brilliant lecture I ever listened to from any mortal. 
 It was on the identity of the laws of the mind with the 
 laws of nature. . . . To-night he lectures again. I 
 fear I may lose it." 
 
 A lecture on Socrates was especially dear to Mr. 
 King, and did much to introduce the ancient Greek 
 philosopher and his era to the plain men and women 
 who made up the bulk of the Lyceum audiences. It 
 is even now a readable and delightful paper, and 
 should lead to the study of the great thinker and 
 moralist of classic antiquity. Mr. Whittier related 
 
 [52] 
 
ON THE LECTURE PLATFORM 
 
 that he once loaned a volume of Socrates' great dis- 
 ciple Plato to a Yankee farmer of his acquaintance. 
 He returned the book after an interval. "How did 
 you enjoy my friend Plato?" asked the poet. "I 
 liked him fust-rate," was the answer. "I see he's 
 got hold of some of my idees." So Mr. King's lec- 
 tures "domesticated" Socrates in the towns and cities 
 of the East and West, making his audiences feel that 
 they had a natural affinity with what was best and 
 most inspiring in the thinking and life of classic an- 
 tiquity. 
 
 For Daniel Webster's intellectual and rhetorical 
 powers Mr. King had an unbounded admiration. 
 He was among the first to appreciate the contribu- 
 tion which that great orator and writer had made to 
 American literature as well as politics. He paid 
 eloquent tribute to the eminent public service which 
 Mr. Webster had rendered as an expounder of the 
 American Constitution, and defender of the National 
 idea against sectional aggression and party rancor. 
 Mr. King's lecture on "Webster and the Constitu- 
 tion," delivered with especial frequency and fervor 
 during the era of the Civil War, reveals one of the 
 chief sources of his own patriotic inspiration and 
 political sagacity. 
 
 August, 1852, finds him at work on an oration 
 for Waterville College, Maine. Its topic was "Prop- 
 erty." It was in reality a sermon expanded for the 
 present purpose — more than half being entirely 
 new. 
 
 [53] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 " I didn't pay much respect to the sensual and 
 hard-fisted estimates of goods and possessions, and I 
 closed with an appeal to the young men to be 
 prophets of the intellect and do something to reduce 
 the American scepticism in the reality of all things 
 which their hands could not grasp, and the Yankee 
 limitation of beauty to the yellow hue of gold. 
 
 "It was delivered to an audience more densely 
 packed than I ever saw before, and was well received. 
 The society professed themselves satisfied. The 
 Baptists were quite liberal, and I came home en- 
 couraged for the prospects of liberal Christianity 
 among the rising generation of Evangelicals. 
 Beecher has many young sympathizers that back him 
 up. My production will not be printed, nor will 
 my recent 4th of July oration before the Boston 
 City authorities. I have declined the honor." ^ 
 
 To Randolph Ryer: 
 
 "November 8, 1850. 
 "Socrates is finished in the first draft. I have yet 
 to copy it, and recast it, in a measure, for delivery 
 in Lyceum courses. At present all the materials I 
 have collected would consume two hours in the read- 
 ing. Last Thursday night I delivered it at Quincy. 
 It was liked, I am told, but I was satisfied that 
 it needs a great deal of pruning to fit it for public 
 success." 
 
 "November 24, i8i;o. 
 "On Sunday afternoon I lectured on the religious 
 views of Socrates. We had a splendid congregation 
 to hear it. I believe people generally were aston- 
 
 1 It was put into print thirty-two years later, in 1884, by the authorities 
 of the City of Boston. 
 
 [54] 
 
ON THE LECTURE PLATFORM 
 
 ished to find what noble and spiritual views of God, 
 duty, the soul, providence and prayer Socrates enter- 
 tained. On Thanksgiving day I shall preach on the 
 Nineteenth Century and the Progress and Prospects 
 of Humanity." 
 
 ''October ii, 1852. 
 
 "My amanuensis was laid up with weak eyes last 
 week and I was compelled to write a sermon myself. 
 It was hard work for me. I am going into New 
 York State in January to six or seven principal places. 
 Shall stop a Sunday at Niagara Falls." 
 
 A month later he preaches a sermon on the death 
 of Daniel Webster, and writes: 
 
 "I am driven with rewriting Lyceum lectures, writ- 
 ing sermons and preparing the discourse on Webster 
 for the printing. The church was full to hear it, 
 though the Sunday was stormy. Thanks for Bellows' 
 sermon. It was very characteristic, rich, poetic, bold 
 and noble. I enjoyed reading it more than any other. 
 With regard to Webster's 7th of March speech, I 
 simply put two hypotheses as to Webster's motives. 
 If he acted from political expediency and ambition 
 he fell; if from broad views of permanent compre- 
 hensive benefit to all races, in the long run, by pre- 
 serving the Constitution and the Union (which I pre- 
 fer to believe) his action was, to himself, conscien- 
 tious and heroic. I can't read his heart and there- 
 fore couldn't take the responsibility of deciding 
 further." 
 
 Concerning his lecture, "The Laws of Disorder," 
 Wendell Phillips told me a story which illustrates 
 Mr. King's resourcefulness and tact. Mr. Phillips 
 
 [S5] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 had been invited to lecture in a New Hampshire town 
 — I think it was Manchester — and asked to name 
 his fee. As was his habit he replied, "If my topic 
 may be Anti-Slavery I will come for nothing and pay 
 my own expenses. If "The Lost Arts" or any other 
 of my literary addresses is demanded I shall have to 
 lecture for F. A. M. E.; as Dr. Chapin has put it; 
 that is 'Fifty- And-My-ExpensesM" It was finally 
 arranged that Mr. Phillips should speak in their Ly- 
 ceum Course on "The Lost Arts," and later in the 
 evening, as was his frequent custom, address those 
 who might desire to remain and hear him on Anti- 
 Slavery. This program was carried out, but gave 
 great offense to the pro-slavery element among the 
 subscribers. The succeeding lecturer in the course 
 was Thomas Starr King. Before introducing him 
 to the audience the chairman sought to allay the feel- 
 ing which had been created the week previous. "I 
 regret," he began, "to learn that the permission our 
 committee gave Mr. Phillips to speak on Anti-Slav- 
 ery last week has called out much unfavorable com- 
 ment" — A storm of hisses and outcries from the abo- 
 litionists present interrupted and abashed the speaker. 
 "Do not misunderstand me," he cried, "it is not that 
 I personally objected to Mr. Phillips' remarks. 
 Quite the contrary, I assure you, quite the contrary!" 
 Hereupon the pro-slavery element began an uproar. 
 The poor man, unable to make himself heard, and 
 quite overcome by the demonstration, sat down help- 
 lessly and entirely forgot to introduce the speaker of 
 
 [56] 
 
ON THE LECTURE PLATFORM 
 
 the evening. Mr. King, who had been an amused 
 spectator of the scene, rose to his feet and advanced 
 to the front of the stage. In stentorian tones that 
 commanded attention he cried : ''Ladies and gentle- 
 men! My name is Thomas Starr King. I have 
 come from Boston to read you a lecture to-night on 
 ^The Laws of Disorder.' I am sure you will agree 
 that this is a very opportune time for me to begin." 
 The audience, captivated by the wit and tact of the 
 speaker, laughed and applauded and settled down 
 to listen.^ 
 
 This incident brings to mind a characteristic trait 
 of Mr. King, already referred to, his irrepressible 
 humor and flow of spirits. He was "constitutionally 
 hilarious," as some one has expressed it. He had 
 the keenest eye for the odd, eccentric and ludicrous 
 in the speech and conduct of his fellow-creatures. 
 No one had such a fund of anecdotes and comical 
 experiences, and no one could tell a story so inimi- 
 tably. Once, when a matter-of-fact individual ex- 
 postulated: "But, Mr. King, I was present on the 
 occasion referred to, and saw no such happenings," 
 the mirthful story-teller replied "Ah, but don't you 
 
 1 A number of the most able and popular of Mr. King's lectures and 
 pulpit discourses, after his death, by the advice of Frank Bret Harte, 
 who had been charged with their examination, and in response to a gen- 
 eral demand, were published in two volumes, entitled respectively "Sub- 
 stance and Show," and "Christianity and Humanity." They were edited, 
 and prefaced by a felicitous, but all too brief memoir by his intimate 
 friend Edwin P. Whipple. As Dr. Charles W. Eliot has said, they should 
 be perused by every young American student of oratory, not only for 
 their intellectual and moral values, but for their rhetorical quality, and 
 the virility and beauty of their English style. 
 
 [57] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 wish you could have?" Whenever anv of this bril- 
 liant company of authors, lecturers and divines met 
 each other, on the train speeding away to their re- 
 spective appointments, or at the Old Corner Book- 
 store, or the dinners of the Examiner Club, there was 
 a display of wit and wisdom that was worth listen- 
 ing to. In this blending of sense and nonsense, earn- 
 est and fun, Starr King was unequaled for spontane- 
 ity and brilliancy. This native mirthfulness appears 
 especially in his voluminous correspondence, which 
 overflows with quips, puns, good-natured banter, 
 humorous sallies, — a well-spring of joy and cheer. 
 Moreover, his wit, however telling, was so genial that 
 it never wounded a heart or lost him a friend. I re- 
 call that at one of his Friday evening receptions in 
 San Francisco the conversation turning to imperfec- 
 tions in speech, I shyly ventured to remark that I 
 also had much difficulty with certain words — 
 ''There's 'Re-Religion.' Somehow, I stumble over 
 it, I can't get it out!" With a look of pretended so- 
 licitude Mr. King rejoined, "How sad! Perhaps it's 
 because you haven't it in you." 
 
 This keen sense of humor did a great deal to ease 
 the friction and strain of life for Starr King, on whom 
 this incessant round of clerical and literary engage- 
 ments was beginning to tell most seriously. The pro- 
 fession of a lecturer, it has been truly said, is a most 
 exhausting one. For five months in the year travel- 
 ling over the country, enduring innumerable discom- 
 forts and exposures, sleeping in strange beds, eating 
 
 [58] 
 
ON THE LECTURE PLATFORM 
 
 unwonted fare, speaking under greater or less mental 
 excitement in ill-ventilated or acoustically impossible 
 halls; after the lecture meeting crowds of people, en- 
 tertaining until late at night a company specially in- 
 vited by his host, and returning home in haste to make 
 his usual careful preparation for the Sunday — it is 
 no wonder Mr. King's slight physique, after eleven 
 years of this hard service, should have threatened to 
 give way. 
 
 We find frequent references in Mr. King's letters 
 of this period to the irksomeness and exhaustion of 
 physical and nervous energies attending this annual 
 lecture campaign. 
 
 Thus in Sept. 1852, he writes: 
 
 "We returned last Friday to our home at 12 Bur- 
 roughs Place (a quiet court leading from Hollis 
 Street) . If I could look forward to a quiet winter 
 ^ should deeply rejoice. But alas! I must carry 
 the gates of Gaza again, lecturing, lecturing for 
 money, money, — that is the song that buzzes in my 
 ears. When shall I have rest? I begin my yearly 
 campaign this very night at South Maiden, where I 
 shall deliver 'Property' for $10." 
 
 "January ist, 1854. 
 "Last week I was in Western New York. Left 
 home Monday noon, reached Niagara Tuesday fore- 
 noon, lectured in Buffalo Tuesday night. Auburn 
 Wednesday, Rochester Thursday, Syracuse Friday, 
 left after the lecture in the night train for Albany 
 and reached home Saturday at 8 P. M. Niagara 
 looked gloriously in the white frame of winter. The 
 
 [59] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 lecture, 'Socrates' went swimmingly to crowded 
 houses." 
 
 "February 13, 1854. 
 
 "Last Monday night I lectured in Springfield, and 
 returned in the night train on the same seat with 
 Henry Ward Beecher. He was sleepy and rich; I 
 was wide-awake and rich. We had a glorious talk 
 about orthodoxy, Nebraska, John Mitchell, Conflict 
 of Ages (have you read my review?), Chapin, Fur- 
 ness. Temperance, Revivals, etc., etc. I made him 
 roar with some stories." 
 
 The lights and shadows of a lecturer's life are 
 shown in two letters from subsequent years. 
 
 "March 2, i8i;4. 
 "I was an hour late for the lecture in Utica last 
 Thursday, missing one train and being detained on 
 another. The audience waited, however, and a glori- 
 ous one it was. They doubled the price of admission 
 for that night, but the hall was crowded. Socrates 
 was a very acceptable guest. Rome (N. Y.) was 
 wide awake the second time. They had a large 
 church for my lecture. Money was made out of me, 
 although they paid me $40 at Rome, and $150 at 
 Utica. The audience at Rome was so still that you 
 could hear the clock tick through the whole address. 
 Friday night I started for Albany at 12 to be in Al- 
 bany for the 7 A. M. train. About half way the 
 engine gave out, and we reached that city at 8 A. M. 
 Very pleasant! I telegraphed ahead to Julia, and 
 then took a room in the hotel and went to writing a 
 sermon. Started at 4 P. M. for Boston, due at 12:30. 
 Between Springfield and Bos-ton our engine gave out. 
 I reached home about 4 A. M. Sunday, finding my 
 
 [60] 
 
ON THE LECTURE PLATFORM 
 
 wife half frightened to pieces. She didn't get the 
 despatch for which I paid a dollar. 
 
 "Last night I lectured in Concord. Emerson was 
 there and heard 'Substance and Show.' I was terri- 
 fied with his presence and didn't deliver it so well as 
 usual. But he was stirred up, was quite eloquent in 
 compliment and joy. He told the people my preach- 
 ing wasn't so good as that. 'That is preaching,' he 
 said to the Doctor of the village. I was really lifted 
 up to find that he was so moved by the utterance. 
 We had a supper at the Unitarian minister's after it 
 was over. Emerson was there, and I entertained 
 them with imitations of Beecher's preaching. I 
 think Beecher's parish had better hire me for half 
 the time to imitate Henry Ward's great sermons. 
 Emerson was genial as a child and was in great hu- 
 mor over the imitations. Bellows at our church last 
 Sunday, stirred our people up tremendously. He 
 spoke without notes an hour and twenty minutes in 
 the morning on Antioch College. Every man, 
 woman and child was carried away as by a tempest. 
 He could have raised $i;ooo if the contribution box 
 had gone around after the sermon." 
 
 "February 9, 1855. 
 "I am home. Thank Heaven! I have escaped 
 from the jaws of the West. I am not buried in snow- 
 drifts, I am not frozen. I am not in my grave from 
 dyspepsia. I am not starving on the train between 
 Chicago and the Mississippi. I am not smashed up 
 on the Ohio Central when two trains came nose to 
 nose — but finding that I was on board concluded not 
 to pitch into each other. I am not crazy from riding 
 some ten nights without sleep. I am not quite des- 
 perate, although I lost $300 from my programme by 
 
 [6.] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 storms and failures of engagements, and cleared only 
 about $300. In a word I am not dead. Though 
 why I am not, it would puzzle a metaphysician to 
 determine. Such a journey! Catch me in the West 
 again! 
 
 "To be sure I got glory, glory at Chicago, at Cin- 
 cinnati, at Rockford; but I desire less glory and 
 more comfort. I am home safe, after having almost 
 seen the Mississippi, and quite plainly seen the Ele- 
 phant. Instead -of a trunk, however, he had a valise. 
 When can I quit lecturing?" 
 
 One source of recuperation which delayed the im- 
 pending break of his health was his summer vacation 
 among the hills of New Hampshire and on the sea 
 coasts of New England. He had an exquisite appre- 
 ciation of natural scenery and an extraordinary talent 
 for describing it. He knew the White Hills of New 
 Hampshire better than their village guides and had 
 explored the whole line of Cape Ann and the Massa- 
 chusetts Coast. The fruit of his ten years' summer- 
 ing and wintering in our New England Alps was 
 his letters to the Boston Evening Transcript on the 
 New Hampshire Mountains, which, collected and 
 revised, were later issued with illustrations in a vol- 
 ume, "The White Hills, their Legends, Landscape 
 and Poetry," — the single book he was spared to give 
 to the public, a work of imaginative power and liter- 
 ary charm, and one which still holds its use as a 
 guide-book and companion in that delightful region. 
 No man was so widely known as Mr. King in this 
 mountain district and none more highly esteemed. 
 
 [62] 
 
STAiiU KING MUUNTAIX, WHITE HILLS. NEW HAMrslIlKE 
 From White field, N.H. 
 
 PHOTO BY E.S.JONES 
 
 PERMISSION OF THE BOSTON TRANSCRIPT 
 
ON THE LECTURE PLATFORM 
 
 His graphic pen described its scenic beauty, his voice 
 led public worship in its school houses and churches, 
 his generous sympathy had been extended towards 
 its poor. The noble peak, five thousand feet high, 
 which overlooks the pleasant village of Jefferson, 
 N. H., was named after him, Mt. Starr King. The 
 precipitous and sombre King's ravine on the western 
 slope of Mount Jefferson, which, in 1857, at the head 
 of a party of mountaineers he was the first to explore, 
 also perpetuates his memory to the dwellers and visit- 
 ors in that region. At Gorham, where Mr. King 
 passed nine summers, he was a familiar and beloved 
 figure and remains an endeared tradition. 
 
 Many are the stories current in this mountain dis- 
 trict of the wit and joyousness of these brilliant sum- 
 mer visitors. Once, when Dr. Chapin was engaged 
 in playing a game of ten-pins, a bystander humor- 
 ously remarked: "Why, D'octor Chapin, what 
 would happen if your church people learned of your 
 participation in this worldly amusement?" "Noth- 
 ing whatever!" was the quick retort. "I should sim- 
 ply prove an alley-by." 
 
 Starr King, coming into the house one morning, 
 reported: "It is raining like Caesar!" "An absurd 
 comparison," said Chapin. "Not at all," rejoined 
 King. "Have you so soon forgotten your classics — 
 'Caesar reigned hard.' " 
 
 When Henry Ward Beecher made one of the party, 
 as not infrequently happened, the fun waxed fast and 
 furious. Starr King used to tell of a long tramp the 
 
 [63] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 three friends once made through the mountains. 
 Footsore and weary, at the close of a long hike, the 
 daily stage-coach overtook them, and they quickly 
 decided to avail themselves of it to reach their desti- 
 nation. Climbing to its top they distributed them- 
 selves, Starr King perching by the side of the driver 
 and soon engaging him in a lively conversation. 
 'Were you ever in New York?" he finally asked the 
 unsuspecting Jehu. "Waal, I was onc't," the latter 
 replied. "Some of my wife's folks invited us to visit 
 'em there two winters ago." "And did you enjoy 
 it?" "I should say! Ain't it a big place? Nothin' 
 to beat it this side o' kingdom come." "I suppose 
 you were there over Sunday?" remarked Beecher. 
 Yes, he had spent three Sundays in the great metropo- 
 lis. "Where did you go to church on Sunday?" 
 asked King. The stage driver lifted his eyebrows 
 with surprise, and took another look at the dust-cov- 
 ered and slouchy trio ere he answered, "My wife's 
 folks are Universalists, and the fust Sunday they took 
 us to hear their crack preacher, Chapin." "And did 
 you like him?" King asked mischievously. "Say 
 now — he's a wonder. No use talking — he's a big 
 man!" "Yes," retorted King, his eyes dancing with 
 mirth, "you're right there. He's big enough. Al- 
 most as big as that man on the seat behind you.'^ 
 The driver craned his neck around for a fresh obser- 
 vation. "Bigger round the head; not so big in the 
 stummic." There was a general explosion at this 
 comment. Starr King persisted: "Didn't you go 
 
 [64] 
 
ON THE LECTURE PLATFORM 
 
 to hear that other great preacher over in Brooklyn, 
 Henry Ward Beecher?" "I did. Went to hear him 
 to please my wife. She's a Congregational." "And 
 did you like him?" ''Sure! He's a stunner. 
 Nothin' like him." "Well, now," asked King, "of 
 those two men, Chapin and Beecher, which did you 
 think was the greatest preacher?" "Sho," said the 
 stage-driver, with an air of finality, "Beecher's a 
 mighty smart man, but when it comes to preaching, 
 Chapin can preach him right out of his boots!" 
 
 We permit ourselves to quote only two of the letters 
 to personal friends in which Mr. King uttered the 
 praises and sought to impart the charm of this lovely 
 mountain region, to which he later did full justice in 
 a widely read book. 
 
 To Randolph Ryer: 
 
 "May 30, 1853. 
 
 "I intimated to you last Monday morning that I 
 might jump Anniversary Week by leaping over 
 Boston into the district of the White Hills. Tues- 
 day morning I made the attempt, arrived on Lake 
 Winnipiseogee at noon, and after a most delicious 
 sail dined at Centre Harbor. Started at i 130 for 
 Conway — roads good, no dust, mountains sharp in 
 the sky as an axe, and air balmy and soft as the 
 breezes of Paradise. Last fall I saw the hills in their 
 October pomp; now the blossoms weighed the trees 
 like vegetable snow, and the orchards seemed robed 
 in bridal joy. After a most glorious and memorable 
 ride we arrived in North Conway at evening, and 
 slept at Thompson's under the protection of Mt. 
 Kearsage. You remember our walk three years ago 
 
 [6s] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 in that village when the half-moon softened the land- 
 scape with its ethereal silver. 
 
 "Wednesday it stormed, but lifted at evening, giv- 
 ing us (I mean Rev. Chas. H. Leonard of Chelsea 
 and myself) the privilege of a two hours' walk along 
 the rich meadows that border the Saco. Thursday 
 it stormed furiously and we were housed all day, 
 with nothing to relieve the tedium. Friday morn- 
 ing was beautiful, inspiring, divine. We spent sev- 
 eral hours exploring the beauties of North Conway, 
 which is pronounced by artistic eyes, the loveliest 
 village of New England. At 12 we started in an 
 open wagon to go through the Pinkham road around 
 the base of the Mt. Washington range to Gorham, 
 N. H. The air was evidently the last remnant of 
 the breeze that fanned Eden the morning after Eve 
 was created; there never will be another like it till 
 the new heavens and earth appear. O what a ride! 
 Going through the village of Jackson, we saw the 
 whole monarch range from base to summit at an 
 angle that made us realize its height. Without 
 going around the Eastern and Northern sides of the 
 mountains it is impossible to know the majesty and 
 magnificence of these hills. After riding some fif- 
 teen miles thus, we let the wagon return, and we 
 walked seven miles carrying our overcoats and valises 
 up hill much of the way. Pretty tough! Then we 
 took a wagon and went to Gorham eight miles. The 
 storm had torn the road very badly. It took us three 
 hours to go the eight miles and we arrived at Gorham 
 at 10:30 pretty well tired. Next morning we took 
 a few hours to see the glorious aspects of the moun- 
 tains from that side — very superior to anything on 
 Gibbs' district, and at 11 started for home, which we 
 reached at 8 P. M. Yesterday I preached on 
 
 [66] 
 
ON THE LECTURE PLATFORM 
 
 'Blossoms,' suggested by the beauty of the trees 
 amongst the mountains. Grand congregation. We 
 think of boarding a few weeks at North Conway in 
 a large farm house." 
 
 To the same: 
 
 ''September i, 1858. 
 
 "The summer is over. I send you an autumn 
 greeting. This morning I arrived in Boston from 
 Portland by boat. Yesterday forenoon I was driving 
 in a wagon far up on the banks of the Androscoggin 
 within twenty miles of Umbagog lake, and feasting 
 my eyes on the noble view of the three greatest 
 mountains of the White Mountain range — Washing- 
 ton, Jefferson, and Madison. It is a view which I 
 discovered this year, and it beats all other landscape 
 views of the hills out and out. No visitors of the 
 region have ever seen it except such as I have taken 
 there. Up to this year the Creator of all Mountains 
 has enjoyed it almost exclusively. 
 
 "I have been at the mountains nearly eight weeks. 
 Was worn out when I came. Am now hearty, and 
 shouldn't know that I had written or spoken for a 
 year. 
 
 "I have been to Franconia twice, to the Notch 
 district twice, to Dixville Notch once, to North Con- 
 way once, to Lancaster and the Connecticut river 
 once, and to Berlin Falls twenty times. Also once 
 to the Snow Arch in Tuckerman's ravine, twice to 
 the summit of Mt. Washington (staying all night 
 once), and twice to the top of Mt. Hayes — also to 
 the top of Mt. Lafayette in Franconia. So I have 
 had a somewhat ample feast of mountain splendor." 
 
 Aside from this communion with nature his chief 
 
 [67] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 diversion was the love of the arts; especially of music, 
 of which he had the most exquisite appreciation, as 
 his letters and his noble lecture on Music bear wit- 
 ness/ An even more striking testimony to his artistic 
 sensibility is afforded by the action of a group of some 
 forty leading artists of Boston — many distinguished 
 painters and sculptors among them — who on receiv- 
 ing the sad intelligence of Starr King's death, printed 
 in the Boston Evening Transcript an appreciative 
 tribute to him as one who by his eloquent word-pic- 
 tures of Nature's beauty and sublimity, and his en- 
 lightened understanding of Art as its interpreter to 
 the human soul, had placed them under great and 
 unforgettable obligations. 
 
 ^ In "Substance and Show," p. 231. 
 
 [68] 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 CALL AND TRANSFER TO CALIFORNIA 
 
 IT became apparent that after eleven years of this 
 exhaustive service Starr King needed a change 
 of environment, a new field of labor where he 
 would be able to make larger use of his literary cap- 
 ital, and gain the income needed to support his family 
 and meet his naturally expensive tastes and large 
 charities. Various cities sought him as pastor, 
 Brooklyn, Cincinnati and Chicago among them. 
 He felt himself most attracted by a call from the 
 young and struggling Unitarian Church in San Fran- 
 cisco. The romantic history and imposing scenery 
 of California, the pledge of an adequate salary which 
 would preclude the necessity of a recourse to the 
 "detestable vagrancy of lecturing," as he called it; 
 above all, the challenge to his missionary zeal and 
 consecration powerfully appealed to him. This 
 deeper ethical and religious motive prevailed. ''I 
 do think," he wrote his friend Dr. Henry W. Bellows 
 of New York, "we are unfaithful in huddling so 
 closely around the cosy stove of civilization in this 
 blessed Boston, and I, for one, am ready to go out 
 into the cold and see if I am good for anything." 
 The first intimation of this decision given to his 
 
 [69] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 friends we find in a letter written to Randolph Ryer 
 under date of September, 1859. 
 
 'T have lots of things to tell you, among others 
 that I shall probably move to San Francisco. The 
 White Mountain book will be out for the holidays. 
 It will be a beauty. As to California, read the en- 
 closed letter. I have thought best to let you see just 
 what I wrote the committee. 
 
 " T shall go to you in the hope of using all the 
 powers that may be continued to me for your per- 
 manent strength as a Liberal Christian parish. My 
 great ambition in life is to serve the cause of Chris- 
 tianity as represented by the noblest souls of all the 
 Liberal Christian parties. I am not conscious of 
 any gifts, either of thought or speech, that can make 
 my presence with you so desirable as you seem to 
 think; but if I can be of service by cooperating with 
 you in laying deeper the foundations and lifting 
 higher the walls of our faith in your city, whose civ- 
 ilization is weaving out of the most various and in 
 many respects the best threads of the American char- 
 acter, I shall have reason always to bless Providence 
 for a rich privilege.' " 
 
 Mr. King's decision to remove to San Francisco 
 awoke a storm of regrets and remonstrances from his 
 parishioners and friends. His Boston congregation 
 could not bring themselves to consent to a permanent 
 separation, and finally a vacation was extended to him 
 for fifteen months, during which time the society 
 would depend on pulpit supplies from Sunday to 
 Sunday, in the hope that their beloved minister would 
 
 [70] 
 
CALL AND TRANSFER TO CALIFORNIA 
 
 return to them at the expiration of his leave of ab- 
 sence. On Sunday, the 25th of March, i860, before 
 a crowded audience, Mr. King preached his fare- 
 well sermon, "Words at Parting," a moving utter- 
 ance of affection and gratitude. 
 
 At a social gathering of the parish he received so 
 many manifestations of the love with which they 
 cherished him that his resolution to leave them al- 
 most gave way. A further trial of his loyalty awaited 
 him in New York, where, the day before the sailing 
 of the steamer that was to bear him and his family 
 on their journey to the far Pacific Coast, a public 
 dinner and reception was given in his honor at the 
 Fifth Avenue Hotel by the Unitarian laity and clergy 
 of that city. Three hundred guests were seated at 
 the tables. The venerable poet William CuUen 
 Bryant presided. Revs. Bellows, Osgood, Farley, 
 Samuel Longfellow, O. B. Frothingham, and others, 
 made addresses. The report of the speeches and pro- 
 ceedings, including Starr King's response, filled four- 
 teen columns of the New York Christian Inquirer. 
 As E. P. Whipple says, two short sentences in the 
 letter sent the committee by Rev. Dr. F. H. Hedge, 
 one of the most intimate of his friends, condensed 
 the spirit which animated the assembly: "King is 
 with you for a parting word, and your fraternal 
 benediction on his way. Happy soul! himself a 
 benediction wherever he goes, benignly dispensing 
 the graces of his life wherever he carries the wisdom 
 of his word." 
 
 [71] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 On the fifth of April, i860, Thomas Starr King, 
 with his wife and little daughter Edith, sailed on the 
 steamship Northern Light, by way of the Isthmus of 
 Panama, for his new and chosen field of labor. 
 
 Mr. King kept a detailed journal of the voyage 
 for the information of his own and his wife's rela- 
 tives, and Boston friends. Sundry extracts from it 
 will be of interest. The present writer made the 
 same journey in the following year under similar 
 conditions, and can vouch for the accuracy of Mr. 
 King's descriptions of the scenery and other features 
 of the transit across the Isthmus, and the discomforts 
 and miseries to which the traveller was subjected in 
 those early days by the barriers created by an unsub- 
 dued nature, and the rapacity of ship-owners and 
 their agents. 
 
 ''New York Harbor, April 5th, i860. 
 "The Northern Light was to sail at 12 precisely. 
 . . . We did not reach the ship as early as we in- 
 tended. Horace Greeley came to see me at the Fifth 
 Avenue Hotel in the morning to give me the names 
 of the people I must know in California and some 
 practical advice. 'You are going,' he said, 'to a di- 
 vine country. There is nothing like it on the face 
 of the earth. You will be fascinated by it, except 
 San Francisco, which I think,' said he, 'has the worst 
 climate, and is the most infernal hole on the face of 
 the earth.' A pretty attractive character to give my 
 future home! There were lots of little last things 
 to be done. We did not leave the hotel until nearly 
 ten. Rev. E. H. Chapin rode down in the carriage 
 
 [72] 
 
CALL AND TRANSFER TO CALIFORNIA 
 
 with us, and left us at the pier in order to attend a 
 funeral. Several ministers were in waiting to say 
 farewell. Mr. Samuel Longfellow and Dr. Farley 
 of Brooklyn, Mr. A. A. Livermore of the Inquirer, 
 Octavius B. Frothingham, and Mr. Barrett, the 
 Swedenborgian. Lots of other friends were in at- 
 tendance. My constant friend Randolph Ryer was, 
 of course, on hand. What shall I do without him 
 in San Francisco? Wm. C. Martin, a large lump 
 of the very finest salt on the earth, was there. Then 
 there were the Boston brethren. It is a luxury to 
 write their names — Edward H. Eldredge, Warren 
 Sawyer, Joseph Greeley, John Stetson and Baker 
 Welch. How absurd it seems to leave such attach- 
 ment as these men have shown me! Friendship 
 enough to bless a dozen men better than I am a 
 whole life-time has been poured out from them to- 
 wards me the last three months. I am glad no more 
 of the parish were present to make the parting 
 sharper. Our dear friend Thomas B. Fox was also 
 in the state-room when we reached the steamer, to 
 bid us farewell. To be sure, he might have been 
 seen at the same moment in his little fountain office on 
 Washington Street, where the Christian Examiner s 
 eloquence bubbles up into the literature of the world. 
 But the real, genuine, substantial Fox was with us in 
 spirit, and sent a splendid bouquet of flowers to keep 
 his memory fragrant on the first days of the voyage." 
 
 "At Sea, April 7th. 
 "We are beyond Hatteras and across the Gulf 
 Stream. The passengers, a vast number of whom 
 were sick yesterday, are all out this morning. And 
 what a crowd! There are a thousand persons on 
 this moderate sized steamship. It is almost impossi- 
 
 [73] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 ble to walk the narrow passageways in front of our 
 state-room doors, the only open air promenade the 
 ship affords. We are packed in like cattle in a stock 
 train. Just twice as many as the boat can accommo- 
 date are jammed into her. It is infamous and it is 
 frightful. There are only four small boats attached 
 to the ship, not enough to save the children in case 
 of accident. I do not see any life preservers any- 
 where. Old Vanderbilt ought to be dragged after 
 the ship in the sea, like a ship-mop, from New York 
 to Aspinwall. The stories of wrong, extortion and 
 outrage as to tickets told by the persons on board 
 show that he is a shark packed into human shape and 
 baptized with a Christian name." 
 
 ''At Sea, April 8th. 
 
 "A glorious Sunday morning, the sky unclouded, 
 the sea a brilliant azure, and flecked with white caps 
 which tell us we have still a pleasant breeze. We 
 are ofif Florida, yet the air is not the least oppressive. 
 The passengers want me to preach. There is no 
 other minister on board. Heaven knows there are 
 people enough for three congregations. I preached 
 on Proverbs iv, 23, taking the capstan for a pulpit. 
 It was a severe strain upon the voice to speak in the 
 open air against the noise of the steamer. There was 
 a large gathering and a very attentive one. 
 
 "The Southern Cross is certainly a poetic and in- 
 spiring spectacle, but by association rather than in 
 reality. It needs one more star in it on the long beam 
 of the cross. If I could improve the firmament, I 
 would nail one there. It is larger than I imagined, 
 but anybody who sails beyond the Great Bear to see 
 it makes a bad investment. Last night we had both 
 in the sky. It is amusing to note the ennui of people 
 
 [74] 
 
CALL AND TRANSFER TO CALIFORNIA 
 
 who can't read, write or think. One passenger to-day 
 sat with a very down-cast countenance, then yawned 
 and said: "Oh, God! If I could only go to work 
 once more and work all day like the Devil!" 
 
 "At Aspinwall, April 13th, i860. 
 "We reached the harbor of Aspinwall on the 
 Isthmus before daylight this morning, having made 
 the passage from New York in 7 days, 18 hours. 
 There is very little twilight in the low latitudes, and 
 it was not until sunrise, that we saw the vegetation 
 which clothed the flat curving coast around the 
 steamer. The first burst of sunshine kindled up a 
 vast extent of verdure of a more vivid poll-parrot-y 
 tone in its green that I have ever seen before. The 
 first object that fastened my eyes was a grove of 
 cocoanut trees; their branches spread out from the 
 top of their trunks. They look precisely like huge 
 peacock feathers, and when the breeze pitched them 
 about, they looked like the hair of an uncombed boy, 
 blown by the wind ^every which way/ Two U. S. 
 steamers were lying at anchor in the harbor of Aspin- 
 wall. A boat load of their sailors, in full blue, rowed 
 past our ship to the wharf. Edith, who was on the 
 watch for all novelties, exclaimed, 'Father, there 
 are the natives, what queer looking people!' In ten 
 minutes after we reached the wharf, 900 people had 
 jumped ashore from our vessel, and rushed to the 
 various little hotels and eating rooms. The cars 
 were to leave about 7.30 a. m. for Panama. We 
 stayed on board to pack up our score or two of bun- 
 dles, just gaining the train in season, and at 7.30 
 started for the Pacific. The steerage passengers had 
 been sent in a train ahead. There were 8 oars filled 
 with the first and second cabin travellers, each car 
 
 [7S] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 seating more than 60. The Railroad Company re- 
 ceived $25 for each passenger and 10 cents per lb. 
 for all luggage over 50 lbs. for each person. The 
 two trains this morning paid them over $25,000. 
 The distance across the Isthmus from ocean to ocean 
 is about 48 miles. We were about 3 hours by the 
 cars on the passage. I did not sit down the whole 
 way, but stood in the doorway, and on the platform 
 to enjoy all that possibly could be seen of the new 
 landscape. It was very striking certainly; and yet I 
 must confess to a little disappointment. It was not 
 the Isthmus of my imagination, chiefly because the 
 colors were not as rich as I had anticipated. But 
 the rainy season has not yet set in. The flowers, I 
 presume, do not enliven the forest with their bloom 
 until the rains of May and June water the soil. Still 
 the ride was crammed with interest. We plunged 
 into a tropic swamp at once on leaving Aspinwall, 
 and rushed through the characteristic leafage of the 
 lands near the Equator. Orange and lemon trees, 
 palms with great bunches of red nuts from which the 
 palm oil is extracted, drooping from them; cocoanut 
 trees; cottonwoods; mahogany trees; India-rubber 
 trees, with vines running ofif from their high tops 
 to the ground, like the cordage from a tall mast; all 
 sorts of queer rank ferns and shrubbery, with the 
 huge banana leaf generally overtopping them as if 
 in glee that nothing else could grow so fast; and here 
 and there a large tree like a leviathan lilac with no 
 leaves, but bursting from every twig-point with yel- 
 low and crimson splendor. Such was the kind of 
 feast through which we were whirled. The day was 
 not so oppressive in heat, as I feared it might be. 
 There was breeze enough to save us from suffocation. 
 I have often suffered twice as much from heat in a 
 
 [76] 
 
CALL AND TRANSFER TO CALIFORNIA 
 
 ride from Boston to Portland in June. The most 
 fascinating portions of the ride were the negro huts 
 and their surroundings. Here and there, we came 
 upon a white, pine, Yankee house, with bright green 
 blinds, and perhaps a bar with bad liquor to sell. 
 Some employe of the road, probably, was tenant. 
 It was a sad blotch upon the tropic wilderness, with 
 its uncouth shape, and its dazzling blaze in the 
 powerful sunshine. But the negro huts were charm- 
 ing. They were mostly sheds, roofed very tastily 
 with dry palm leaves. They looked quite cool 
 among the bananas, cocoanuts and thriving palms of 
 the garden spot that generally surrounds them; now 
 and then they were embowered in splendid flowering 
 vines. The negro children in the doorways were 
 usually naked. Almost all of them were as corpulent 
 as little aldermen, showing that they take life easy, 
 and laugh and grow fat. A large portion of the 
 men were three-quarters naked. Their skins were 
 certainly the finest in hue and seemingly in texture, 
 I have ever seen. They looked like images cast in 
 golden bronze. Whether they are Nubians or a 
 cross between the native Indian and the negro, I 
 could not learn, but they certainly are the most splen- 
 did specimens of color in human shape I have fallen 
 in with, and put the Caucasian hue to shame. That 
 is the color Providence intends for the tropics. It 
 harmonizes with the scenery. The Venus and 
 Apollo of that latitude, should not be marble figures, 
 but vital, moving figures. We followed the wind- 
 ings of the Chagres River for 30 miles. The immi- 
 grants, 10 or 12 years ago, were taken up this stream 
 in boats, hundreds of them catching fever on the 
 passage. The scenery must have been extremely fas- 
 cinating then, — when the swamps had not been in- 
 
 [77] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 vaded by axe or fire, and the windings of the stream 
 were opening continual surprises of the richest fol- 
 iage and bloom. As we approached the Pacific coast, 
 we could see mountain heights, green to the summit, 
 through openings in the forest. The foliage was 
 less interesting the last quarter of the way; yet the 
 excitement increased, for we were soon to see the 
 blue bosom of the other ocean. 
 
 "At Panama. 
 
 "As soon as the mile posts indicated 'five miles' to 
 the terminus, I kept a sharp look-out, leaning over 
 the step of the car on the platform. At last a sharp 
 turn showed a huge cocoanut tree, whose flaunting 
 top was flashing in the light, and directly beyond it 
 the two towers of an old time-stained cathedral. 
 Beyond was an expanse of azure sleeping in the hot 
 noon. This was Panama, slowly crumbling into pic- 
 turesqueness on the shore of its lovely Pacific bay. 
 The view gave us a moment of poetry, but it was fol- 
 lowed by an hour of decided prose. Such a rush and 
 crush as there was, when our i;oo souls poured from 
 the train. Almost everybody had some package or 
 heap of traps to be carried by hand. And we were 
 all to be packed on a little ferry boat, which would 
 take us out over the shoal bay, three miles to the 
 steamer in waiting. I hired two negroes, loaded 
 them with camp stools, shawls, overcoats, bottles of 
 cider, pots of pickled oysters, a package of crack- 
 ers, and a large French valise, and we struck for the 
 boat. When we had been pushed by the crowd half 
 way up to the boat, I discovered that our carpet bag 
 with lots of clean clothing, my dressing case and 
 some sermons in it had been left behind. I dis- 
 patched Sarah Kennedy to find it, and we were borne 
 
 [78] 
 
CALL AND TRANSFER TO CALIFORNIA 
 
 on by the living tide to the ferry boat. The gangway 
 was about two feet wide, and through this, which 
 kept swaying by the tide, we were to be squeezed into 
 the boat. This was the most trying operation of the 
 voyage. At last the feat was accomplished, and we 
 found ourselves wedged into the mass of beings on 
 the deck. Soon Sarah returned with the bag, and 
 we were off for the steamer. We had in tow a huge 
 scow on which the steerage passengers were freighted 
 like a swarm of bees ; and thus we went, a thousand 
 human beings, women looking disconsolate, men 
 swearing, lots of people frightened from fear we 
 should upset, everybody separated from the person 
 he or she wanted, nobody able to move, children cry- 
 ing, babies screaming — to the boat that was to take 
 us to San Francisco. In half an hour we were along- 
 side. We were told in the New York office, that we 
 should connect with the Golden Age or the John 
 L. Stephens. Either of them would have been large 
 enough to accommodate our cabin passengers. It 
 was the Sonora, the smallest, oldest, slowest, dirtiest 
 boat of the four chief ones on this side. The Sonora 
 had not state-rooms enough. Fifty first-class pas- 
 sengers must be without rooms. We found, too, on 
 arrival, that we were not to leave at once. We must 
 wait for the arrival of the New Orleans boat at 
 Aspinwall, and the transfer of her passengers and 
 mails to our boat. This will certainly detain us a 
 day, perhaps longer, — an arrangement which is one 
 of the beauties of the new combination with Vander- 
 bilt. 
 
 "Last evening was delightful as we lay still in the 
 Bay of Panama. It is a most lovely sheet of water. 
 The town, with its old cathedral towers, is about 2 
 miles from the ship's anchorage. There are several 
 
 [79] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 rocky walled islands near, and back from the city 
 rise charming mountain heights and ranges, some 
 very high ones stretching back in the hot haze, while 
 in front of the curving harbor, sleeps the blue Pacific. 
 The water setting resembles the shores of Lake Win- 
 nipiseogee more than any other spot I have ever seen. 
 One distant mountain was almost a duplicate in shape 
 of Chocorua. Another height strangely resembled 
 the swell and summits of the Belknap Hills, and the 
 irregular forms strongly remind one of the mountain 
 rim that holds that gem of New Hampshire. But 
 there is a richer color steadily swathing these island 
 mountains. The foliage on them in the distance has 
 a crisp and knotted look, making you think of hair 
 done up in curl papers. There is more fire in the 
 color. The hills of New Hampshire are more like 
 cool emeralds, or pale sapphires, in their natural 
 quality. These are big rubies, and seem ready at 
 the right angle of light, to glow ruddy through and 
 through. After the calm sunset we watched for the 
 phosphorescence on the water. The waters of the 
 harbor are famous for it and we were not disap- 
 pointed. Other waters sparkle with this phosphorus, 
 but these seem to be a mass of gleaming silver, — a 
 lake of quicksilver. A boat was tethered to our 
 steamer by a small rope which lay a foot deep in the 
 water. As it swayed up and down it seemed to be 
 a silver cord rising and falling on the gentle swell. 
 Every dip of an oar, when a boat went by us, turned 
 up liquid light. Splash the water and it made a 
 spatter of stars. Dip your hand in it and as the 
 stream ran ofTf, your fingers were lambent with the 
 strange flame. There were lots of pelicans flying 
 about the bay. They would rise several rods above 
 the water, and suddenly drop down, as if they were 
 
 [80] 
 
CALL AND TRANSFER TO CALIFORNIA 
 
 shot, splashing up the water beautifully, and sinking 
 in it after some fish, which was quickly transferred 
 from the large pouch of the Pacific to the smaller 
 pouch of the pelican. I watched them a long while 
 on the hot morning, and came to the conclusion that 
 it is hard work to get a living on this globe. A peli- 
 can certainly works his passage, but I suppose it is-, 
 'attractive industry.' I was really sorry to leave 
 Panama. But we have kept the shore in sight all the 
 afternoon. Our course is still South, in order to- 
 clear the headlands of the bay, which stretch south- 
 west. We shall be within 400 miles of the base of 
 Chimborazo, before morning. How I wish the 
 steamer would run down there before heading for 
 San Francisco." 
 
 "On the Pacific, Sunday, April 15th. 
 "The passengers insisted upon having service. I 
 preached a Palm Sunday service on 'Jesus a King' 
 from Luke 19th, 25th, etc. The preaching was in the 
 dining saloon, and persons on the guards outside 
 could hear through the windows. There was a 
 large attendance, fine singing, — and preaching noth- 
 ing more than poor. There was a whale in sight to- 
 day. He spurted and leaped, showing his flippers 
 quite near the steamer. This evening the sunset was 
 superb, the colors, particularly the green, deep be- 
 tween the cirrus clouds, were of marvellous beauty. 
 Julia has not been sick to-day, but she does not go to 
 the table, eats very little and very daintily, and seems 
 to be afflicted with a strange, nervous wretchedness 
 on deck. She was not made for a sailor, and does 
 not enjoy a single sight or moment on the ocean. 
 Edith is as frisky as a colt, and as much at home on 
 the steamer as if she were in Burroughs Place or with 
 
 [81] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 Grandmother Wiggin. I forgot to state that I was 
 put as room-mate with Mr. Lambert and Mr. Brooks, 
 two of the trustees of the Unitarian Society in San 
 Francisco." 
 
 "At Sea, Sunday, April 22. 
 "I preached at 10:30 this morning in the dining 
 saloon. It is a hard trial to the voice to speak in the 
 low, long room, and against the dull, plodding sound 
 of the machinery and wheels. A large number at- 
 tended. The text was Psalm xlii: i, a favorite text 
 with me. — 'As the hart panteth after the water- 
 brooks, so panteth my heart after thee, O God.' 
 But it seemed to me as though all the vitality of the 
 sermon, and of all possible preaching is taken out by 
 the restricted limits, and the dull roar in the ears. I 
 wonder if any soul was ever saved, where the man 
 was obliged to hold his hand to his ear and lost an 
 important word now and then. In the afternoon 
 I preached in the steerage. Service was at 2 
 o'clock. I spoke without notes, preaching from John 
 xvi, 33. — *In the world ye shall have tribulation; but 
 be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.' I 
 stood on the upper deck near the bow, with my back 
 to it, and the breeze carried the voice forward very 
 kindly. There was a large attendance, and the as- 
 sembly seemed very attentive and reverent. There 
 were two or three Methodist local preachers or ex- 
 horters among the steerage passengers and they led 
 the singing, which was strong and hearty. There 
 was no awning. I spoke with my hat off under the 
 high sun and with my hair blowing like the cocoa- 
 nut leaves. I spoke more easily and with better com- 
 mand of the subject than I expected ; but so feebly in 
 comparison with the power of a genuine born extern- 
 
 [82] 
 
CALL AND TRANSFER TO CALIFORNIA 
 
 pore speaker. How Beecher would have done it! 
 I was not made for such address; but I enjoyed the 
 service far more than in the cabin, and am very glad 
 I was called to it. I found several intelligent men 
 among the hearers, and had a long talk with them 
 afterwards. They say that there are at least 500 in 
 the steerage. (The officers confess to only 300.) 
 And they say, too, that many of the passengers paid 
 "^iijo, $160, and $170 for their tickets, in the regular 
 office too in New York. This evening the sky was 
 glorious. It was the richest night yet. The new 
 moon, visible on the very horizon, and with horns 
 up, sank like a silver gondola, towards the Sandwich 
 Islands. Venus was as large as a peach and washed 
 acres of the sea with gentle splendor. Jupiter 
 glowed like a white coal nearly in the zenith. On 
 one side of the ship was the north star, low in the 
 sky, overhung by the brilliant dipper upside down. 
 On the other side the Southern Cross. The whole 
 southern portion of the heavens was strewn with mag- 
 nificent stars. It was the most lustrous night I have 
 ever seen. *He telleth the number of the stars: He 
 calleth them all by their names.' " 
 
 There follows in his journal a vivid description of 
 the visit and sojourn of the vessel in the harbor of 
 Acapulco, Mexico; but it is too long for insertion 
 here. Mr. King continued his record of daily ex- 
 periences until the arrival of the steamship at its des- 
 tination. 
 
 *'In Port, Monday, April 30th. 
 
 '^We are in San Francisco! The passage into the 
 bay through the Golden Gate was very interesting. 
 The passage is made between rocks on one side and 
 
 [83] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 a steep mountain on the other. The mountain has 
 no trees, but was covered to the top with a carpet of 
 flowers, wild flowers. There were more flowers than 
 green. The hues were violet, yellow, red, and saf- 
 fron, and the effect was inexpressibly charming. It 
 was as striking as our October tints, but as different 
 as possible, being literally a carpet, or rather a huge 
 plushy, richly wrought rug. There was not a stone 
 on the mountain side to mar the soft and pleasant ef- 
 fect. Julia did not lift her head from the berth, to 
 see anything as we went in. She was not moved to 
 be dressed until the steamer was moored. Then she 
 was lifted and carried out. The committee of the 
 parish were in waiting on the pier and gave me as 
 hearty a reception as could be imagined. They had 
 given notice there would be no service on the Sun- 
 day, under the impression that I should be too tired 
 or weak to preach. But I induced them to counter- 
 mand the order, although it was 3 o'clock P. M. when 
 we reached the pier. Julia was taken in charge at 
 once in a carriage, and we drove to the Oriental 
 Hotel, a forlorn looking wooden building in a 
 wretched part of the city, but the best kept house in 
 the place. We have a sitting room with two bad- 
 smelling bed-rooms leading from it. A few minutes 
 after we sat down, we had a box of magnificent straw- 
 berries sent to us, or rather to Julia, and a splendid 
 bouquet, with compliments of Mrs. Otis. The ber- 
 ries were very large and were delicious. Yesterday 
 morning was superb. There were no clouds, and 
 it was not hot. Although notice was given only in 
 a Sunday morning paper of the service, the church 
 was crowded; every aisle was full, and a hundred 
 went away unable to get in. The singing was ex- 
 cellent. The sermon seemed to impress the people, 
 
 [84] 
 
CALL AND TRANSFER TO CALIFORNIA 
 
 and the parish appear to be in the highest spirits. 
 They take up a contribution here at each service in 
 addition to the pew rents. The collection yesterday 
 was $ioo. There was no service in the evening. 
 This morning I drove out before breakfast to see the 
 country within a few miles. The flowers in the fields 
 are wonderful in their mass, color and variety. That 
 is all that has impressed me favorably as yet. The 
 city is very queer, and very uninteresting to Eastern 
 eyes. It is a vast struggle of houses over half a 
 dozen sand hills, and the streets are bilious with 
 Chinamen. But I can't tell as yet how, or what, I 
 shall like. Julia is better, and is fast regaining 
 strength by firm land, rest and eating. The living at 
 the hotel is very good. The 'overland mail' closes 
 in half an hour, and I must stop suddenly to get these 
 hasty sheets of¥. We have every call to be grateful 
 for preservation on the sea from storm and fire, and 
 for the friends that welcome us in this far of¥ post by 
 the Pacific. 
 
 ^'Te Deum Laudamus." 
 
 [8s] 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE NEW FIELD IN SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 THOMAS STARR KING, as we have seen, 
 entered the Golden Gate on Saturday, the 
 28th of April, i860, and the next morning 
 the Unitarian Church, on Stockton near California 
 Street, was filled with a large and eager audience of 
 intelligent and influential citizens of San Francisco, 
 to whom he preached a sea-written discourse on the 
 text: "And they shall come from the east and the 
 west, and from the north and from the south, and 
 shall sit down in the Kingdom of God." Mr. King 
 in a letter to a friend ^ thus describes his first im- 
 pressions. "I felt lonely enough and yet hopeful. 
 I couldn't help crying like a baby when I first went 
 into the pulpit in thinking of all that I had left be- 
 hind at the east, and then, I hope, I cried no less in- 
 tensely to the Lord. The weather on Sunday was 
 Italian; since then it has been the wretchedest possi- 
 ble, after the Boston type. I have not, therefore, 
 seen anything yet but the dreary, decrepit-looking 
 city. But I shall like it here, I am sure. Preaching 
 I shall enjoy as never before. The parish are in 
 high spirits. The mammon side of the establishment 
 
 1 Rev. A. A. Livermore. 
 
 [86] 
 
THE NEW FIELD IN SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 is already successful. It remains to be seen if we 
 can serve the other master." 
 
 In the congregation assembled to listen to him 
 that morning the expectation was great. When he 
 edged his way down the closely packed aisles to the 
 pulpit the disappointment of his hearers was general. 
 "Could this slender, youthful looking man, with his 
 beardless, boyish face and long, lank hair, be the 
 celebrated preacher, Thomas Starr King?" And, 
 indeed, Mr. King's personal appearance was not cal- 
 culated to impress you with his talent and power. 
 He used to complain humorously that his want of 
 size especially told against him in that country of 
 big waterfalls, big trees and big vegetables. "But," 
 he would add humorously, "though I weigh only 
 1 20 pounds, when I am mad I weigh a ton!" 
 
 The Hindu Theist, J. C. Gangooly, one of the first 
 of the Brahmin fraternity to visit America, was once 
 invited by Mr. King to address his congregation at 
 Hollis Street. Looking around him admiringly 
 Gangooly began: "You have a beautiful church. 
 You have a most excellent minister. And what a 
 noble name he bears! Starr, a luminary in the 
 heavens; King, a ruler among men!" Then turn- 
 ing around in the pulpit to Mr. King sitting behind 
 him, he added, "Well, he does not look it!" 
 
 As that morning he put on the ministerial gown 
 which he always wore in the pulpit, partly, perhaps, 
 to round out his deficient physical proportions, all 
 eyes were fixed upon him with suspense. But the 
 
 [87] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 moment the tones of his rich and resonant voice were 
 heard the anxiety was dispelled, and confidence and 
 delight took its place, which the exercises and 
 sermon confirmed. From that first Sunday Starr 
 King's reputation as an orator was established in 
 San Francisco. Crowds attended the Sunday serv- 
 ices and his fame spread all over the state. Not a 
 few came quite regularly every Saturday night by 
 river boat from Sacramento and other interior points 
 to hear his Sunday discourses. His parish was soon 
 unequaled in the city for the social and business 
 standing, and the intellectual and moral worth of its 
 membership. 
 
 Not long after his arrival Mr. King set about 
 clearing off the accumulated indebtedness of the 
 church, which amounted to some $20,000. Having 
 succeeded in this he began a subscription towards a 
 new and larger church edifice, which was urgently 
 needed, raising in all some $80,000 towards this ob- 
 ject. In return Mr. King's San Francisco parish- 
 ioners sent him on Christmas Day, i860, a splendid 
 service of silver, as an expression of their good will 
 and gratitude. 
 
 Mr. King's own impressions of his new field of 
 labor are recorded in letters to his eastern friends. 
 
 "By Pony Express, 
 "San Francisco, May nth, i860. 
 '^My dear Fox: ^ 
 
 "I send you a word of greeting through the Rocky 
 
 1 Rev. Thomas B. Fox, one of the editors of the Boston Evening Tran- 
 script. 
 
 [88] 
 
THE NEW FIELD IN SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 Mountains. Is not the Pony Express a right-down 
 California institution? Snorting through the passes 
 of the Rocky Mountains at a rate that beats the 
 steamers 8 days in getting letters through to New 
 York and Boston. Prices are moderate, $5 a letter, 
 cheap for the luxury of writing to you. I would pay 
 $10 to see you. My wife would contribute another, 
 no doubt. But it would require more than two 
 ^eagles' ' wings to bring you here by sea, or over the 
 great crests where the eagles roost. 
 
 "You have seen my journal, which probably told 
 you how we fared and when we arrived. We have 
 been here two weeks to-morrow. The parish enter- 
 prise is already successful beyond the most sanguine 
 expectations of the leaders. The income of the 
 society will pay my salary and leave a large surplus 
 to sponge off something of the debt. It is a noble 
 place to preach in, and they need it. The city as a 
 place to live in — O mein Gottf As a business centre 
 and illustration of the magic of Yankee enterprise, 
 Aladdin's lamp feats are pale before it. And it is 
 something like the Aladdin business. For this city 
 has been four times burned down. But the harder 
 the rubs, the more miraculous the magic here. I 
 have been some fifty miles into the country already 
 and have seen some scenery that could not be sur- 
 passed for color. I shall enjoy my work here, and 
 the country will be a perpetual resource and delight. 
 
 " I forgot to thank you elaborately for your admir- 
 able White Mountain article, and your friendly but 
 excessive praise of the author's work. The book 
 won't pay me pecuniarily (I have not realized $500 
 from it, and its sale, I suspect, is about over) but it 
 has paid me in compliments and kind words, among 
 which yours are chief and welcome. You spoke of a 
 
 [89] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 letter of mine in the Transcript on the Bay as good. 
 Singularly I received at the same time a letter from 
 a friend of taste, in Boston, who thought I must be 
 seriously sick, as that letter was so poor. . . . But 
 how charming K. C.'s pieces are! I read them with 
 constant delight and admiration. They ought to be 
 printed one of these days. Then my book will be in 
 shadow. 
 
 "I dined the other day with the new Republican 
 Senator from Oregon, Col. Baker, at Col. Fremont's. 
 Baker and I arranged for a hunting party in Oregon 
 among the great Cascade Mountains, next June. I 
 am a missionary and shall carry the Gospel to the 
 deer people. Mrs. Jessie Fremont was here last 
 evening to show us the medal and decorations sent to 
 her husband from Berlin this week, with news of his 
 election into an order there. He takes the place of 
 Macaulay. Yours in exile, 
 
 "T. S. K." 
 
 To Randolph Ryer: 
 
 "San Francisco, August 5th, i860. 
 
 "If I am to be absent two years, one-sixth of the 
 time has passed. I can't say that I look forward with 
 jubilance to a stay here five times as long in the future. 
 But I feel very sure that I shall not get away in less 
 time than that. I want to see all the debt of the 
 society paid, a new organ bought, a new church-front 
 erected, a new parish started in another part of the 
 city, and a good man invited and on hand to step into 
 my place. Will not this require full two years? I 
 think so. Last Wednesday I spoke to the negroes on 
 Emancipation Day, and had a rich time. You would 
 have been fully satisfied with the eloquence of the 
 sable admirer who introduced me. He described 
 
 [90] 
 
THE NEW FIELD IN SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 me as riding on the livid lightnings of my eloquence 
 over the Sierras, and carried out beyond the corusca- 
 tions of the galaxies, and hoped that in my dying 
 apathy, When I caught a glimpse of my terrestial 
 home, I might soar on the wings of immortal mind to 
 the Infinite that would be anxiously awaiting me. It 
 was great! Thank you for the sermons on Theodore 
 Parker by James Freeman Clarke and O. B. Froth- 
 ingham. The last is the most able analysis of Par- 
 ker's gifts that I have seen. I, also, spoke of Parker 
 in a sermon which I once decided to print, but re- 
 considered." 
 
 To his friend Alger he wrote some months later: 
 
 "San Francisco, November 5th, i860. 
 "Yesterday was Sunday; and yet the Sonora dared 
 to steam into port, having no fear of Presbyterian 
 indignation, and brought the mail, of which your 
 letter was the gem. After preaching to a full con- 
 gregation in the morning, I refreshed myself thor- 
 oughly with your wise and friendly words, that lost 
 no particle of worth or flavor in their flight of six 
 thousand miles. I am deeply indebted for the privi- 
 lege of a peep through your stereoscope at Martineau 
 embracing Dr. Dewey. How exquisite, yet sad, the 
 music of their duet! The only quarrel I have with 
 the government of this Universe is that such men 
 can't have the power — or their friends for them — 
 of buying up the vitality of a score or so of worthless 
 creatures, that they may be kept in the maturity of 
 their glorious genius here for two or three genera- 
 tions. Some Ponce de Leon will yet discover the 
 pool in which the intellectual aristocracy can thus 
 be rejuvenated. But think of Dr. N. A. taking a 
 
 [91] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 bath in it, and holding over for a century to lecture 
 to us on Gehenna! 
 
 "The weather here is delightful now. We have 
 had some showers in October, and the hills are 
 showing a tint of green. It is our spring time. 
 Every day we are out without overcoats; the scenery 
 surrounding the city is inspiring with beauty. Mt. 
 Diablo is visible from the gate at my front yard, 
 and strongly resembles Mt. Washington seen from 
 Winnipiseogee. It is a superb dessert to my break- 
 fast every morning — bearing up a dome nobly 
 moulded and graciously adorned with flashing grey, 
 and violet shadows, back of a long, torn range of 
 hills into the sky. From my library windows we see 
 the range of hills that heave up from the Pacific, and 
 east of them 40 miles of the dreaming bay. I miss 
 Boston more and more, and yet my feeling is not 
 homesickness. Am I beginning to feel the fascina- 
 tion of this region, which they say, unfits one for liv- 
 ing anywhere else, although we may feel eager now 
 and then to get away? 
 
 ''Our church continues full. In the evening our 
 own people generally stay at home, and yet the seats 
 are all filled with strangers. So I preach to a double- 
 barrelled congregation. Monday evenings I have a 
 large class for religious instruction. We meet in the 
 church. About 200 attend regularly. I lecture ex- 
 tempore for an hour on Matthew." 
 
 The writer has sometimes pondered what it was 
 that so attracted the average man and woman of that 
 day to Mr. King's preaching. He had certainly in no 
 sense a popular style in the pulpit. His discourses, 
 all read from the manuscript, were mostly on phil- 
 
 [92] 
 
THE NEW FIELD IN SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 osophical and spiritual themes, and were classical 
 in form, elegant, even ornate, in language, and digni- 
 fied and chaste in delivery. There were no let- 
 downs in them, or other concessions to the vulgar 
 taste. This elevation and spirituality naturally edi- 
 fied the more intelligent and religiously inclined 
 among his hearers. In those days the sermon was 
 still regarded as literature. The preacher considered 
 it as not simply a work of edification, but of art, ap- 
 pealing not only to man's intellect, conscience and 
 heart, but to his sense of the beautiful also. The 
 congregations Starr King addressed were for the 
 most part thoughtful, well educated and serious. 
 Religion was to them not a fleeting sentiment, a 
 momentary impression, but the transfiguration 
 of the entire life by ethical ideals and spiritual 
 trusts. 
 
 The solemnity and beauty of his prayers, the re- 
 markable impressiveness of his reading of Scripture 
 and hymn, and the electric quality of his delivery 
 were to others the great attraction. He possessed a 
 marvellous voice, deep and rich, with great carrying 
 power. No one that ever heard it but recalls its fas- 
 cination. His dark, luminous eyes, too, were won- 
 derfully expressive; "living sermons," some one 
 called them. It is in the delivery that the success of 
 the orator consists, as Goethe reminds us. In the case 
 of Starr King nature had to a rare degree endowed 
 him for his rhetorical task. 
 
 These rhetorical powers were strikingly displayed 
 
 [93] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 also in a private club formed for the reading and 
 study of Shakespeare. The plays were read, book 
 in hand, with the proper dramatic entrances and 
 exits. Mr. King, Col. Lippitt, Mrs. Hastings — 
 a sister of United States Senator Charles Sumner 
 and a superb reader, and Horace Davis, son of Gov- 
 ernor John Davis of Massachusetts, a man of varied 
 culture and eminent public service, who later mar- 
 ried Mr. King's daughter Edith, were among the 
 more prominent members of this gifted circle. The 
 writer will never forget the impressive recitals of 
 Macbeth, Coriolanus, King Lear, and other plays, 
 rendered by this talented company which he was per- 
 mitted to attend. 
 
 Mr. King at once identified himself with the 
 higher interests of California society. From the 
 moment he stepped upon its soil, he felt himself to 
 be a citizen of the Golden State. Looking beyond 
 the pulpit he mingled much with men, touching life 
 at all points. In society he displayed a rare tact 
 and charm, meeting his fellow beings of whatever 
 condition on the plane of their everyday feelings and 
 pursuits. His ready sympathies were enlisted in be- 
 half of all who were in distress or need, and his doors 
 constantly beset with applicants for his counsel and 
 bounty, to whom he gave himself but too generously. 
 For years he kept an account of his expenditures, 
 setting down on one page his outlays for pleasure, 
 recreation, and self-indulgence of every sort, and on 
 the opposite his gifts for good causes and charity. 
 
 [94] 
 
THE NEW FIELD IN SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 The balance, we may be sure, was always kept on the 
 side of altruism and humanity. 
 
 The struggling philanthropies of San Francisco, 
 of all creeds and kinds, soon discovered his disinter- 
 estedness and readiness to become an eloquent beggar 
 in their behalf. To all alike he gave his services 
 cheerfully and lavishly, for he was as opulent in bene- 
 factions as the sun. The Seamen's Bethel, orphan 
 asylums, temperance societies, Masonic Relief 
 Boards, child-saving institutions, mission Sunday 
 Schools, land especially the churches of the colored 
 people, found their causes efifectively presented and 
 their treasuries enriched by his appeals. His broad 
 and catholic spirit especially fitted him for such 
 a service, for while he knew the necessity for, and the 
 value of denominations, he looked beyond them to 
 the great universal principles of religion and ethics, 
 and dwelt with preference on the central unities 
 rather than the incidental diversities of Christian 
 faith. Almost the sole representative of Liberal 
 Christianity in that new community, he felt it in- 
 cumbent upon him to do all in his power to advance 
 its principles and interests. Before crowded audi- 
 ences in his church he gave a series of twelve lec- 
 tures, each an hour or more in length, on the distinc- 
 tive doctrines of the liberal faith which necessitated 
 and justified its separate existence. But he was al- 
 ways glad to recognize the good in other creeds and 
 churches, and ever sought to build his denominational 
 fences so low that he and they could freely shake 
 
 [95] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 hands across them. A few weeks before his death 
 he had arranged for the occupancy of his pulpit on 
 a Sunday by Dr. Cohn, a distinguished Hebrew 
 Rabbi. 
 
 That his more orthodox neighbors did not al- 
 ways reciprocate this broad churchmanship, but 
 sometimes displayed toward him a narrow and big- 
 oted temper never disturbed the charity of his judg- 
 ments or the generosity of his deeds towards them. 
 
 More trying to his sensitive nature were the unjust 
 criticisms made upon him by certain members of his 
 own congregation who, instead of rejoicing in his 
 larger activities in the community, deprecated the 
 attention he gave to public and patriotic causes, and 
 desired him to confine himself more to their per- 
 sonal and parish interests. On one occasion, at leasts 
 Mr. King opened his heart to me on this subject^ 
 and spoke with profound sorrow of the unreasonable- 
 ness and unkindness of these advocates of a parochial 
 and sectarian policy on the part of their minister. 
 
 Writing to Edward Everett Hale he confesses: 
 "The public spirit here is poor, and the church spirit 
 narrower than in any community I ever dealt with. 
 I have no influence within the citadel, but I am 
 bishop of the unfortunate expanse without. Meth- 
 odism Unitarianized, or Unitarianism Method- 
 ized, is just the combination for this longitude. 
 There is the right mingling of fire and cylinder, steel 
 and steam." 
 
 On the 31st of January, 1861, the HoUis Street 
 
 [96] 
 
THE NEW FIELD IN SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 Church in Boston observed the fiftieth anniversary 
 of the dedication of its "meeting house" by a public 
 gathering at which addresses were made by Revs. 
 Dr. F. H. Hedge, Dr. Ezra S. Gannett, John Weiss, 
 H. M. Dexter and other clergymen. Rev. Edward 
 Everett Hale was particularly happy in his char- 
 acterization of the various pastors who had served 
 the parish in days gone by, closing with an eloquent 
 and heartfelt tribute to its present yet absent minister 
 in California, Thomas Starr King. He especially 
 deprecated the estimate of Mr. King as an orator 
 rather than a thinker, and as a poet rather than for 
 his manly and robust qualities. "You and I know 
 that here is a mind of precise balance, which weighs, 
 accepts, respects and judges, though with great rapid- 
 ity, with nearly infallible decision. We know that 
 here is a spirit utterly catholic, eager to do justice 
 to all opinions, and untiring in its search for truth. 
 We know that here is a heart as large as the world, 
 so that you cannot make it understand that it should 
 hold back from any service to be rendered to any 
 human being. But twenty years, nay, ten, will right 
 all this mistaken estimate." 
 
 Starr King himself wrote an admirable letter which 
 was read at the meeting, in the course of which he 
 said: "God means that sweeter truth shall yet 
 bloom on the stock of the older denominations — 
 partly by our grafting, partly by the change in the 
 temperature of the general religious air. They have 
 elements and energies which we have not, and possi- 
 
 [97] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 biy the great triumph of Liberal Christianity is not 
 to come from the uprooting of any of the old struc- 
 tures, but from the new juices infused in their strong 
 substance. 
 
 "Yesterday, the 31st of December, I looked out of 
 the window on the north side of my house in San 
 Francisco and saw buds opening in this genial climate 
 on the flower bushes where no ray of sunshine has 
 fallen these two months past. Liberal Christianity 
 is part of the Divine movement to assuage the gen- 
 eral climate of the church. Even the sects on the 
 cold north side are bursting into bloom. There is 
 need for us yet, as a distinctive and to some extent 
 combative party. But our mission is to hasten the 
 time when the church in general shall modify her 
 creeds and grant more freedom to thought and or- 
 ganize more charity, and receive again into fellow- 
 ship the needful forces which her narrowness has 
 spurned." 
 
 The catholicity of Mr. King's nature is so ad- 
 mirably displayed in a discourse on Spiritual Chris- 
 tianity, delivered by him as the closing lecture of a 
 series by eminent clergymen of Boston setting forth 
 the creeds 'and aims of their respective denomina- 
 tions, that I cannot refrain from quoting passages 
 from it. Dr. John W. Buckham, professor of Chris- 
 tian Theology at the Pacific School of Religion, in 
 Berkeley, California, has recently declared this dis- 
 course to be one of the strongest and most eloquent 
 of irenic sermons, and as timely to-day as when it 
 
 [98] 
 
THE NEW FIELD IN SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 was first delivered. It also furnishes a characteristic 
 illustration of Starr King as a preacher. 
 
 SPIRITUAL CHRISTIANITY 
 
 "The vital reception of Christianity in its highest 
 powder is shown in the soul's experience of the near- 
 ness and friendship of the Infinite Spirit. When a 
 man comes to the knowledge that God is not far off, 
 but nearer to his soul than He can be to the material 
 world; when he learns that He is not hostile but 
 cordial, that His frown when the heart is alien is the 
 highest mercy and His wrath is grace; when he sees 
 that distance from this Paternal love in the choice of 
 evil is slavery, and wretchedness, and spiritual death, 
 and, with a faith that purifies and justifies at once, 
 pledges himself to the divine sanctity and compassion 
 for all service and trust; when in the fulfilment of 
 that great vow he lives in a deepening reverence for 
 justice, a regard for truth that grows ever more de- 
 vout, a sensitive recoil from evil, and above all a love 
 that pours blessings and a sweet atmosphere of char- 
 ity into society; when still further, feeling that God 
 by His indwelling Spirit is the substance and support 
 of his dearest life, the man sees the whole world 
 illumined, so that the Eternal shines everywhere 
 through the temporal, and nature is only the vesture 
 or language of Spirit, and nothing is so certain as 
 God's thought and providence in all things ; and when 
 such sense of the Infinite and such vision prompt and 
 nourish humility and prayerfulness in the heart, and 
 life becomes a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and a peace 
 which death does not threaten and which sorrow can- 
 not break broods in the sanctuaries of the soul, — then 
 there is an echo in our century to the experience of 
 
 . [99] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 Paul who found the supreme privilege and bliss of 
 his faith in Jesus in the spring which it stimulated 
 him to make from the earth and its darkness, and 
 the law and its bondage, into the light and the arms of 
 Infinite Grace. 
 
 "There are very few who reach such a state as this. 
 But we all need it to answer the end of our being, and 
 to satisfy the deepest thirst of an awakened moral 
 nature. We were all born from the Eternal life. 
 And we receive our inheritance only when we begin 
 consciously, and by consecration, to draw our inner- 
 most life from God. We feed on husks, we live in 
 shadows, we drink from no undrainable fountains, 
 until the immortal principle is so far stimulated by 
 the Divine quickening, that the germ and promise 
 of such an experience of the Infinite life and accept- 
 ance is in the soul. . . . 
 
 NO PARTICULAR DOGMAS ESSENTIAL 
 
 *'Now, when we see that Spiritual Christianity is 
 manifest in a life of freely consecrated service to the 
 Almighty Father, whose character was revealed 
 through Christ, and whose Spirit struggles with every 
 soul, we must see that the quickening power of it is 
 not indissolubly involved with any of the dogmas that 
 divide and classify Christendom. 
 
 "We have a right to say now, in the interest of vital 
 Christianity, that all theories of Christ's rank and 
 office, and all catechism and creeds, are indifferent 
 to the Spirit, so far as they belong to the speculative 
 science of the Infinite, or to the philosophical inter- 
 pretation of Scripture. This is the great question: 
 how near is the man to the Spirit of God? how closely 
 does the Christ he believes in bring him to the Infin- 
 ite? how richly does he interpret to him the character 
 
 [lOO] 
 
THE NEW FIELD IN SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 of the Almighty — his equity, his providence, his in- 
 terest in righteousness, his love? It is working truth, 
 truth for redemption, truth that cleanses the passions, 
 truth that burns the clouded conscience, truth that 
 wrenches the cowardly will, truth that knocks at the 
 heart with sweet and serious pleading, in which the 
 Spirit hides. A notional Trinity or a notional Unity 
 it cares not for, any more than it cares for your con- 
 ception of how many strata are in the surface of the 
 globe, or how the sun's light is connected with his 
 substance. 
 
 "I do not argue that truth of creed is unimportant. 
 I do not say that a symmetrical and pure theology, 
 an adequate intellectual interpretation of the office 
 of Christ and the meaning of Christianity, is not a 
 most desirable thing. But I say that unless a man 
 values and uses his conception of Christ, or his creed, 
 as a medium of the Spirit, as a lens to condense the 
 radiance of the everlasting world upon his soul, a 
 perfect surface-believer is of no account. Some 
 creeds have truth and little power; others have power 
 and very little truth. 
 
 NO PARTICULAR INSTITUTIONS ESSENTIAL 
 
 ''And now it is time to ask what relation Chris- 
 tianity, considered as the diffusive agency of the Di- 
 vine Spirit, bears to institutions. Some men cannot 
 disconnect — their theory will not allow them to dis- 
 connect — the religion of Jesus from a priestly order 
 of men, a system of government, rituals in churches, 
 and visible lines of division between a party with 
 Christian badges on them, and the unregenerate mass 
 of the world. This conception is wrought out in full 
 proportions in the Catholic theory of a separate spirit- 
 ual polity in civilization. 
 
 [lOl] 
 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 'When a Catholic talks with you about the Church 
 of Christ as a social power, he means nothing more, 
 and he cannot conceive how anything else can be 
 meant by it, than the miraculous diffusion of Divine 
 grace through Pope, Bishops, Decrees, Clergy, Sac- 
 raments, to those people who believe in Pope, and 
 Clergy, and Sacraments, and who go to them regu- 
 larly for help and nutriment. The visible organiza- 
 tion of the Church is, to the devout Catholic, the im- 
 mense and divine-built battery for the spiritual elec- 
 tricity of Heaven. And no one can receive a stream 
 or spark of it, until he visibly joins hands with the 
 faithful around the Altar, and obtains it from the 
 magical touch of the Priest. 
 
 "Most of the Protestant sects, though their theories 
 are far less imposing than this one of the Roman hier- 
 archy, still cling to the idea— some with greater, some 
 with less fullness of proportion in their schemes — that 
 Christianity has some material channels which are 
 divinely instituted (and so as precious as the religion 
 itself) through which its saving virtue pours. The 
 Church of Christ to them is still, in some sense, a 
 Corporation. And a man in becoming a part of it 
 must pass visibly, by some act or profession before 
 men, from the side of the world where there is no 
 grace, to the ecclesiastical side where help is ready 
 for him, if he fulfills the conditions on which it is 
 offered. 
 
 "Over these conceptions of Christianity must be set 
 such an estimate of institutions as will fit the fact that 
 the Gospel of Christ has been put into society as an 
 all-penetrating force of social redemption. See how 
 Jesus always interpreted the action and the future of 
 the regenerative power concentrated in Him, through 
 
 [102] 
 
THE NEW FIELD IN SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 imagery drawn from the most free and diffusive ener- 
 gies in nature. That Spirit that vivifies the world, 
 moves like the wind, — no more to be included within 
 the boundaries of sect and sacrament, than the wind 
 can be encompassed by cathedrals and council-domes. 
 Again, the forces of his truth are seeds, scattered not 
 over a few ecclesiastical acres, but over the field of 
 the world, to be nourished by the unsectarian light 
 and rain. And 'the kingdom of God is within you,' 
 so that the power of it in the world is exactly equal 
 to the truth, and the sweetness, and the aspiration, 
 and the devotion to God and man, that hide as qual- 
 ities in human bosoms, and stream as influence from 
 them into society. Still further, 'the kingdom of 
 heaven is like leaven which a woman took and hid in 
 three measures of meal.' It works not from an or- 
 ganized, visible, and aggressive centre, but as an inter- 
 penetrating, vivifying force. You cannot mechani- 
 cally separate the vitality from the dead resistance. 
 It works by secret agency to make each particle alive, 
 'and a new germ of life. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY A SOCIAL FORCE 
 
 "The Christianity of the Spirit, therefore, is the 
 sum of all the redeeming life-forces in our civiliza- 
 tion. Nothing less than all the arteries of society 
 are its ducts. Since the day of Pentecost the renovat- 
 ing forces of history are its vesture. Just as the 
 quickening element of the Gospel is not dogma, and 
 will not be imprisoned in dogma, but will look 
 through it and stream through it even when it is un- 
 symmetrical and ungracious, — so it is not an ecclesi- 
 astical institution, and will not be imprisoned in any 
 or all of them. But it uses them all for its purposes : 
 
 [103] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 Mediaeval, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Methodist, Mo- 
 ravian, Congregational, Quaker, and countless other 
 agencies besides. 
 
 "For social worship there must be, of course, some 
 special rites, and order, and bonds; and those in 
 which different classes of believers feel most free, 
 and find most joy, are best for them. Yet the Spirit 
 is not pledged to any order as a polity for Christen- 
 dom. And where the most symmetrical order and 
 liturgy become an occasion of complacency, and 
 pride, and aristocratic schism of the heart from the 
 community of believers, the polity is not of the spirit 
 at all. It is an encroachment of 'this world,' an en- 
 trenchment of the 'natural man' within the area that 
 is supposed to be especially consecrated to Christ. 
 Apostolical succession, for instance, is no more pos- 
 sible as a law for the church than an equivalent 
 theory would be in the world of art. Think of try- 
 ing to institute in such a way, the right and the gift 
 of teaching beauty! Think of a hierarchical preten- 
 sion in the artistic world, claiming that only the stu- 
 dents upon whom Raffaelle, or Michael Angelo, or 
 M'urillo, or Rubens, or Reynolds, or West, or Turner, 
 or Allston, had laid his hands, were rightfully con- 
 secrated and equipped to paint, and to educate the 
 taste of men ! By all means have studies, and studios, 
 and thorough intercourse with the masterpieces of 
 ages. But leave room for genius, — its freedom, its 
 new methods, and its fire. And do not try to con- 
 duct the potent and volatile essence of inspiration, 
 which flows only from the laying on of God's hand, 
 along the fixed methods of any confederation. 
 
 "The Spirit broods over society to vitalize it, and 
 not exclusively over the Church. The Spirit has not 
 shown itself partial to any organization of ecclesiasti- 
 
 [104] 
 
THE NEW FIELD IN SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 cal order. It leaves the old Catholic corporation, to 
 stimulate the world through Luther and the Reform- 
 ers. And it is just as ready to break out again 
 through the Catholic forms, and retreat from Protes- 
 tant ones, when any branch of the elder Church puts 
 itself in the condition to invite its grace, and the new 
 Church prefers to live on memory, and begins to be 
 proud, formal, and cruel. It delights to pour itself 
 through preaching and the Sunday, just to the extent 
 that the preacher has a receptive soul, and the people 
 have hearing hearts. It streams through the holiest 
 sacrament, and most freely when those that commune 
 ofifer life as a service of thanksgiving and sacrifice to 
 the Infinite love in the spirit of Christ, and ask for 
 more of its breath. But we must not forget that it 
 leaps out of a church as freely as into it. It makes 
 a good book its channel rather than a proud bishop, 
 though the book be written by an unprofessing lay- 
 man. It discharges immeasurably more of its essence 
 through such a novel as 'Little Dorrit' than through 
 such volumes as Dr. Breckinridge's 'Knowledge of 
 God Objectively Considered.' It no more acknowl- 
 edges a religious newspaper as its organ than a secular 
 one, if it is not humbly edited, and does not increase 
 the sway of meekness and charity in those that read it, 
 — a very severe test for many of them. It moves 
 through all the efforts, all the eloquence, all the liter- 
 ature, all the homes, all the charity organizations, all 
 the laws, all the public bounties, that are interpreting 
 sweet and serious truth, nourishing goodness, spread- 
 ing the sway of the spirit of sacrifice, banishing in- 
 justice, making the world less selfish, and more pious. 
 For these are hastening the true Millennium, when 
 all law, all government, all literature, all life shall 
 be pure and reverent and charitable; and when so- 
 
 [105] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 ciety shall be organized by Christ's spirit, and be- 
 come the Church, and thus the whole lump be 
 leavened. 
 
 ALL THE SECTS USEFUL 
 
 "Here, therefore, we have something to say upon 
 the development of the life and thought of Christen- 
 dom and the meaning and usefulness of sects. The 
 Church was left unhampered by creeds from the pen 
 of Jesus, or of Apostles, to work out its science of 
 theology freely, — as all science is worked out through 
 error, through cumulative effort, and through failure, 
 — and to add to the riches of its vital literature by a 
 manifold and ever multiplying experience. We are 
 in the era of the Spirit, and the Church is to-day 
 under the pressure and guidance of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 "Christendom is young. Look forward a hundred 
 centuries, and see if you can imagine that the intellect 
 of the Church will then be tethered to the meta- 
 physics of religion shaped before modern science and 
 philosophy and poetry were born. We cannot tell 
 yet what the theology of Christendom is to be. The 
 sects that have arisen thus far have each helped, 
 through their differences, to accumulate evidence, by 
 appearing as witnesses or counsel in the court of his- 
 tory for some oppressed or slighted truth. 
 
 "But the sects have done a greater service by show- 
 ing us, with more and more varied and copious illus- 
 tration, how deep and rich, how sweet and sublime, 
 is Spiritual Christianity itself, when it issues in its ap- 
 propriate literature of sentiment and life. Lord 
 Bacon spoke of the ample and graceful classic myth- 
 ology as the airs of earlier ages breathed into the 
 trumpets and pipes of the Grecians. So Christianity, 
 of which the Spirit struck the key-notes in the souls 
 
 [io6] 
 
THE NEW FIELD IN SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 of Apostles in Palestine, has been widening in varia- 
 tion and deepening in harmony with all the con- 
 secrated temperaments that have risen in the ages thus 
 far to articulate its airs. We must pierce below the 
 •creed-symbols of each party in Christian history, and 
 find the justification and necessity of its existence in 
 the fresh quality of its sentiment, or the new move- 
 ment or modulation by which it has enriched the com- 
 pass of the symphony of grace. 
 
 CHRISTIAN LITERATURE 
 
 ''Think of the range of the literature of Christian 
 devotedness and insight. It runs from the 'Shepherd 
 of Hermas' and the prayers of the earliest liturgies, 
 touching dififerent keys in different centuries and 
 sects, till it includes now Augustine's 'Communion 
 with God,' a Kempis' 'Imitation of Christ,' Tauler's 
 'Sermons,' the 'Meditations of Archbishop Leighton 
 and Bishop Hall,' Fenelon's 'Letters,' Taylor's 'Holy 
 Living and Dying,' Baxter's 'Saints' Rest,' Sweden- 
 borg's 'Divine Love and Wisdom,' Edwards' 'Sweet 
 Thoughts of Christ,' Wesleyan 'hymns,' Martineau's 
 'Endeavours after the Christian Life,' Theodore Par- 
 ker's 'Ten Sermons,' and Newman on the 'Soul.' 
 That belongs to essential Christianity, Spiritual 
 Christianity, which issues in the quickening power of 
 these books, and gleams out in the life of all conse- 
 crated men, whether they be men of action, of suffer- 
 ing, or of prayer. All are necessary to enable us to 
 appreciate Christianity. For it is continually un- 
 folding itself in history. And the Spirit needs every 
 aperture of race, and temperament, and culture, to 
 work out fully the mighty theme whose notes are 
 printed in the first Scriptures of the Church. 
 
 [107] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 THE UNITY OF THE SPIRIT 
 
 ''And now, if I may gather up all that I have been 
 trying to say in a statement, let me say that only those 
 elements of the faith and life of every church that can 
 pass up into anthems, chants, and hymns, as an offer- 
 ing to the Infinite, — only those sentiments which can 
 be set to music, — are its worthy and enduring ele- 
 ments. You cannot put proofs of the Trinity, or con- 
 troversial supports of the Unity of God, — the logic of 
 Bishop Bull, or the arguments of Professor Norton, — 
 into hymns. You cannot put the difference between 
 a feeling of the depravity of nature, and of the de- 
 pravity of conduct and life, into a Psalm. When 
 three souls feel equally the riches of Infinite love, 
 though one receives it through a Trinitarian, another 
 through an Arian, another through a Humanitarian 
 dogma, you could not put their disputes about the 
 size of the window through which they obtain their 
 light into a chorus. You cannot chant rubrics, and 
 the hostilities of catechisms, and thirty-nine Articles, 
 and Canons of the Council of Trent, and damnatory 
 clauses of the Athanasian creed. 
 
 "But reverence for God, devout prostration before 
 the law which 'the Father' represents; penitent love 
 answering to the pity and sacrifice which 'the Son' 
 interprets, and devotion to humanity out of such con- 
 secration; joy in the ever-present grace, and prayer 
 for the quickening life which 'the Spirit' symbolizes; 
 adoration of Infinite holiness, submission to Infinite 
 sovereignty, grateful trust in Infinite compassion, — 
 sentiments in which, when developed free, Trini- 
 tarian and Unitarian, Calvinist and Arminian, Par- 
 tialist and Universalist, come at once into fellowship, 
 — these fly to music for expression. 
 
 [io8] 
 
THE NEW FIELD IN SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 "We shall drop our contentions about Trinity and 
 Unity, about free will and constraining election, 
 when we reach heaven. We may not understand, 
 even to eternity, the constitution of the Infinite per- 
 sonality; but alienations on account of mental meas- 
 urings of substantial truth will not obtain there. 
 There will be no reverend Angels to preach on such 
 themes as, Why am I a Calvinist, a Baptist, or an 
 Episcopalian? But no doubt we shall still be ranged 
 there, as here, by the sentiments to which we most 
 naturally give utterance. And we shall see there, 
 doubtless, what need there is of the utmost power of 
 every party to celebrate the circle of the Divine 
 glory; how deep is the justice, how broad the provi- 
 dence, how high the love, that must be acknowledged 
 in the twined harmony of heavenly hosannas. 
 
 "Let us pray that we may yield our mind and will 
 to the Spirit; that by its light we may see through 
 our creeds into the all-important verities of the sub- 
 stantial world; that we may be in life and worship 
 instruments of Christian music, more than soldiers 
 of Calvinistic or Unitarian camps; and that we may 
 be lifted, at last, by the Spirit to that world where we 
 shall experience the truth that, 'whether there be 
 prophecies, they shall fail ; whether there be tongues, 
 they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall 
 vanish away' before the charity that 'never faileth,* 
 which gives the 'unity of the Spirit,' and is 'the ful- 
 filling of the law.' " 
 
 [109] 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 LECTURING ON THE PACIFIC COAST 
 
 ONE object of Mr. King's settlement in Cali- 
 fornia was, as we have seen, to escape the 
 drudgery of public lecturing. But circum- 
 stances were against him and he found himself unable 
 to refuse the invitations which soon poured in upon 
 him from all parts of the State. Indeed, the very- 
 week of his arrival he gave the first of a course be- 
 fore the Mercantile Library Association in San Fran- 
 cisco, consisting of lectures he had delivered at the 
 East. In a letter to a friend he humorously refers 
 to the opening one: "Last evening I commenced 
 the course with 'Substance and Show,' and drew a 
 glorious picture at the close (colored with the lec- 
 turer's genius!) of San Francisco stretched out on its 
 desolate hills rubbing the dust out of its eyes and 
 washing the fleas off its feet in the great Pacific 
 basin." Delivered in the First Congregational 
 Church, there was a great audience, and the money 
 receipts were unprecedented. For the most part he 
 used his existing literary material, but he wrote four 
 or five new lectures. One of these on "Books and 
 Reading," written in two days, was an especial favor- 
 ite, and became a literary inspiration to his hearers. 
 Another address on "The Earth and the Mechanic 
 
 [no] 
 
LECTURING ON THE PACIFIC COAST 
 
 Arts" was an eloquent tribute to the dignity and im- 
 portance of labor, which must have thrilled every 
 mechanic that heard it. 
 
 Called upon to make an address at an Agricultural 
 Fair in Stockton he acquitted himself admirably. 
 On his return to the city he was rallied by friends 
 on his audacity in handling such a theme, and asked 
 what in the world he knew about farming. "Abso- 
 lutely nothing!" he confessed. "Why, my people tell 
 me I cannot even distinguish the goats from the sheep 
 in my own congregation." 
 
 These new lectures were of a very different order 
 from those he had delivered at the East. As a writer 
 in the San Francisco Evening Bulletin tells us: 
 "He polished his sentences less; he waited no longer 
 on fine fancies, he dropped down to good plain talk 
 for minutes together in his addresses; and then, when 
 his hearers were rested, he blazed out with passages 
 that swept away all thought but of the one subject 
 that possessed him." Invitations to lecture poured 
 in upon him, and soon he was busy again in his old 
 field of labor, visiting not only the interior of the 
 State but Oregon and Nevada as well. Everywhere 
 he met with an appreciative hearing and became im- 
 mensely popular, not only as a public speaker but 
 for his fine personal qualities. 
 
 Curious and amusing were some of his experiences. 
 He told with boyish glee of an enthusiastic woman 
 who greeted him at the close of a lecture: "I'm 
 so glad you talkative men are coming round again. 
 
 [Ill] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 For myself, I have such a thirst for intellectooal 
 people that I could just set and listen to lectures 
 from now till the Fourth of July!" On another oc- 
 casion he was invited to lecture before a literary so- 
 ciety in a California mining community. Arriving 
 early he strolled about the town, and presently came 
 upon two red-shirted, big-booted miners who were 
 studying a bill-board which announced that T. Starr 
 King, of San Francisco, would lecture that evening 
 on "Socrates and His Age." ''Bill," said one of them 
 disgustedly to his mate, "who was So-crates, and 
 who the cares how old he was?" 
 
 One consequence of these lecturing tours was that 
 he gained a large knowledge of the Pacific Coast, its 
 scenery, resources and society. 
 
 Here Starr King was in his element. Undismayed 
 by the hardships of travel in those early days, dis- 
 regardful of discomfort and weariness, he availed 
 himself of every opportunity to explore the marvels 
 and witness the sublimities of the California moun- 
 tains. He revelled in the sight of the imposing, 
 snow-clad ranges of the Sierras, their gigantic 
 chasms, foaming rivers, leaping waterfalls and 
 crystal lakes; their virgin forests and vegetable won- 
 ders; the vast stretches of fertile prairie at their feet, 
 waving with billowy grain, or prodigal with teeming 
 orchards. 
 
 In the summer of i860 Starr King visited Yosemite 
 and the Big Trees, and his letters to the East were 
 full of the joy of this new experience. This delight 
 
 [112] 
 
LECTURING ON THE PACIFIC COAST 
 
 also found expression in two eloquent sermons 
 preached to his congregation on his return to San 
 Francisco, and later included in the volume of his 
 printed discourses/ "Lessons from the Sierra 
 Nevada," and "Living Water from Lake Tahoe." 
 The following summer he extended his journey, punc- 
 tuated with lectures, to Oregon, Washington, and 
 British Columbia, and as far north as Nootka Sound. 
 In a series of brilliant letters to the Boston Evening 
 Transcript Starr King pictured the splendors of the 
 Sierras, the Yosemite and the Big Trees, thus im- 
 parting to dwellers on the Atlantic seaboard their 
 first adequate impression of the scenic wonders of the 
 Pacific Coast, and becoming the forerunner of the 
 gifted company of nature-writers and poets who have 
 since eloquently described them. It was the inten- 
 tion of Mr. King to write some day a work on the 
 Sierras which might be a companion volume to his 
 book on the White Hills of New Hampshire, and he 
 tentatively conferred with his Boston publishers on 
 the matter. 
 
 Letters to Eastern friends communicate to them his 
 first impressions of Nature's wonders on the Pacific 
 Coast. 
 
 "Mariposa County, 
 "Among the California Big Trees. 
 
 "July 14, i860. 
 "To Rev. William R. Alger: 
 
 "At your delightful home in Swampscott last Sep- 
 
 1 "Christianity and Humanity," Boston, 1877. 
 
 [113] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 tember we talked California, I am living it. Three 
 days ago in San Francisco I received your genial, 
 generous and welcome letter from the beach. And 
 it just occurs to me that you will not object to a hur- 
 ried answer on poor paper, — a mere 'pencilling by 
 the way' — written in the most romantic part of Cali- 
 fornia, — among the Sierras, amidst the Big Trees of 
 Mariposa, and at the foot of the Monarch of the 
 Grove. 
 
 'Tt is Saturday evening, 5% p. M. (8>4 P. M. with 
 you) and the delicious afternoon light is pouring 
 down the snufif-colored back of the Titan over my 
 head, who is as old at least as Christianity. I have 
 just put a measuring line around him. His girth is 
 ninety feet. There is another, half-decayed — all the 
 bark having moulded, who is 100 feet and over in cir- 
 cuit. But the one at whose root I am scratching 
 these words, is vigorous, and sends out green shoots 
 a hundred feet up which are flashing in the evening 
 splendor. There are nearly three hundred of the 
 same species in the grove, measuring from forty to 
 ninety feet in circumference. The bark is about 
 twenty inches thick and very soft and delicate in 
 texture. Its hue is one of the chief fascinations of 
 the grove. The voices of the party — seven men — 
 with me, sound strangely, hallowing in the distance, 
 in this natural temple in which man is a mite. 
 Above their noise swells the musical melancholy of 
 these old conservatives, wakened by winds that 
 sweep from the snow-capped granite of the Sierras 
 which we see across a mighty gorge, by a walk of 
 but a few rods distance. I can scarcely credit my 
 senses that I am here, and that it will require four 
 weeks for this to reach you. I hope it will assure 
 you that old friends are not forgotten. I do not look 
 
 ["4] 
 
LECTURING ON THE PACIFIC COAST 
 
 upon any strange and impressive scene without think- 
 ing of you and Hedge and Whipple, with gratitude 
 that I have known you, and greater gratitude that I 
 can love you without being forgotten. 
 
 "The Guide, who looks like Henry Ward Beecher, 
 and would serve as his double, asks: 'Gettin' putty 
 well through, mister?' I say, *Yes,' so I must stop. 
 To-morrow I go to the Yosemite Notch and Falls, 
 the great wonder of the State. 
 
 'T. S. 
 
 "Sunday evening: In the Yosemite pass, under 
 rocks five thousand feet sheer! El Gebor!! Great 
 is matter and the force of cohesion! I close this note 
 in sight of a river which pitches i i;oo feet at one leap, 
 and then takes two more, one 400 and the other 500, 
 and the roar! — " 
 
 In the following summer he writes to his parish- 
 ioner and friend, R. B. Swain: 
 
 "Yreka, May 29, 1861. 
 "Here I am, perched on the top of the State. The 
 journey has been quite fatiguing. From Shasta to 
 Yreka we were twenty-seven hours on the road, and I 
 had an outside seat on the stage day and night, with- 
 out a shawl. But I am all right, and my brain has 
 settled down again, right side up, I believe. From 
 Shasta town I caught the first view of Shasta Butte; 
 it was just after sunrise and the view was glorious 
 indeed. I preached after the vision for a Methodist 
 minister, and ought to have preached well, but am 
 afraid I didn't. Yesterday I devoted to the study of 
 Mt. Shasta. I had it in view for ten hours. It is 
 glorious beyond expression. It far exceeds my con- 
 
 [I'S] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 ception of its probable grandeur. I am glad I 
 named my book The White Hills. To-day is very 
 cloudy and the mountain is shrouded to the base. 
 The whole region is sublime." 
 
 The following summers he was permitted to be- 
 hold the scenic splendors of Oregon, Washington, 
 and the lordly Columbia River. En route he writes 
 his friend, R. B. Swain: 
 
 "Yreka, July 21, 1862. 
 "It is quite hot here to-day, but as it is not 100 de- 
 grees nobody calls it hot. Anywhere in the nineties, 
 even 99, is moderate. We rode all night of Saturday 
 through from Shasta here, making the trip in 28 
 hours. The journey from here will be terribly hard, 
 and I almost regret that I made the overland trail. 
 From Jacksonville, where my wife and I go to-mor- 
 row, to Salem (Oregon) will be as tough as it can be 
 — it will take three or four days. I doubt if I have 
 time to see all I wish of Oregon and Puget Sound. 
 It will take me another week to reach Portland, and 
 I begin to fear I shall have to abandon the whole 
 Puget Sound and Victoria expedition. The expenses 
 are simply frightful. It costs me over $80 for pas- 
 sage from Marysville to Shasta town, and if I travel 
 through part of Oregon by extras, as I must, $60 a 
 day will be the lowest I can do it for, and I have pur- 
 chased through tickets besides." 
 
 Every available interval of the journey was punc- 
 tuated with letters to distant friends, that they might 
 share in his delight. 
 
 [116] 
 
LECTURING ON THE PACIFIC COAST 
 
 To Randolph Ryer: 
 
 "Portland, Oregon, August 7, 1862. 
 
 "You see where I am. And Julia is also here. 
 On Monday, July 14th, we took it into our heads that 
 we would visit Oregon, Washington Territory, the 
 British possessions, Puget Sound, and all sorts of 
 places where hardship was to be experienced and 
 good scenery to be found. So we started on an over- 
 land trip through Northern California, all the 
 length of Oregon to the northern boundaries of 
 Washington Territory and Victoria, the British city 
 on Vancouver island. By the way we travel Victoria 
 is about one thousand miles from San Francisco. 
 
 "Julia has borne the tremendous stretch of stage- 
 riding wonderfully well. And what scenery we 
 have had! Mt. Shasta we have enjoyed on all sides 
 of his mighty bulk and superb form. He is almost 
 15,000 feet high, and rises from a plain, draped in 
 eternal snow. The mountains of Oregon we have 
 passed through and had views of the wonderful line 
 of peaks — Jefferson, the Three Sisters, Hood, Adams, 
 St. Helens, and Rainier. And the Columbia River! 
 It is worth a journey from New York to sail up its 
 lordly tide and see the stupendous snow cones from 
 its glorious level. We made a trip this week more 
 than a hundred miles up the Columbia to the Dalles, 
 where the whole river pours through a channel 200 
 feet wide. On the way what views of Hood and St. 
 Helens! At the Dalles we saw old Hood at sunset, 
 not more than twenty-five miles distant by air-line. 
 He towers 14,500 feet from his base, which is much 
 higher than Mt. Blanc from its base. Across the 
 Columbia, in Washington Territory, Mt. Adams, but 
 little farther off, towers nearly 14,000 feet, built up 
 with more rugged masonry than Hood. 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 "Going down the Columbia we passed at one time 
 within fifteen miles air line of Hood, and had the 
 clearest view possible of his tremendous bulk and 
 noble peak and blazing snow. 
 
 **But what a view of him still nearer to Portland, 
 not far from Fort Vancouver! There he sits on a 
 throne, above ridge after ridge of the wilderness, 
 every particle of his height visible, and three-quarters 
 of it covered with snow, which droops in exquisite 
 fringes into the lower ravines. And you see him over 
 a vast broad reach of the river itself! I do not be- 
 lieve the world can surpass this spectacle. 
 
 "I have lectured in Portland to a large audience 
 on the War, and again on a rare subject: 'Substance 
 and Show.' I shall preach here Sunday the first 
 Unitarian sermon in these wilds. Next week for 
 Puget Sound — then to Victoria — then home." 
 
 To Rev. Dr. Henry W . Bellows of New York: 
 
 "San Francisco, August 20, 1862. 
 
 ''My dear Bellows, 
 
 "I have just returned from a visit of five weeks to 
 the great country north of us, having taken my wife 
 under my arm and staged it overland through upper 
 California — by the base of superb Mt. Shasta, up all 
 Oregon, seeing majestic and magnificent Mt. Hood in 
 all lights and framings, — beyond the Cascade Moun- 
 tains on the Columbia river — across to Washington 
 Territory and through the exquisite tangles of Puget 
 Sound to Victoria — and thence down by sea to our 
 metropolis again. By land thirteen hundred miles, 
 by sea eight hundred. I have lectured a good deal, 
 by urgent entreaty. I have preached the Liberal 
 Christian word for the first time in Oregon and 
 Washington, and drove the stake for a log custom- 
 
 [1.8] 
 
LECTURING ON THE PACIFIC COAST 
 
 house, with a speech, on the northernmost limit of 
 the United States on the Straits of Fuca, near Cape 
 Flattery. It was a glorious journey to both of us, 
 and we return with new strength to bear the terrible 
 strain of the military and public crisis in Virginia. 
 ''What a proud domain is ours! The wilderness 
 of which Bryant sung in his youth, the lovely streams 
 and savage peaks which Irving's 'Astoria' illumined 
 with the soft afternoon light of his genius, appropri- 
 ate to the far West, are now swarming with thou- 
 sands of gold-seekers and finders. Flathead Indians 
 buy hats to fit their steep-pitched skulls from Genin's 
 of New York, Blackfeet buy boots in forest shops 
 from Lynn; a noble wagon-road across the Rocky 
 Mountains connects the sources of the Columbia with 
 navigable waters of the Missouri; and merchants of 
 St. Louis compete with those of Portland, Oregon, 
 in supplying the miners of our new Salmon river gold 
 fields. The tide is setting eastward again under the 
 Stars and Stripes, and the desolate passes of the 
 Northern Rocky Mountains are feeling the shuttles 
 of civilization fly with alternate beats from the 
 Pacific Coast and the Mississippi." 
 
 [119] 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 A EULOGIST OF CALIFORNIA SCENERY 
 
 THE Pacific Coast regions which Mr. King 
 visited in those early days — only twelve years 
 after the discovery of gold in California — 
 have now been made accessible to hosts of sight- 
 seers who annually visit them for health or pleasure. 
 Their scenic wonders have been portrayed — often 
 with great fidelity and beauty — by innumerable writ- 
 ers and artists. Yet the freshness and felicity with 
 which this pioneer artist in words described the scen- 
 ery of the "land of sunshine and of gold," and his 
 power of communicating to others the impression it 
 made on his sensitive nature, would seem to justify a 
 selection from the score or more letters which Starr 
 King found time to write the Boston Evening Tran- 
 script amidst all his absorbing labors for country and 
 humanity. 
 
 Thus in the summer of i860 Mr. King described 
 the wondrous beauty of spring-time in the San Ma- 
 teo, Sonoma and Santa Clara valleys. He wrote of 
 their marvellous wealth of wild flowers, of the vast 
 fields of poppies waving on their slender stems like 
 the billows of an inland sea, of the vines of roses, 
 geranium, heliotrope and fuchsia climbing to the 
 
 [120] 
 
A EULOGIST OF CALIFORNIA SCENERY 
 
 house-tops and embowering them with beauty and 
 fragrance. The trees were of a different order than 
 those at the East. Sturdy live oaks, sycamores, the 
 locust, yew, camphor, magnolia, palmetto, myrtle, 
 acacia in twelve varieties, pepper tree and many va- 
 rieties of eucalyptus predominated. Above all, the 
 blossoming orchards radiant with color and charm 
 — almonds, apples, pears, cherries, oranges, apricots, 
 peaches, plums and prunes — delighted his eyes. He 
 dwells on the luxurious yield of berries and nuts. 
 He tells of a golden russet apple tree, one year from 
 the bud, with the girth of one's fore-finger and three 
 feet high, with two dozen apples upon it. He dilates 
 on the giant spread of grape-vines with their clusters 
 of purple and golden fruit, and the ripening treasure 
 of the grainfields, more precious even than that of 
 the mines; he discourses on cattle and horses and 
 sheep. 
 
 A newly discovered cave in El Dorado County, 
 i6o miles away, so stirred Mr. King's mountaineer- 
 ing spirit that he made more than one visit to it, and 
 described it to his Eastern audience. 
 
 Another letter is devoted to a careful study of 
 mining in California. He gives a graphic picture of 
 the stage ride, the pack-animals, the dreary mining 
 villages and camps, with their shanties, saloons and 
 billiard rooms, the "honest miner of the Far West," 
 the prospector with pick and pan. He describes the 
 various stages and kinds of mining — the cradle and 
 "long tom," the sluicing, tunnelling, shafting, river 
 
 [121] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 fluming, gulching, crushing, and hydraulic tearing 
 away of bluff and canon wall, "by which the soil, the 
 rock, the beds of powerful streams, and the hidden 
 strain of a mountain's heart are made to yield the shin- 
 ing dust that was mixed with them ages ago." There 
 are, he informs his readers, over seven thousand miles 
 of these artificial water courses in the state to carry 
 the indispensable flood into the heart of a thousand 
 mining districts. 
 
 Mr. King had a quick eye for everything that was 
 vital and characteristic of a region and its inhabi- 
 tants, and burned with desire to impart his own re- 
 actions to others. Through all his communications 
 shone the love of his early New England home, its 
 scenery, institutions, customs, and the old-time 
 friends from whom his new environment could not 
 wean him. On the first of October, 1861, he writes: 
 
 "Ocean Beach, near San Francisco. 
 "Four days ago I drove out upon the noble beach 
 in the rear of our city. I say the rear, for San Fran- 
 cisco looks inland. A long placid bay dreams at her 
 feet. She lifts her eyes to the hills, the far-off slopes 
 of the Sierra, 'from whence cometh her help.' They 
 are discernible, they and the foamy whiteness on the 
 crests of their enchanted surge, from the dimpled 
 summit of Mt. Diablo yonder. Our city turns her 
 face persistently towards the East — signifying that 
 California has no insane vision of independence; that 
 she desires no isolated sway over the Pacific, but is 
 bound by loyalty and heart to the empire whose flag 
 she plants on Mendocino, the Hatteras of the West, 
 
 [122] 
 
A EULOGIST OF CALIFORNIA SCENERY 
 
 and under which she has 'sucked of the abundance 
 of the seas and of treasures hidden in the sand.' 
 Read the figures of her recent vote and decide if I 
 interpret her attitude wrongly. 
 
 "As soon as our horses struck the bright sand, eight 
 miles from our door, my companion exclaimed: 
 'There is nothing like sea air. This is Rockport 
 over again.' We can show you no such luxury of 
 woods as you on Cape Ann can revel in — those 
 thickets of Pigeon Cove in which one loses the belief 
 that he is within a hundred miles of the surf, except 
 that now and then a subtone of tender thunder rolls 
 in beneath the rustle of birches, or a sudden rift in 
 the foliage reveals the blazing blue of the sea united 
 by creeping, creamy foam with the curved and flash- 
 ing gray of 'Coffin's Beach.' Ah, those winding 
 subtle aisles in which you all but needed the thread 
 of Ariadne, opening now upon a patch of swamp, 
 aflame with the cardinal flower, now upon hedges 
 laden with quarts of blackberries, and now into som- 
 bre shades of pine where no secular thoughts can 
 thrive! No, we cannot show you in the neighbor- 
 hood of our beach here, such wood paths or such 
 foliage. Flowers we revel in. They will grow with 
 us out of the sunshine, in the sand, within the very 
 spray of the breakers. But trees we cannot offer 
 you. We go to the Sierra, plunge into the glories 
 of their forests, and come back to live a year on the 
 remembrance, and to wonder how the flowers and 
 vines consent to bloom so luxuriously without the 
 fellowship of their strong and stately brethren. 
 Neither can we compete, on our beach, with your 
 Rockport waves. Not because ours is the Pacific 
 Sea. We know how to be sublime with our billows 
 as well as the hoarse Atlantic. But no beach can 
 
 [123] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 show such billows as glorify a shelving rocky shore 
 after a storm. Beach-waves are thin and rhetorical 
 contrasted with the chasing rock-waves, which are 
 heavy, impassioned, Websterian. Vividly I recall 
 the joy of watching the compact battalions of the 
 ground swell after a storm that had stirred the hiding 
 places of the ocean's might. I have seen Niagara in 
 winter; but the gathering of one of these billows a 
 quarter of a mile long, in a smooth grey sea, tower- 
 ing and darkening as it rides on, setting free a gleam 
 of brilliance here and there from its threatening and 
 thinning edge, and then pouring a long avalanche of 
 light — the thunder and the flash at the same instant — 
 up the slope of granite that allows no stain to the 
 emerald loop or the creamy dash of the surge — this 
 is grander than Niagara; and whoever can see this, 
 as Pigeon Cove shows it once or twice in the summer, 
 needs not to envy the sight-seeing even of angels. 
 
 "But on our Pacific Ocean Beach we can beat you 
 in some things. You can see nothing on your rocks 
 and near them, but a few quails, and here and there 
 some sand-birds and plover, with now and then a 
 timid mink startled by the bathers. We can show 
 you cranes as tall as the President of the United 
 States, and eagles screaming over the waves, as our 
 national eagle hovers over the moral wave from 
 Nebraska to Aroostook, and on an island a little way 
 from shore, a school of immense sea-lions climbing 
 the rocks as well as they can without feet, and bark- 
 ing in a hoarse chorus either of joy or defiance. 
 Choose a day that is transparent and you will see the 
 rocks called the Farralones, twenty-three miles out 
 from the Golden Gate. There are six of them, and 
 Sir Francis Drake put them into English literature 
 forty years before Plymouth Rock was touched by a 
 
 [124] 
 
A EULOGIST OF CALIFORNIA SCENERY 
 
 Pilgrim foot. The largest of them is a jagged 
 boulder nearly a mile long, without a tree or shrub, 
 but carpeted every June with green spotted with 
 brown, not exactly in the form of lichens, but in the 
 shape of eggs, which find their way by myriads to 
 our markets, much to the amazement and disgust, no 
 doubt, of the birds whose hopes of posterity are thus 
 nipped, and who would delight to see our marauding 
 city 'shelled' in another way. We would show you 
 on this rock a Yankee trick, too, by which old Nep- 
 tune is made to give warning to sailors of the traps 
 he has laid for them. It is a powerful fog whistle, 
 erected over a subterranean passage and blown by the 
 sea which breaks into it beneath. For more than 
 twenty hours in the twenty-four, the surf thus sounds 
 its own alarm for a distance of seven or eight miles." 
 
 In December (31st), 1861, Starr King sent a gra- 
 phic account to the Transcript of the unprecedented, 
 widely-extended and disastrous floods of that winter 
 in the interior of Central California. A district as 
 large as the State of Massachusetts was under water. 
 On a personal visit he found that every street in the 
 capital, Sacramento, was inundated, in some of them 
 the racing tides were from ten to eighteen feet deep. 
 Stockton, Marysville, were similarly inundated. 
 The whole district was an inland lake as big as On- 
 tario. The loss of property, cattle and crops was 
 immense. One third of the taxable values of the 
 State were destroyed. There was much suffering, 
 and on his return Mr. King actively concerned him- 
 self with the work of relief and aid. 
 
 [125] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 The inveterate mountain climber next essays the 
 nearest accessible peak, the one which overlooks San 
 Francisco Bay and was daily visible from his win- 
 dow. 
 
 A TRIP TO MONTE DIABLO 
 
 ''There are two ways of going to Monte Diablo 
 from this city. We can cross the bay, seven miles, by 
 ferry, to Oakland, mount the ridge, some 1500 feet 
 high, back of whose long wall we see the shoulders 
 and crown of our Eminence soaring, and may drive 
 down the further slope, through exquisite canons and 
 plains, green now in the glory of spring, to the very 
 base of the monarch of our neighborhood. This 
 would be to make a 'bee line' for our destination. Or 
 we can travel most of the distance on a round about 
 track by water. Let us try the latter method. We 
 start in a little steamboat at eleven in the forenoon, 
 thus enabling us to reach the base of the mountain 
 before sunset. In a small, slow boat, with the tides 
 against us, we have ample opportunity to study and 
 enjoy the scenery around the bay. We have passed 
 the swell of the Golden Gate and are seeing Alcatraz 
 island grow dim behind us. On our left, as we steam 
 up the bay, is Tamalpais, our jewel. One of these 
 days I hope to scale it and send you a report of the 
 splendid waterscape it commands. For on one side 
 the ocean chafes its rugged outworks; on the other 
 side its canons subside into gentle slopes that are 
 tenderly bathed by the pulsations of the Bay. The 
 mountain rises nearly 3000 feet above the sea and 
 supports a noble peak. But its sides are torn with 
 such channels as we seldom see in the New Hamp- 
 shire heights. In studying this hill vour eyes must 
 
 [126] 
 
A EULOGIST OF CALIFORNIA SCENERY 
 
 get used to wrinkles that would crimp Mt. Wash- 
 ington so that his best friends would not know him. 
 What would I not give for a picture of Tamalpais 
 at five in the afternoon, when the soft light falls upon 
 the tops of those billowy ravines whose deeps of green 
 are dimly detected through azure mist, while the 
 shadow of the whole mountain is beginning to steal 
 out upon the sheltered cove of San Rafael. 
 
 "Up now through the wide ring of San Pablo bay 
 and then into the narrow straits of Carquinez we sail 
 under the brilliant noon, and watching with delight 
 the soft swells of unruffled green on either bank. 
 Not a stone mars the monotonous luxury of verdure. 
 We are approaching Benicia. But let us watch for 
 the first appearance of Monte Diablo. From San 
 Francisco we can see only his dome rising back of a 
 long range of lower and nearer hills. We have 
 turned now the flank of that range, and in a few 
 minutes shall see him start out from base to summit. 
 Ah, the view begins. We catch sight of the plain 
 on which he rests. It ripples gently from the bay 
 into the interior, then comes an encircling outwork 
 of plateau, whose embankment is cut freely into 
 ravines, and then the climbing line of the mountain 
 up to a height of nearly 3000 feet, when it begins to 
 dip again, yet not far; again it rises and springs to 
 a second summit, the true peak, nearly 4000 feet 
 above the water, whose smoothness we are cutting in 
 our haste to reach the pier at Benicia. 
 
 "In half an hour we will try the ferry across to 
 Martinez on the other side of the strait, but not till 
 the expected rain has come. In a black volume of 
 wrath it rolls towards us from the West, as though 
 it would discharge in frightful thunder. But not a 
 flash leaps from it, not a roar bursts from its wild 
 
 [127] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 breast. All the rains of the Coast region are tame. 
 I have never seen a flame of lightning, nor heard a 
 thunder peal in this state, save on the 22nd of Decem- 
 ber, i860. Then in San Francisco the heavens gave 
 us some martial music. Perhaps as the rebellion was 
 then getting under headway, and we were in danger 
 here, it was a reveille for the Northern and Pilgrim 
 spirit in our city and state. If so, the result must 
 seem satisfactory. Through the roses of Martinez, 
 and out over the green and charming plains we drive 
 towards Clayton at the base of Monte Diablo, where 
 the discovery of some coal mines — a great blessing 
 to a state whose coal, via Cape Horn, is worth twenty- 
 four dollars a ton — has started a little village and a 
 tolerable hotel. It is fourteen miles from Martinez 
 to our destination. We left San Francisco at eleven 
 o'clock A. M.; we reached Clayton at 6 P. M. and are 
 in doubt in this delicious evening air, and amid the 
 soft and finished landscape, if we have not been 
 driven by some beneficent sorcery into an enchanted 
 land. 
 
 "What gracefully moulded hills ! What loveliness 
 of dimples and shadows! What an exquisite tint of 
 green, lighter and livelier than Nature wears in New 
 England! What stripes and patches of flowers upon 
 the slopes! What nobleness of trees flinging their 
 shadows singly upon an acre of unbroken beauty of 
 grain, or entangling them as they fall from parks that 
 are disturbed by no underbrush. Only a few months 
 has this Clayton been in existence, and it is em- 
 bosomed in a landscape which seems to have been 
 under a line of landscape gardeners for half a dozen 
 centuries, and over all the top of Diablo is burning 
 with the Tyrian fire of evening. What peace, what 
 bounty, what luxury of slope and verdure! A party 
 
 [128] 
 
A EULOGIST OF CALIFORNIA SCENERY 
 
 of wise, hospitable and delightful men, who are mak- 
 ing the Geological Survey for the State, are en- 
 camped in a field nearby. Their camp fire begins 
 to burn soon after the evening star is out. We stretch 
 out with them on the grass near that blaze, and with 
 a great content amid so much beauty and such rich 
 hope for the morrow, enjoying wit and Whitney and 
 wisdom till midnight warns us to rest. 
 
 THE ASCENT OF MONTE DIABLO 
 
 "After enjoying the untiring sweetness of the land- 
 scape around Clayton in the morning light, we join 
 the party for the ascent of Mt. Diablo. How clear 
 the air is! Not a wisp of vapor rests on the summit. 
 It invites us up to a view as wide as its namesake once 
 revealed from a Syrian peak. The distance is eight 
 miles. You can ride on a horse or a mule, unless you 
 prefer better company on foot. I advise you not to 
 ride. Keep near Professor Whitney and learn the 
 age of those steep metamorphic rocks that cast ragged 
 and wild shadows down into the Western ravines. 
 You won't be bored with lectures. You will get the 
 truth in flashes, like light leaping from a burnished 
 sabre; and in a moment after a generalization that 
 opens a gleam for you back to pre-adamite years, back 
 to the pulpy babyhood of Diablo, look out for a pun 
 that would make Tom Hood envious, or a stroke of 
 wit that would do honor to Hosea Biglow. 
 
 "And do not lag behind Professor Brewer either. 
 You will need all the suppleness of limb which a 
 Mount Washington experience has developed to keep 
 pace with him. But how can you else get 'posted' in 
 the strange botany of the upward track? He is our 
 California Solomon. He will tell you the name of 
 every shrub along the first three miles of our rolling 
 
 [129] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 and gently rising road. He will tell you how few of 
 them have any representatives East. What do you 
 think of alders that are not bush but trees one hundred 
 feet tall? What do you think of patches all aflame 
 with scarlet larkspur, and open acres glowing with 
 the orange splendor of squadrons of the Esch- 
 Scholtzia, while other acres are bedecked with the 
 nodding grace of the 
 
 ' Columbine with horn of honey?' 
 
 But harder climbing begins, and as we are shut in by 
 the walls of a ravine and lose the breeze, the heat in- 
 creases. 
 
 "But the study of the formation of the mountain 
 and the grandeur of the rocks, once fused by fire, 
 which are adorned on the opposite wall with a few 
 stripes of green, but with the most fantastic ribands 
 of shadow, and the occasional gleam of the distant 
 country, and the bright talk of the professors make 
 the path seem short. At last we emerge from the 
 canon and stand out on the ridge which leads to the 
 mountain crest. What splendor breaks upon us from 
 the valleys at the Southeast and South! It seems to 
 me that the word green was never understood until 
 I looked down into the valleys of Pacheco, and Ama- 
 dor, and San Ramon. There was no deep, strong 
 summer verdure like that of New England grass in 
 July, but a rolling immensity of light-lined, flashing 
 green. Miles and miles of slope and plain were alive 
 with such tints as break through the foam of a clean 
 sea-wave, when it combs upon a shelving rocky shore. 
 The spring green on the low hills and upon the 
 ranches between Diablo and the Coast Range has a 
 light, cheery, gay, flashing quality which no land- 
 scape at the East ever wears. In four weeks from the 
 
 [130] 
 
A EULOGIST OF CALIFORNIA SCENERY 
 
 time when our party saw it, it would be a monotonous 
 brown. Nature atones by the splendor for the 
 brevity. 
 
 "And now we must make a strong pull for the 
 mountain top. But don't let your enthusiasm over 
 that green in the valleys swamp your prudence. 
 Look out how you swing your arms carelessly among 
 these shrubs with dark green crimped and sherry 
 leaves — especially if your gloves are off. That is 
 the 'poison oak,' as it is absurdly named. If it grew 
 only on Diablo we might think that Satan had mixed 
 its juices; but as it abounds throughout California, 
 we will refrain from a theory which attributes to his 
 Duskyship so wide a jurisdiction in these parts. 
 Many persons cannot breathe the air where it grows 
 without suffering seriously. Admire its color, con- 
 verse with Professor Brewer about the probable 
 cause of its antipathy to our race, but keep clear of 
 it as if each of its glossy twigs warned you by a 
 rattle. 
 
 "We have came to the last ascent. In two minutes 
 we gain the bald crown of Diablo. No near moun- 
 tains impede our vision. We turn slowly round and 
 sweep an immense horizon. And what a spectacle! 
 We stand 3881 feet (so Professor Whitney determined 
 by careful calculations made during this excursion) 
 above the Pacific — and there is its level azure on the 
 West. We look off over the Contra Costa heights 
 down upon the bay of San Francisco, and out through 
 the cleft of the Golden Gate, out upon the sleeping 
 sea to the misty blending of its blue with the calmer 
 sky. The sleeping sea, I say. It is really roughened 
 by a very strong breeze — for the fog is moving in 
 shreds along the bay, and we know that a high wind 
 is rioting over San Francisco, wild from the coolness 
 
 [131] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 of the ocean. But we are thirty miles from the 
 Golden Gate by air line. The tops of the streets of 
 San Francisco, here and there, are visible, and their 
 sandy stripes down to the bay. The whole extent of 
 the bay itself, whose shore line turning at right angles 
 about midway, runs up towards the centre of the 
 State, and measures more than a hundred miles before 
 it begins to return, lies below us. Tamalpais lifts 
 its sculptured gracefulness directly on the West, and 
 combines with the long line of the Coast Range, of 
 which he is the proudest pillar, to prevent a view 
 of the sea-expanse beyond. Below the southerly 
 limit of the bay we see the noble Bache mountain, 
 named in honor of the accomplished chief of the 
 Coast Survey, which overtops the region of the Al- 
 maden quick-silver mines. 
 
 ^'Turning now to the north we see above the 
 glorious Napa valley, and forty miles away, the 
 pyramid of Mt. St. Helena, twelve hundred feet 
 higher than we stand. Beyond that is the Sulphur 
 Peak that gazes down on one side upon the exquisite 
 Russian River verdure and fertility, and on another 
 into the streams and desolation of the Geyser Canon. 
 Still farther back, and thirty miles more distant, are 
 the rocky ridges that wall the Clear Lake region, 
 one or two of them seven thousand feet high, tipped 
 with snow. 
 
 "Directly beneath us are the two great rivers of 
 Central California, the Sacramento and the San 
 Joaquin. Far up to the north, for scores of miles, 
 we follow the receding amber of the Sacramento's 
 tide, branching off into its tributaries. Far to the 
 south we trace the same line of the San Joaquin 
 through plains as bountiful as this earth upholds on 
 her liberal bosom. But nowhere do we see a stripe 
 
 [132] 
 
A EULOGIST OF CALIFORNIA SCENERY 
 
 of pure color in these tides. Far as we can trace 
 them they are turbid with the burden of the washings 
 for gold in the interior, — the mountains they are 
 moving into the Bay of San Francisco and the sea. 
 
 "It takes some time to become accustomed to the 
 immense scale of these plains. Out of the smooth 
 exposure, ninety miles by air-line on the north, the 
 beautiful Yuba Buttes leave their outline, and still 
 the plains stretch far beyond them. It seems as if 
 half the world might be fed by the opulence of these 
 prairies fitly tilled. 
 
 "But what guards them on the east? Look at the 
 magnificent barrier; what majesty, what splendor! 
 There you see the wonderful wall of the Sierra, its 
 foothills that roll in huge surges, all reduced by dis- 
 tance to regular slopes of unbroken bulwark. For 
 two hundred and fifty miles the mighty breastwork 
 is in view, and along the whole line crowned with 
 blazing snow! Here and there peaks rise above it, 
 from eleven thousand to fourteen thousand feet in 
 height — but they do not break the impression upon 
 the eye of an impassable wall, an everlasting prohibi- 
 tion by the Creator of all intercourse with the world 
 beyond. And yet there are half a dozen passes over 
 that embankment into Washoe, by which a light 
 Concord wagon can travel ; and the scream of the 
 steam whistle of the Pacific Railroad will startle 
 those icy heights before many years. As I write 
 these very words tidings have come by telegraph, 
 whose slender wire crosses these white solitudes, 
 that 'President Lincoln has signed the Pacific Rail- 
 road bill.' 
 
 "Nowhere in Europe can such a vast mountain 
 line be seen as Diablo showed us on that clear day. 
 And what a vast extent of territory! Our scientific 
 
 [133] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 companions of the Survey by their instruments and 
 sober reckoning discovered that within the range of 
 our vision lay an expanse of 46,000 square miles! 
 An area as large as the State of New York! And 
 this but little more than a quarter of California. 
 Imagine what the state will be when all its varied 
 mineral veins are pouring out their riches of copper 
 and iron and coal, and silver, quicksilver and gold, 
 and when its plains with their grain and cattle, and 
 its foothills with their vines and orchards, are com- 
 peting with its mines in the supply of plenty and 
 wealth." 
 
 A vacation trip among the Sierras the very first 
 summer after Mr. King's arrival in California re- 
 vealed to him the splendors of their scenery, and im- 
 pelled him to make their characteristic features 
 known to the dwellers on the Atlantic side of the 
 Continent. 
 
 AMONG THE BIG TREES 
 
 "November, i860. 
 "We were very tired when we dismounted at 
 Clarke's log hut and canvas dining tent in the glorious 
 forest, thirty miles from Mariposa. Tired in body 
 and in brain, — tired by our seven hours of horseback 
 riding, and by the perpetual feast of floral beauty 
 and sugar pine magnificence which had delighted 
 eye and heart. But it did not take long to restore us. 
 We were only five miles from the Mammoth Trees. 
 An easy upland ride of an hour would lead us to the 
 grove where the vegetable Titans we had so often 
 read about, with a wonder tinged with unbelief, held 
 their solemn court. . . . 
 
 [134] 
 
A EULOGIST OF CALIFORNIA SCENERY 
 
 "There are two large groves of the mammoth trees 
 in California. The one which is usually visited is 
 in Calaveras County. It contains hardly a third as 
 many trees as the Mariposa cluster which we are 
 in search of, but is much more easy of access. It 
 covers about as much space as the Boston Common 
 and a good carriage road leads to the heart of it. 
 You drive up to a hotel and find the grounds trimmed 
 up and the trees named and labelled for guests. The 
 'Hercules' in this group is 93 feet in circumference. 
 The 'California,' 73 feet in circuit, shoots up straight 
 as an arrow 310 feet. The 'Mother of the Forest' is 
 327 feet high and nearly 80 feet girth. 
 
 "The Mariposa group stands as the Creator has 
 fashioned it, unprofaned except by fire, which long 
 before the advent of Saxon white men, had charred 
 the base of the larger portion of the stalwart trees. 
 We rode on for an hour, till we reached a forest 
 plateau five thousand feet above the sea. This, in 
 New England, is the height of Mt. Madison, where 
 not a thing can grow. Riding on a few rods through 
 ordinary evergreens with dark stems, we at last catch 
 a glimpse of a strange color in the forest. It is a 
 tree in the distance of a light cinnamon hue. We 
 ride nearer and nearer, seeing others of the same 
 complexion starting out in most impressive contrast 
 with the sombre columns of the wilderness. We are 
 now in the grove of the Titans. The bark has a right 
 leonine effect on the eye. We single out one of them 
 for a first acquaintance, and dismount at its root. 
 
 "I must confess that my own feeling, as I first 
 scanned it, and let the eye roam up its tawny pillar, 
 was one of intense disappointment. But then, I said 
 to myself, this is doubtless one of the striplings of the 
 Anak brood — only a small affair of some forty feet 
 
 [135] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 in girth. I took out the measuring line, fastened it 
 to the trunk with a knife, and walked around, un- 
 winding as I went. The line was seventy-five feet 
 long. I came to the end of the line before com- 
 pleting the circuit. Nine feet more were needed. 
 I had dismounted before a structure 84 feet in cir- 
 cumference and nearly 300 feet high. It did not look 
 to me twice as large as the Big Elm in Boston Com- 
 mon, although that is only 18 feet in circumference, 
 and this was 28 feet in diameter. 
 
 "There are nearly three times as many of the giant 
 species in this grove as in the Calaveras cluster. 
 Divided into two groups, there are six hundred and 
 fifty of them, within a space of one mile by three- 
 quarters, one of 102 feet girth, two of 100, one of 97, 
 and so on. More than a hundred trees measure 50 
 feet and upwards in circumference. 
 
 "This crowd of majestic forms explains the disap- 
 pointment in first entering the grove. The general 
 scale is too immense. Half a dozen of the largest 
 trees, spaced half a mile apart, and properly set off 
 by the trees of six and eight feet in girth would shake 
 the most volatile mind with awe. Four days after- 
 wards, on the homeward path by another trail, I 
 struck off the track to see some big trees near Crane's 
 Flat. The first one we approached was the only one 
 of the species in the range of vision, and reared its 
 snuff-colored column among some ordinary firs. 
 How majestic it swelled and towered! My com- 
 panion and I both exclaimed, 'This is the largest 
 tree we have yet seen; this will measure more than 
 a hundred feet in girth.' We gazed for a long time 
 at its soaring stem, from which, a hundred feet above 
 us, the branches that shot out bent suddenly upwards, 
 like the pictures of the golden candlesticks in the 
 
 [136] 
 
A EULOGIST OF CALIFORNIA SCENERY 
 
 Hebrew temple. It seemed profane to put a measur- 
 ing tape upon such a piece of organized sublimity. 
 But we made the trial. It was just fifty-six feet in 
 circuit — but little more than half the size of the 
 Monarchs in Mariposa which it seemed to excel so 
 much in majesty. There were a hundred trees in the 
 Mariposa grove larger than this, and all of them to- 
 gether did not make half the impression on me that 
 this one stamped into the brain at first sight. We 
 need to see the 'Mother of the Forest,' for instance, 
 towering near Trinity Church in New York, and 
 overtopping its spire with a column whose life is 
 older than the doctrine of the Trinity, to appreciate 
 its vastness. 
 
 "We ought to be able to see the 'Fountain Tree' of 
 the Mariposa Grove, a hundred and two feet in cir- 
 cuit, rising near the Bunker Hill Monument, and 
 bearing up its crown eighty feet above it, to feel the 
 marvel of its bulk and vitality. Think of that monu- 
 ment as a living structure. Conceive it as having 
 grown from a granite seed whose outpouring life 
 absorbed from the earth, and attracted from the 
 winds fine granite dust, to be slowly compacted by 
 internal and unerring masonry into the solid squares 
 of its strength and its tapering symmetry! A work 
 far more marvelous than this has been wrought by 
 each fragment of a cone that took root 5,(X)0 feet 
 on a ridge of the Sierras centuries ago and now is 
 represented by an organism of thirty feet diameter. 
 Indeed, it is quite probable that there have been a 
 few trees in both the Mariposa and Calaveras Groves, 
 which have built their sublime columns out of the 
 air through the energy of a single seed, in whose 
 trunk Bunker Hill Monument could have been in- 
 serted and hidden, while the stem would still spring 
 more than 200 feet above its apex stone. 
 
 [137] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 "What an afternoon I passed in the Mariposa 
 Grove! I lay for half an hour alone at the root of 
 the most colossal bole — my companions out of sight 
 and hearing — and watched the golden sunshine 
 mounting the amber trunk, and at last leaving a hun- 
 dred feet of it in shadow^ to flood its mighty boughs 
 and locks with tender luster. What silence and 
 what mystery! How many centuries of summers has 
 such evening splendor burnished thus the summit of 
 its completed shaft? How long since the quicken- 
 ing sunbeam fell upon the first spear of green in 
 which the prophecy of the superb obelisk was en- 
 folded? Why cannot the dumb column now be con- 
 fidential? There comes a breath of wind cooled by 
 the snow on higher swells of the Sierras, which can 
 be seen from the western edge of the grove; — why 
 will not the old patriarch take advantage of that 
 ripple through his leaves and whisper to me his age? 
 Are you as old as Noah? Do you span the centuries 
 as far as Moses? Can you remember the time of 
 Solomon? Were you planted before the seed of 
 Rome took root in Italy? At any rate tell me 
 whether or not your birth belongs to the Christian 
 centuries, whether we must write B. C. or A. D. against 
 your infancy? I promised the stalwart greybeard I 
 would tell nobody, or at most only The Transcript, 
 if he would just drop into my ear the hour of his 
 nativity. Perhaps he would have told me, if my 
 party had not returned to disturb the conditions of 
 a communication. 
 
 "A genial evening of life to the Methuselahs of 
 the wilderness who were babes a thousand years 
 ago!"^ 
 
 1 Prof . Willis L. Jepson, an authority on this subject, and connected 
 with the botanical department of The University of California, infornns 
 
 [138] 
 
A EULOGIST OF CALIFORNIA SCENERY 
 
 A final selection shall be taken from Mr. King's 
 letters describing the Yosemite Valley. 
 
 THE APPROACH TO THE YOSEMITE 
 
 "November, i860. 
 "After four hours of moderate climbing through 
 the glorious woods we began to be on the watch for 
 some signs of the rocks that wall in the Yosemite 
 Valley. We rode on and on, and yet saw no line 
 ahead of a rocky activity. Our guides from Coulter- 
 ville had never been over this Mariposa trail, and I 
 began to feel almost sure that we had missed the 
 track. Just when I was about to call a Council 
 of War we passed out from among the stripling 
 trees and found ourselves — on the edge of a trench 
 in the Sierras four thousand feet deep and six or 
 eight miles long! We came to a precipice of sheer 
 rock which is 2700 feet deep. Immediately oppo- 
 site, about a mile across, a portion of that northerly 
 wall stands up 3800 feet high. It does not abate 
 a jot from the perpendicular. It is clean, naked 
 granite. A plummet could be dropped straight 
 from its pediment to its base. On our southerly side 
 the wall rises gradually in height to the right hand, 
 or east, of us, and in some portions rears a spire 
 1600 feet higher than where we are. The great 
 dome of smooth unspotted rock, eight miles distant 
 from us by air-line on this southerly wall, lacks in 
 few yards only, by measurement, of five thousand 
 
 the author: "The living Sequoia giganteas commonly range in age from 
 1 100 to 1400 years, while a good many go to 2200 years, and one tree 
 whose age has been determined very carefully reached 3248 years, a 
 figure which is accurate in the sense that the range of error is limited to 
 six or ten years either way. Figures for greater ages often published, 
 are not the results of accurate studies." 
 
 [139] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 feet above the stream that winds beneath it. But 
 it is everywhere abrupt and sheer. 
 
 ^'How can I express the awe and joy that were 
 blended and continually struggling with each other, 
 during the half hour in the hot noon that we re- 
 mained on the edge of the abyss, where the grandeurs 
 of the Yosemite were first revealed to us? The 
 ramparts of the vast trench curve so much that we 
 could not see more than half its length towards the 
 east. At our left, on the west, the course of the 
 beautiful Merced could be followed for a dozen 
 miles. There was a grave cheerfulness in the gen- 
 eral aspect of the tremendous furrow, in spite of 
 the bareness of the scraped wall, and the desolation 
 enthroned upon the lofty summit springing 300 feet 
 higher into the bleak air from the most northerly 
 portion of the opposite battlement. 
 
 "I had read in a volume of travels among the 
 highest Himalayas of the singularly blue tone of 
 the cliffs and rocks. This was very striking in the 
 first sight of the Yosemite. There was a delicate 
 and most charming blue tint spread over the walls 
 and heights. Look steadily at a cliff and it would 
 wear a deathly ash color; a lambent light, vivify- 
 ing it to the general glance. Then at the bottom, 
 you gazed not upon desolation but upon the loveli- 
 est meadows skirted by stately trees and veined by 
 a river as large as the upper Connecticut. On the 
 ramparts opposite streams were plunging with reck- 
 less fury to the valley below. To our eyes, however, 
 there was no fury: 
 
 'But like a downward smoke the slender stream 
 Along the cliff to fall and pause did seem.' 
 
 There was the murmur of a heavy waterfall be- 
 
 [140] 
 
A EULOGIST OF CALIFORNIA SCENERY 
 
 neath us. A slight change in our position showed 
 us a sudden sag of the rock line on our southerly 
 wall, and there, 1500 feet below us, a cataract which 
 took one plunge of nearly a thousand feet before its 
 spray was shattered on the rocks. The scene was 
 sublime, but it was not lonely, desolate, or sombre, 
 as I had expected. And all the angularity and hard- 
 ness of line in the ramparts was soothed by some 
 indefinable mystic grace. I was not surprised, there- 
 fore, to learn that this spot where this magnificence 
 first bursts into vision is named Inspiration Point. 
 
 'The Yosemite Valley. 
 ''The Yosemite valley is a pass about ten miles 
 long, which at its eastern extremity, splits into three 
 narrow notches, each of which extends several miles, 
 winding by the wildest paths into the heart of the 
 Sierra Nevada chain. For seven miles of the main 
 valley, which varies in width from three-quarters 
 of a mile to a mile and a half, the walls are from two 
 thousand to nearly five thousand feet above the road 
 and are nearly perpendicular. The valley is of such 
 irregular width and bends so much, and often so 
 abruptly that there is a great variety and frequent 
 surprise in the forms and combinations of the over- 
 hanging rocks, as one rides along the banks of the 
 stream. The patches of luxuriant meadow with 
 their dazzling green, and the grouping of the superb 
 firs, two hundred feet high, that skirt them, and that 
 shoot above the stout and graceful oaks and syca- 
 mores, are delightful nests of sweetness and beauty 
 amid the threatening awfulness — like the threads 
 and flashes of melody that relieve the towering 
 masses of Beethoven's harmony. The Ninth Sym- 
 phony is the Yosemite of music. The Merced, 
 which flows through the main aisle we are speaking 
 
 [HI] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 of, is a noble stream a hundred feet wide and ten 
 feet deep. It is formed chiefly by the streams that 
 leap and rush through the narrow notches above 
 referred to, and it is swollen also by the bounty of 
 the marvellous waterfalls that pour down the ram- 
 parts of the wider valley. 
 
 "Now let us descend from Inspiration Point by a 
 very steep trail to the level of the Merced, and ride 
 up between the cliffs to such rude hospitality as the 
 isolation of the region may afford. At the foot of 
 the break-neck declivity we reach the banks of the 
 Merced and every rod of the six miles ride to the 
 'hotel' awakens wonder, awe, and a solemn joy. 
 First, we come within the sound of a sweet and 
 steady thunder which seems to pour from heights 
 at our right hand. Soon we ford and cross in turn 
 a dozen rivulets that flow merrily athwart the trail, 
 and then through a wider opening among the trees 
 we see the parent stream. But it is no prosaic water. 
 It is a gush of splendor, a column of concentrated 
 light from heaven; of course, we turn our horses' 
 heads straight toward it. Soon we dismount, and 
 clamber over the boulders and debris around which 
 its dishevelled strands are briskly leaping. The 
 rich bass deepens as we rise, and before long we are 
 in a cloud of spray that mounts 
 
 'And thence again 
 Returns in an unceasing shower, which round 
 With its unemptied cloud of gentle rain, 
 Is an eternal April to the ground, 
 Making it all one emerald.' 
 
 "Not a very 'gentle' rain, however, as our soaked 
 clothes soon attested. I did not stay long amid the 
 glories of its flashing iridescence, for I wished to 
 
 [142] 
 
A EULOGIST OF CALIFORNIA SCENERY 
 
 stand by the wall itself and look up. So I pushed 
 ahead through the blowing rainbows, and soon 
 reached the smooth-faced ramparts. I was now en- 
 tirely safe from the spray, which fell forty feet in 
 front of me upon the boulders, and I could look up 
 steadily, with no mist in the eyes, except what the 
 wonder of the picture stimulated. The wall is here 
 about a thousand feet high. It sags in the centre, 
 and there, eight hundred feet over my head, was 
 the curve of the cataract, as it pours from the level 
 stream for its unbroken descent of a sixth of a mile. 
 Not a single projection from the wall, or bulge in 
 it, is there to fret or mar the majesty and freedom 
 of the current. It was probably fifteen feet wide 
 where it started in its descent. It kept its curve 
 and a concentrated life for some 300 feet; and then 
 gravitation got hold of it, shook it apart, and made 
 it tumble through the air for five hundred feet 
 more, scattering millions of pearls, and whole sheets 
 of filmy mist, to be smitten with splendor by the 
 sun. 
 
 "This cascade is called 'The Bridal Veil.' A 
 worse name might be given it, but it seems to be 
 pleading with us that 'Bridal Veil' folly might be 
 thrown aside, and that it might be known forever 
 by its Indian baptism 'Pohono.' Thus before we 
 had been in the Valley twenty minutes we were at 
 the foot of a fall as high and more beautiful than 
 the celebrated Staubbach, the highest in Europe. 
 
 "Still we have five miles of horseback riding to 
 the hotel. Is there such a ride possible in any other 
 part of the planet? Nowhere among the Alps, and 
 in no canon of the mighty Oregon range, is there 
 such stupendous rock-scenery as the traveller here 
 lifts his eyes to. The Sierra Nevada has very few 
 
 [143] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 peaks which make the impression which fourteen 
 thousand feet of height ought to leave on the mind. 
 But it may challenge any portion of the globe, ex- 
 cept the awful gorges of the Himalaya through 
 which the gloomy Sutlej pours, to rival the savage- 
 ness and sublimity of these bluffs and spires. The 
 Saguenay river shores are the best suggestion of the 
 rocky sides of the Yosemite valley; but their grand- 
 est headlands are not half so high as portions of these 
 battlements. 
 
 "After leaving the nook in which the Pohono 
 tumbles, we found ourselves soon under a cliff twice 
 as high. We were obliged to turn our heads back 
 to see its crest, two thousand feet of sheer height 
 above us. The first view was so terrible that I sup- 
 posed this must be the most striking scenery in all 
 the valley, and I was greatly astonished to learn the 
 absolute measurement of the precipice. Opposite 
 this clifif, on the left or northerly bank of the river, 
 stood the sublime rock 'El Capitan,' or the 'The 
 Chieftain.' This wonderful piece of natural 
 masonry stands at an angle with the valley, present- 
 ing a sharp edge and two sides in one view, and 
 how high? 3817 feet! It stands straight. There 
 is no lazy curve-line, as in the sides of the White 
 Mountain Notch. In fact, the monstrous mass 
 beetles a little. You can stand on the summit and 
 drop a plumb line to the base. I called it just now 
 a piece of natural masonry; but the word is inac- 
 curate. The immense escarpment has no crack or 
 mark of stratification. It is one block of naked 
 granite pushed up from below. On one face the 
 wall is weather-stained, or lichen-stained with rich 
 cream colored patches, on the other side it is ashy 
 grey. A more majestic object than this rock I ex- 
 
 [144] 
 
A EULOGIST OF CALIFORNIA SCENERY 
 
 pect never to see on this planet. Great is granite, 
 and the Yosemite is its prophet! 
 
 "On the right bank of the river, further on, we 
 find another portion of the v^all over our heads on 
 the right hand from which two immense obelisks 
 are upreared. They are called 'The Sisters.' Bah! 
 These 'Sisters' look down upon you from an altitude 
 of 3500 feet, and occasionally send their respects ta 
 the meadow in a flake or two of a thousand tons, 
 dropping perpendicularly more than half a mile. 
 Another mile and we are under the shadow of 'The 
 Sentinel.' Look up at that 'pinnacled silence' t 
 There is a height greater than the twin obelisks we 
 last left, and even overlooking by 500 feet the wall 
 El Capitan on the opposite bank below. How 
 charmingly the frosts have gnawed and ravaged its 
 upper edges! We ride close to the base, hold our 
 heads back, and gaze long at the delicate points and 
 lines of those splinters in the zenith. The highest 
 of these needles is 4347 feet over our heads. Reader, 
 do you appreciate that height? Probably you have 
 been in 'The Glen' among the White Mountains, 
 and you remember the sharp peak of Mt. Adams, 
 whose pyramid is so symmetrical, seen from the 
 porch of the Glen House. Imagine Mt. Adams 
 cloven by Omnipotence midway from its apex to its 
 lowest stone, so that you could ride on horseback 
 within a few rods of the smooth wall, and look up 
 from plinth to crown! But that summit is not quite 
 4300 feet above the glen; and you can now judge 
 what it is to turn your eyes to the dim turrets of 
 'The Sentinel' in Yosemite! 
 
 "The wall opposite the Sentinel has a height at 
 one point of 4480 feet. The valley here is about a 
 mile wide. If its two sides could be pried from 
 
 [145] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 their foundations and tipped towards each other, 
 they could not fall. They would meet and support 
 each other and convert the valley into a mighty cave, 
 with a roofing more than three-quarters of a mile 
 high. In fact, early in the summer afternoon, the 
 opposite wall is in gloom, and throws its immense 
 shadow athwart the meadows beneath, robbing them 
 of four hours of sunshine which the fields under the 
 Sentinel enjoy. These shadows engage our atten- 
 tion, with the continuous line of rampart under which 
 we ride still three miles before reaching our goal. 
 And the hotel is not the end of the valley, or of its 
 wonders. Still beyond as we catch sight of it are two 
 immense domes of bare and glistening granite. 
 How high are they? What is the measure of that 
 southerly one which the declining sun is sheathing 
 with impalpable gold? If it were 23 feet higher 
 it would be 5000 feet. As it stands it is 300 feet 
 taller than Mt. Washington in the White Hills from 
 the points nearest its base, while the side of St. Peter's 
 is not more perpendicular than the wall which it 
 crowns. 
 
 "But as we approach the hotel and turn towards 
 the opposite bank of the river, what is that 
 
 'Which ever sounds and shines 
 A pillar of white light upon the wall 
 Of purple cliffs aloof descried?' 
 
 That is the highest waterfall in the world, the Yo- 
 semite cataract, 2500 feet in its plunge, dashing 
 from a break or depression in a cliff 3200 feet sheer! 
 Mr. Greeley in his account of his very hurried visit 
 to the valley a year ago (in September, 1859), calls 
 it a mere tape-line of water dropped from the sky. 
 Perhaps it is so toward the close of the dry season, 
 
 [.46] 
 
A EULOGIST OF CALIFORNIA SCENERY 
 
 but as we saw it, the blended majesty and beauty 
 of it, apart from the general sublimities of the Yo- 
 semite gorge, would repay a journey of a thousand 
 miles. There was no deficiency of water. It was 
 a powerful stream 35 feet broad, fresh from the 
 Nevada, that made the plunge from the brow of the 
 awful precipice; and our resting place on the south- 
 erly bank of the Merced, in the pass, afforded us a 
 most favorable angle for enjoying its exhaustless 
 charm. 
 
 'Like sheet-lightning. 
 Ever brightening. 
 With a low melodious thunder. 
 All day and all night it is ever drawn 
 From the brain of the purple mountain, 
 Which stands in the distance yonder.' 
 
 "The thunder, however, though certainly melodi- 
 ous, is by no means low, as may be imagined when 
 the measure of the fall is reported. At the first 
 leap it clears 1497 feet; then it tumbles down a series 
 of steep stairways 402 feet, and then makes a jump 
 to the meadows 518 feet more. The three pitches 
 are in full view, making a fall of more than 2400 
 feet. 
 
 "But it is the upper and highest cataract that is the 
 most wonderful to the eye, as well as most musical. 
 The cliff is so sheer that there is no break in the body 
 of water during the whole of its descent of more than 
 a quarter of a mile. It pours in a curve from the 
 summit, fifteen hundred feet to the basin that hoards 
 it but for a moment for the cascades that follow. 
 And what endless complexities and opulence of 
 beauty in the forms and motions of the cataract! 
 Comparatively narrow at the top of the precipice, it 
 
 [147] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 widens as it descends, and curves a little on one side 
 as it widens, so that it shapes itself, before it reaches 
 its first bowl of granite, to the figure of the comet 
 that glowed in our skies two years ago. More beau- 
 tiful than the comet, however, we can see the sub- 
 stance of this watery loveliness ever renew itself, and 
 ever pour itself away. Our readers have seen the 
 splendid rockets that on Fourth of July nights burst 
 into serpents of fire. This cataract seems to shoot 
 out a thousand serpentine heads or knots of water 
 which wriggle down deliberately through the air, 
 and expend themselves in mist before half the de- 
 scent is over. Then a new set bursts from the body 
 and sides of the fall, with the same fortune, and thus 
 the most charming fret-work of watery nodules, each 
 trailing its vapory train for a hundred feet, or more, 
 is woven all over the cascade, which swings, now and 
 then, thirty feet each way on the mountain side, as 
 if it were a pendulum of watery lace. Once in a 
 while, too, the wind manages to get back of the fall, 
 between it and the clifif, and then it will whirl it 
 round and round for two or three hundred feet, as if 
 it were determined to wring it dry. We could lie 
 for hours, never tired of gazing at this cataract, but 
 ever hungry for more of the witcheries of motion 
 and grace that refine and soften its grandeur." 
 
 It should be borne in mind in reading these descrip- 
 tions of California scenery by Starr King that they 
 were not the deliberate, carefully worded studies of 
 a nature-writer, but the hastily recorded impressions 
 of a vacation tourist. 
 
 The series ends with a vivid description of Mr. 
 King's exploration of the upper ravines of the Yo- 
 
 [148] 
 
A EULOGIST OF CALIFORNIA SCENERY 
 
 Semite Valley, not then as accessible as now. The 
 South Dome, Royal Arches, Mirror Lake, and other 
 scenic features receive due mention. Thence he 
 "climbed above the Vernal Fall, where the Merced 
 River pours from a perpendicular granite rampart 
 500 feet; and back of this, half a mile distant, just 
 under an obelisk 2,000 feet sheer, the river plunges 
 900 feet, which is called the Nevada Fall. And the 
 walls that enclose this water-magnificence are more 
 grand than the White Mountain Notch." 
 
 Above the Nevada Fall he climbed 1500 feet again 
 "to see the snow-streaked turrets of the great Sierras. 
 Two of the peaks visible there, and quite near, are 
 13,600 feet." One of them — a noble monument to 
 this lover of nature and eloquent eulogist of mountain 
 scenery — is now named Mount Starr King. 
 
 [149] 
 
PART II 
 ORATOR AND PATRIOT 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 PATRIOTIC ACTIVITIES 
 
 MR. KING was so engrossed in parish duties 
 and literary and social activities, and he 
 was now so far removed from the centres 
 of National thought and life, that the important po- 
 litical events of i860 had passed unchallenged, if not 
 unnoticed by him. 
 
 The lack of telegraphic communication prevented 
 the closer acquaintance of California with the strug- 
 gle that was raging in the East. "Is Lincoln 
 elected?" Mr. King asks in a letter to a friend, dated 
 November 7, i860. " We are so far out of the way 
 that we cannot find out." But he adds : "Our State 
 has done well. Lincoln leads, as far as heard from." 
 
 Again in January 31, 1 861, he writes: "California 
 is but slightly affected as yet by the political panic. 
 We shall adhere to the Northern Confederacy. May 
 wisdom and grace avert bloodshed and save us from 
 disgraceful concessions, and restore good sense and 
 manliness to the frightened and demented South!" 
 
 But finally the reverberations of the approaching 
 storm were heard more and more loudly in Cali- 
 fornia, and the war clouds of 1861 drifted slowly over 
 to the Pacific Coast. It was a time of great anxiety 
 
 [153] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 for the loyal element in its population. Although 
 numerically superior the Union men in California 
 were at a disadvantage because the Federal and State 
 officers, the military commands, the newspapers and 
 social influences were in the hands of open or covert 
 sympathizers with the Secession movement. 
 
 At the outbreak of the Civil War 40 per cent of 
 the people of California were of Southern birth, 
 while many of the Northern born were politically of 
 their way of thinking. For ten years past this ele- 
 ment had been in control of the State as well as of the 
 National government. Of 53 newspapers published 
 in California only 7 advocated the election of Abra- 
 ham Lincoln, and he received only 28 per cent of its 
 electoral vote. The Governor, Legislature and 
 Courts, the United States Senators and Congressmen 
 from California, were all safely Democratic and 
 Southern in their sentiments. General Albert Sid- 
 ney Johnston, a well known sympathizer with the 
 Rebellion, and subsequently a brilliant Confederate 
 soldier, was in command of the Federal forces in San 
 Francisco.^ 
 
 The danger to be apprehended was the uprising of 
 this Southern element which was known to be well 
 organized, armed and desperate. A secret military 
 order, the Knights of the Golden Circle, had enrolled 
 somei 16,000 sympathizers with Secession. Joined, 
 as they would have been, by the discontented and law- 
 less, civil war would have ensued and an attempt 
 
 ^ "Starr King in California," by William Day Simonds. Part II. 
 
 [154] 
 
PATRIOTIC ACTIVITIES 
 
 been made to carry California out of the Union. 
 Still others dreamed of, or openly advocated, an in- 
 dependent Pacific Republic, which, if consummated, 
 would have been equally disastrous to the National 
 idea. 
 
 There was imminent need to arouse the loyal ele- 
 ments in the population of California to a sense of 
 their danger; to acquaint them with the folly and 
 wickedness of these designs against their internal 
 peace and the paramount authority of the National 
 Government; to proclaim in intelligible terms the 
 fundamental principles of the Republic, and to re- 
 call the great events in its history which confirmed 
 them. The Union men needed a leader, the Union 
 cause a champion to plead for it, to strengthen the 
 timorous and vacillating, denounce treason and im- 
 part confidence in the administration at Washington. 
 In a community in which "the love of oratory 
 amounted to a passion," an eloquent voice was needed 
 to inspire the people of the State, its farmers, traders, 
 miners and stock-raisers, with the consciousness of 
 patriotic duty, and thus prepare the way for an or- 
 ganization of the Union sentiment. Their brave and 
 able leader, David C. Broderick, who a few years be- 
 fore had inaugurated the struggle against Southern 
 arrogance and its aggressive endeavors in behalf of 
 the extension of slavery, had fallen a lamented victim 
 to it. Still another fearless and eloquent spokesman 
 for the Union, Col. E. D. Baker, had removed to 
 Oregon, had been elected United States Senator, and 
 
 [155] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 enlisting in the Union Army soon after met a hero's 
 death in the engagement at Ball's Bluff. 
 
 The one man on the Pacific Coast whose oratorical 
 talents, exalted character, early training and assured 
 political principles fitted him for this eminent serv- 
 ice was Thomas Starr King. It found him ready and 
 prepared for the task. Brought up under the very 
 shadow of Bunker Hill he was unusually informed 
 in the history of his country and the principles which 
 underlie it. As early as 1847, by invitation of the 
 city authorities in Charlestown, he had delivered an 
 address on the anniversary of that early struggle of 
 the American Revolution, in which he acutely an- 
 alyzed its motive and aim, — civil, personal and re- 
 ligious freedom, limited only by the law of right. 
 Again in 1852 he was the orator at the Fourth of July 
 celebration of the municipality of Boston, choosing 
 for his topic, "The Organization of Liberty on this 
 Continent." 
 
 It was in February, i86r, though he was as yet un- 
 conscious of the great mission to which he was being 
 called, that Starr King fired the opening gun of his 
 oratorical campaign by giving at a patriotic rally 
 in San Francisco an address on "Washington and the 
 Union." In the month following Starr King de- 
 livered one of the most powerful and popular of his 
 addresses, "Webster and the Constitution." A few 
 weeks later he spoke to another great audience on 
 "Lexington and the New Struggle for Liberty." 
 Later themes of his patriotic appeal were "The Great 
 
 [156] 
 
PATRIOTIC ACTIVITIES 
 
 Uprising" and "The New Nation to Issue from the 
 War." These addresses, repeated all over the State, 
 created a great sensation and were listened to by 
 large and delighted audiences. 
 
 "I have been lecturing on 'The New Nation to 
 Issue from the War,' " writes Mr. King. ''I gave it 
 on June 17th before a military company here and 
 shall have to repeat it, though the house was filled. 
 The country districts clamor for it." 
 
 It may be permitted the present writer to say that 
 this address was prepared at his solicitation, and dur- 
 ing its impressive delivery the military company, 
 the "Sumner Light Guard," of which he was a mem- 
 ber, sat on the platform in a half-circle around 
 the speaker, clad in the Confederate grey, which 
 the State authorities — Southern sympathizers — had 
 forced the California militia to wear, but which was 
 to be exchanged, by means of the proceeds of this 
 lecture, for uniforms of true Union blue. 
 
 Writing to a friend at the East, Rev. Thomas B. 
 Fox, in the summer of 1861, Starr King informs him: 
 
 "We are boiling over with all sorts of agitation 
 here. The Secessionists have taken great heart since 
 Manassas Junction. There are three tickets for 
 Governor and Congressman in the field, Secession- 
 Democratic, Union-Democratic, and True-Blue Re- 
 publican. The Secessionists are all of a sudden 
 peace men, and flood the State with documents on 
 the cost of the war, its horrors, and the propriety of 
 stopping the fight and recognizing Jeff Davis. Ow- 
 
 [157] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 ing to the division of the Union strength there begin 
 to be fears that the Secessionists may get a plurality, 
 and so we are arming, drilling and spouting. 
 Among other forces to save the State I have taken 
 to lecturing again — an hour and a half on 'The Con- 
 federate States, Old and New.' Last night, I spoke 
 on 'Peace, and What It Would Cost Us,' for the bene- 
 fit of the New York and Massachusetts Volunteers. 
 House packed. Enthusiasm tremendous. Profits 
 for the fund $1500. Speech printed before daylight 
 this morning, and now flying over the State by thou- 
 sands. I am to give another lecture for the same 
 fund in two weeks." 
 
 Other letters from this period give interesting dis- 
 closures of the manifoldness of Mr. King's activities 
 in behalf of the Union cause. 
 
 "San Francisco, August 30th, i860. 
 "We had a meeting in our church of New York 
 men for the relief of their destitute in that State, and 
 subscribed $2200 on the spot. We mean to raise 
 thousands in the city and State. If we beat the Seces- 
 sionists next Wednesday, Sept. 4th, at the polls, so 
 that in spite of our Union split they can't get a plu- 
 rality, we are safe. If they win, we must arm and 
 prepare to drive the rebel Governor where Claiborn 
 Jackson went. Perhaps you will get news of the 
 election as soon as you get this note." 
 
 To Randolph Ryer: 
 
 "February 20th, 1861. 
 "I am in the agony of writing my long oration on 
 Washington for the 22nd. . . . Quite an incident has 
 
 [158] 
 
PATRIOTIC ACTIVITIES 
 
 occurred here in an orthodox prayer meeting. A 
 man got up and announced that he was called by the 
 Almighty to rid the city of that enemy of Christ, 
 Thomas Starr King, and that he intended to slay 
 him as soon as a good opportunity offered, etc., etc. 
 The prayer meeting broke up ; but nothing was done 
 to arrest the man. The chairman of our church com- 
 mittee the next day made an affidavit against him, 
 he was arrested and examined, seemed quite gentle 
 and utterly harmless on all other questions, but per- 
 sisted that he was called of the Lord to plunge a 
 dagger in my heart, and that he would, if he were 
 to be hanged or burned the next minute. 
 
 "So he was sent to the Insane Asylum in Stock- 
 ton, and 'I still live.' Poor fellow! I don't believe 
 he would have lifted a finger upon me, because he 
 talked so violently. If he had been really danger- 
 ous, he would have done something before talking. 
 
 To Randolph Ryer: 
 
 "February 24, 1861. 
 
 "I must write you a word or two of the lecture 
 on Washington night before last. All day on the 
 22nd was glorious here, the city was excited on the 
 Dis-Union question, and mass meetings were held at 
 several points in streets and squares. It was a great 
 and serious holiday. 
 
 "In the evening the lecture was to come of? at 7:30. 
 Tickets a dollar each. The house would comfort- 
 ably seat a thousand. No tickets were given away 
 even to the press. But there was a press there, I 
 can tell you. Every place where a seat could be 
 stowed was taken. They had to turn away people 
 by the hundred who came. The dignitaries were on 
 the stage. I laid my manuscript on a small stand 
 
 [159] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 covered with the American flag. The aristocracy 
 were on hand, lots of them from the South. 
 
 "The lecture was two hours and a quarter long — 
 and such a time! Such stillness, and then such 
 laughter! Such applause and then such ominous 
 quiet when I gave them a 'free soil' touch! 
 
 "Mrs. Fremont was out and told me she hadn't 
 been so stirred in years. ... A son of old Vander- 
 bilt, a Lieutenant in the Army, stayed to be intro- 
 duced and tell me his joy (wasn't that a triumph!). 
 I pitched into Secession, Concession, and Calhoun, 
 right and left, and made Southerners applaud. I 
 pledged California to a Northern Republic and to 
 'a flag that should have no treacherous threads of 
 cotton in its warp,' and the audience came down with 
 thunder. At the close it was announced that I would 
 repeat it the next night, and they gave three rounds 
 of cheers. 
 
 "But alas, yesterday I was very hoarse, and the 
 repetition is postponed till the 4th of March! I 
 copyrighted the address, to save it from the piracy 
 of stenographers, and am urged to give it all over 
 the State, and help kill the Pacific-Republic folly. 
 It was the occasion, thus far, of my existence." 
 
 The San Francisco Bulletin reported next day: 
 "The lucky ones who gained entrance, heard a mag- 
 nificent lecture two and a quarter hours long, spark- 
 ling in every sentence, pithy, eloquent and pertinent. 
 The delighted audience applauded to the echo." 
 
 Mr. King's younger brother, Edward, was a 
 mariner, a man of sturdy build and modesty of na- 
 ture, who used to say: "Starr has the brains of the 
 
 [160] 
 
PATRIOTIC ACTIVITIES 
 
 family, and I the brawn." Two days after Starr 
 King's epoch-making oration on Washington, he 
 sailed into the harbor of San Francisco in his ship, 
 the Syren, and the two brothers — sky-pilot and sea- 
 captain — met. Poetic justice should have permitted 
 the sea-farer to be in command of the handsome clip- 
 per ship, the Starr King, so named by its builder and 
 owner in Eastern Massachusetts, an admirer of our 
 hero. 
 
 We continue our excerpts from Mr. King's letters 
 at this crucial moment of his public career, remind- 
 ing the reader that they were written in confidence 
 to a friend, and not intended for publication. 
 
 "San Francisco, March loth, 1861. 
 
 "I have given my 'Washington and the Union' 
 lecture the second time in this city. House jammed 
 and hundreds turned away. I am to give it still 
 again for the Masonic Relief Fund. A week from 
 to-night I am to lecture on 'Webster and the Consti- 
 tution' before our Mercantile Library Association. 
 I shall write the lecture this week. 
 
 "I have also given the Washington lecture in 
 Marysville and Stockton, the headquarters of 'the 
 Chivalry,' to very large audiences. In Stockton a 
 dozen or less Southerners hissed. I gave them 
 cracks in return, and the house cheered and ap- 
 plauded like a thunder-cloud. It was a great time. 
 The Stockton people had blistered hands next day." 
 
 "San Francisco, March 20th, 1861. 
 "Last night I lectured two hours on 'Webster and 
 the Constitution.' House filled with 1500 people at 
 
 [>6i] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 a dollar a ticket. And they want it repeated. I 
 didn't dwell on his 7th of March speech and the 
 compromise of 1850. We are getting California 
 safe out of the Southern hands. 
 
 "I am to give 'Washington' still a third time in 
 this city, before the Masons, and also an oration 
 April 19th before the military of the city on the 
 'Battle of Lexington.' " 
 
 In October, 1861, he writes an Eastern friend: 
 
 "This Sunday afternoon I preached to a regiment 
 of Cavalry here. It was a grand sight — a thousand 
 men in a solid square, under a cheerful California 
 sky, listening to talk on the country, religion, etc. 
 We have the telegraph now. I sent you a message as 
 soon as it opened its batteries, which I hope was re- 
 ceived. The women of our parish have equipped 
 2750 soldiers with towels, handkerchiefs, stockings in 
 part, and kits containing comb, needles, thread, 
 thimble, etc. The way the sewing machines ran and 
 raced in our church for a month! 
 
 "I have preached to soldiers in camp and am now 
 engaged in furnishing literature for them. But as 
 to lecturing and organizing for the Union, there is a 
 lull. In order to keep my hand in, I preached last 
 Sunday twice on the telegrfiph. The first click of 
 the telegraph brought in the n«ws of Gen. Baker's 
 death. He was a great favorite in California and 
 the tidings dashed our joy materially." 
 
 "November ist, 1861. 
 "Our hundred men for the Boston Cavalry Bat- 
 talion go by this steamer. They are splendid, per- 
 fect fellows. I hope you will see them and speak 
 with the Captain, who is a friend of mine. I have 
 
 [162] 
 
PATRIOTIC ACTIVITIES 
 
 lectured, preached, prayed and talked for this com- 
 pany. They are my pets. ... I am nearly used up 
 in strength, though." 
 
 In the latter part of 1861, a group of American 
 residents of Victoria, B. C, sent Mr. King a draft 
 for one thousand dollars "in aid of the cause of 
 American Union," together with a vigorous resolu- 
 tion supporting the cause of the Federal Govern- 
 ment. It was a significant act since at that very 
 moment there were ominous threatenings that the 
 British Government would espouse the cause of the 
 seceding states, in which case a war with Great 
 Britain would have been inevitable. Starr King made 
 effective use of this incident at a public meeting 
 held on Sunday evening, November 24th, in San 
 Francisco to encourage subscriptions to the National 
 Loan. Addressing an audience of three thousand, 
 he read to them the letter of the loyal American 
 colony in Victoria, and by his eloquent comments 
 upon it awoke his hearers to enthusiastic applause 
 and practical demonstration of their equal patriotism. 
 In his reply to the donors Mr. King wrote : 
 
 ''Let us hope that this contribution from Victoria 
 is an auspicious omen that there is to be no disrup- 
 tion of our peaceful bonds with England, and that no 
 embarrassing obstacle to the triumph of law, liberty 
 and Saxon civilization throughout our Republic is to 
 be cast in our way by the Cabinet of Queen Victoria, 
 which holds now the great trusts of British power 
 and honor. A rebellion, for the sake of supporting 
 slavery and of making the world tributary to its in- 
 
 [163] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 terest, is not a cause to which the sympathies of Eng- 
 land naturally belong. The Stars and Stripes rep- 
 resent the principles and hopes which make Eng- 
 lish history illustrious; and the American Govern- 
 ment is to-day defending against traitors the seed- 
 truths and the sacred customs which America re- 
 ceived as an inheritance from English liberty, estab- 
 lished, let us remember, through years of Civil War. 
 No calamity could be greater now to the cause of 
 civilization and freedom than a war with Great 
 Britain, and her open aid of the rebel cause of the 
 South. Let us aid, so far as we can, the cultivation 
 of a good understanding and of a generous fellow- 
 ship. Let us labor and pray that a spectacle so un- 
 natural and an alliance so unholy as that just alluded 
 to may not be seen in the high noon of this Christian 
 century." 
 
 This letter of Starr King, widely printed and read 
 in the journals not only of the Pacific Slope but of 
 the East, aided in the peaceful solution of the diffi- 
 culties between the two nations. 
 
 The gift of the Victoria Americans was turned over 
 to the United States Sanitary Commission. 
 
 Writing under date of October 14, 1862, Starr 
 King tells the readers of the Boston Evening Tran- 
 script the cheering story of the United States Sani- 
 tary Commission in California, of which, as its presi- 
 dent Dr. Bellows said, he was the eloquent voice, the 
 quickening soul. In this connection he sends for 
 publication a poem, "Our Privilege," written in sup- 
 port of the Fund bv ''a friend, Mr. Frank Bret 
 
 ■ [164] 
 
PATRIOTIC ACTIVITIES 
 
 Harte" (the Transcript spells it Haste) ''who will 
 yet be known more widely in our literature." At a 
 previous mass meeting in San Francisco Mr. King 
 had introduced Mr. Harte, who read a patriotic 
 poem, "The Reveille." It was largely through Mr. 
 King's influence that the nascent poet and romancer 
 obtained the position as secretary of the Superin- 
 tendent of the United States Mint in San Francisco 
 which gave him the assured income and comparative 
 leisure essential to the development of his literary 
 talents. 
 
 In April, 1862, Mr. King writes happily to his 
 friend Ryer: " 'Unto us a child is born, unto us a 
 son is given.' The little emigrant stepped on the 
 shores of time at 5 A. M. April 4th. He didn't bring 
 much with him but a capital head and a handsome 
 face — like his mother. But he has my nose. What 
 shall we call the boy? Can you suggest a name? 
 Don't say Thomas Starr, Jr. That can't be. No sir ! 
 I told the boy so plainly the first day of his existence. 
 We had a fair understanding. He begged, and 
 pleaded, and urged and implored, but it was of no 
 use. He even shook his fist at me, as if demanding 
 that it should be T. Starr the less. But I put my 
 foot down. He sobbed and kicked but finally sub- 
 sided into acquiescence." His friend Randolph Ryer 
 had named his first-born son Starr, in memory of 
 their friendship. Starr announces, in retaliation: 
 "Next Sunday the baby will be baptized in church. 
 The name is to be Frederick Randolph. The Fred- 
 
 [165] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 erick is for Dr. Hedge. The Randolph is for you. 
 Really you would be proud of your namesake if you 
 could see him." 
 
 To Randolph Ryer: 
 
 "San Francisco, January lo, 1862. 
 
 "We are all pretty well. My wife is able to walk 
 again, and is only homesick. [Mrs. King had been 
 struck on the knee by a loose plank in the decrepit 
 board sidewalks of the city, and for a year suf- 
 fered much pain and disability.] Edith is bright 
 as a nest of larks. She is studying French, Latin, 
 and Music, and is sound on the red, white and blue. 
 She carries the national colors in her face and eyes. 
 My wife has had a superb Christmas present, a dia- 
 mond cross, from members of the parish. I do not 
 read of any instance in the New Testament of an 
 apostle's wife receiving a more beautiful one. 
 
 "I am hard at work as usual but not in lecturing. 
 There is a great flood in the interior. California 
 is a lake. Rats, squirrels, locusts, lecturers and other 
 pests are drowned out. I am a home-bird, and en- 
 joy it hugely. Eight discourses I have written on 
 the Book of Job, and a lecture of an hour and a 
 quarter on the Pilgrims for December 22nd. In 
 fact I never wrote so much in any former years as 
 this last year, and yet I am very strong. I grow old 
 in looks, and am getting gray, but am feeling well. 
 As to going back, I don't know when it will be, but 
 not for a year from next April at any rate. I want 
 to go East, but ought not to. There is some talk 
 of making me Senator from California — but I 
 would swim to Australia before taking a political 
 post. 
 
 [166] 
 
PATRIOTIC ACTIVITIES 
 
 "The winter is very warm, once we saw ice in the 
 city, just a skim of it, but roses bloom in the open 
 air. The parish is strong, out of debt and interested 
 in good works. We have the telegraph now, and 
 hear of the fluctuations and wretched conduct of the 
 war." 
 
 To the same. 
 
 "San Francisco, January 20th, 1862. 
 "I send you a copy of my address at the grave of 
 Colonel Baker. I attended a private funeral service 
 at his wife's and daughter's residence before the pub- 
 lic ceremony. I knew the Colonel and found him 
 a very able and brilliant man. His daughter is a 
 parishioner of mine. He is a great loss to this coast." 
 
 A lecture by Mr. King on "The Privilege and 
 Duties of Patriotism" sets forth, as does no other of 
 ihis public addresses, the central thought and purpose 
 of these activities in behalf of the undivided Union 
 of States. By permission of the publishers of Starr 
 King's writings passages from this oration are given 
 below. Yet as we transcribe them we feel how in- 
 adequately the written or printed page reproduces the 
 spoken word of the orator, or preserves the impres- 
 sion it made on his auditors. As Mr. King himself 
 tells us : 
 
 "Alas for the perishableness of eloquence! It is 
 the only thing in the higher walks of human creative- 
 ness that passes away. The statue lives after the 
 sculptor dies, as sublime as when his chisel left it. 
 St. Peter's is a perpetual memorial and utterance of 
 
 [167] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 the great mind of Angelo. The Iliad is as fresh to- 
 day as twenty-five centuries ago. The picture may 
 grow richer with years. But great oratory, the most 
 delightful and marvellous of the expressions of moral 
 power, passes and dies with the occasion." 
 
 Yet if the strains of the great singers who capti- 
 vate the hearts of men to-day; if the sweet music of 
 violin and flute and harp may be recorded and re- 
 produced at will to the delight of later generations, 
 may we not hope that by the perfecting of mechan- 
 ical inventions the voice and inflections of future 
 orators and preachers may be preserved for the edi- 
 fication of posterity? 
 
 Said Starr King: 
 
 "I am to speak to you of the Privilege and Duties 
 of American Patriotism. 
 
 "First the Privilege. Patriotism is love of coun- 
 try. It is a privilege that we are capable of such a 
 sentiment. Self-love is the freezing-point in the 
 temperature of the world. As the heart is kindled 
 and ennobled it pours out feeling and interest, first 
 upon family and kindred, then upon country, then 
 upon humanity. The home, the flag, the cross, — 
 these are the representatives or symbols of the noblest 
 and most sacred afifections or treasures of feeling in 
 human nature. 
 
 "We sometimes read arguments by very strict 
 moralists which cast a little suspicion upon the value 
 of patriotism as a virtue, for the reason that the law 
 of love, unrestricted love, should be our guide and 
 inspiration. We must be cosmopolitan by our sym- 
 
 [i68] 
 
PATRIOTIC ACTIVITIES 
 
 pathy, they prefer to say. Patriotism, if it inter- 
 feres with the wider spirit of humanity, is sectional- 
 ism of the heart. We must not give up to country 
 'what is meant for mankind.' 
 
 ''Such sentiments may be uttered in the interest of 
 Christian philanthropy, but they are not healthy. 
 The Divine method in evoking our noblest affec- 
 tions is always from particulars to generals. God 
 'hath set the solitary in families,' and bound the fam- 
 ilies into communities, and organized communities 
 into nations; and he has ordained special duties for 
 each of these relationships, and inspired affections 
 to prompt the discharge of them, and to exalt the 
 character. 
 
 "The law of love is the principle of the spiritual 
 universe just as gravitation is the governing force of 
 space. It binds each particle of matter to every 
 other particle, but it attracts inversely as the square 
 of the distance, and thus becomes practically a series 
 of local or special forces, holding our feet perpetu- 
 ally to one globe, and allowing only a general unity, 
 which the mind appropriates through science and 
 meditation, with the kindred but far-off spheres. 
 The man that has most of the sentiment of love will 
 have the most intense special affections. You can- 
 not love the whole world and nobody in particular. 
 If you try that, it will be true of you as of the miser 
 who said, 'what I give is nothing to nobody.' How- 
 ever deep his baptism in general good-will, a man 
 must look with a thrill that nothing else can awaken, 
 into the face of the mother that bore him; he cannot 
 cast off the ties that bind him to filial responsibilities 
 and a brother's devotion; and Providence has or- 
 dained that out of identity of race, a common his- 
 tory, the same scenery, literature, laws, and aims, — 
 
 [169] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 though in perfect harmony with good-will to all men, 
 — the wider family feeling, the distinctive virtue, 
 patriotism, should spring. If the ancient Roman 
 could believe that the yellow Tiber was the river 
 dearest to Heaven; if the Englishman can see a gran- 
 deur in the Thames which its size will not suggest; 
 if the Alpine storm-wind is a welcome home-song 
 to the Swiss mountaineer; if the Laplander believes 
 that his country is the best the sun shines upon; if 
 the sight of one's own national flag in other lands 
 will at once awaken feelings that speed the blood and 
 melt the eyes; if the poorest man will sometimes 
 cherish a proud consciousness of property in the great 
 deeds that glow upon his country's annals and in the 
 monuments of its power, — let us confess that the 
 heart of man, made for the Christian law, was made 
 also to contract a special friendship for its native 
 soil, its kindred stock, its ancestral traditions, — let 
 us not fail to see that where the sentiment of patriot- 
 ism is not deep, a sacred affection is absent, an es- 
 sential element of virtue is wanting, and religion is 
 barren of one prominent witness of its sway. 
 
 "But why argue in favor of patriotism as a lofty 
 virtue? History refuses to countenance the analytic 
 ethics of spiritual dreamers. It pushes into notice 
 Leonidas, Tell, Cincinnatus, Camillus, Hampden, 
 Winkelried, Scipio, Lafayette, Adams, Bolivar, and 
 Washington, in whom the sentiment has become flesh, 
 and gathered to itself the world's affections and hon- 
 ors. It asks us, 'What do you say of these men? 
 These are among the brighter jewels of my kingdom. 
 Thousands of millions fade away into the night in 
 my realm, but these souls shine as stars, with purer 
 lustre as they retreat into the blue of time. Is not 
 
 [170] 
 
PATRIOTIC ACTIVITIES 
 
 their line of greatness as legitimate as that of poets, 
 philosophers, philanthropists, and priests?' . . . 
 
 NATIONAL PATRIOTISM 
 
 ''It is a privilege of our nature, hardly to be meas- 
 ured, that we are capable of the emotion of patriot- 
 ism, that we can feel a nation's life in our veins, re- 
 joice in a nation's glory, sufifer for a nation's momen- 
 tary shame, throb with a nation's hope. . . . 
 
 ''Think of a man living in one of the illustrious 
 civilized communities of the world, and insensible 
 to its history, honor, and future, — say of England! 
 Think of an intelligent inhabitant of England so 
 wrapped in selfishness that he has no consciousness 
 of the mighty roots of that kingdom, nor of the tough- 
 ness of its trunk, nor of the spread of its gnarled 
 boughs! Runnymede and Agincourt are behind 
 him, but he is insensible to the civil triumph and 
 the knightly valor. All the literature that is 
 crowned by Bacon, Shakespeare, and Milton, the 
 noblest this earth ever produced from one national 
 stock, awakens in him no heart-beat of pride. He 
 reads of the sturdy blows in the great rebellion, and 
 of the gain to freedom by the later and more quiet 
 revolution, and it is no more to him than if the record 
 had been dropped from another planet. The tri- 
 umphs of English science over nature, the hiss of 
 her engines, the whirl of her wheels, the roar of her 
 factory drums, the crackle of her furnaces, the beat 
 of her hammers, the vast and chronic toil that mines 
 her treasures, afifect him with no wonder and arouse 
 no exultant thrill of partnership. And he sees noth- 
 ing and feels nothing that stirs his torpid blood in 
 the strokes and sweep of that energy, before which 
 
 [171] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 the glory of Waterloo and Trafalgar is dim, which 
 has knit to the English will colonies and empires 
 within a century which number nearly one fourth of 
 the inhabitants of the globe. The red flag of Eng- 
 land hung out on all her masts, from all her house- 
 tops, and from every acre of her conquests and pos- 
 sessions, would almost give this planet the color of 
 Mars, if seen through a telescope from a neighbor- 
 ing star. What a privilege to be a conscious fibre of 
 that compacted force! If I were an Englishman, 
 I should be proud every hour of every day over my 
 heritage. . . . The man who is dead to such pride 
 ought not to be rated as a man. 
 
 "And is it any less a privilege to be an American? 
 Suppose that the continent could turn towards you 
 to-morrow at sunrise, and show to you the whole 
 American area in the short hours of the sun's ad- 
 vance from Eastport to the Pacific! You would see 
 New England roll into light from the green plumes 
 of Aroostook to the silver stripe of the Hudson ; west- 
 ward thence over the Empire State, and over the 
 lakes, and over the sweet valleys of Pennsylvania, 
 and over the prairies, the morning blush would run 
 and would waken all the line of the Mississippi; 
 from the frosts where it rises, to the fervid waters in 
 which it pours; for three thousand miles it would 
 be visible, fed by rivers that flow from every mile 
 of the Alleghany slope, and edged by the green em- 
 broideries of the temperate and tropic zones; beyond 
 this line another basin, too, the Missouri, catching 
 the morning, leads your eye along its western slope, 
 till the Rocky Mountains burst upon the vision, and 
 yet do not bar it; across its passes we must follow, 
 as the stubborn courage of American pioneers has 
 forced its way, till again the Sierra and their silver 
 
 [172] 
 
PATRIOTIC ACTIVITIES 
 
 veins are tinted along the mighty bulwark with the 
 break of day; and then over to the gold-fields of the 
 western slope, and the fatness of the California soil, 
 and the beautiful valleys of Oregon, and the stately 
 forests of Washington, the eye is drawn, as the globe 
 turns out of the night-shadow, and when the Pacific 
 waves are crested with radiance, you have the one 
 blending picture, nay, the reality, of the American 
 domain! No such soil, so varied by climate, by prod- 
 ucts, by mineral riches, by forest and lake, by wild 
 heights and buttresses, and by opulent plains, — yet 
 all bound into unity of configuration and bordered 
 by both warm and icy seas, — no such domain was 
 ever given to one people. 
 
 THE LESSON OF HISTORY 
 
 "And then suppose that you could see in a picture 
 as vast and vivid the preparation for our inheritance 
 of this land: — Columbus haunted by his round idea 
 and setting sail in a sloop to see Europe sink behind 
 him, while he was serene in the faith of his dream; 
 the later navigators of every prominent Christian 
 race who explored the upper coasts; the Mayflower 
 with her cargo of sifted acorns from the hardy stock 
 of British puritanism, and the ship, whose name we 
 know not, that bore to Virginia the ancestors of 
 Washington; the clearing of the wilderness, and the 
 dotting of its clearings with the proofs of manly 
 wisdom and Christian trust; then the gradual inter- 
 blending of effort and interest and sympathy into 
 one life, the congress of the whole Atlantic slope to 
 resist oppression upon one member, the rally of every 
 State around Washington and his holy sword, and 
 again the nobler rally around him when he signed 
 the Constitution, and after that the organization of 
 
 [173] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 the farthest West with North and South into one 
 polity and communion; when this was finished, the 
 tremendous energy of free life, under the stimulus 
 and with the aid of advancing science, in increasing 
 wealth, subduing the wilds to the bonds of use, mul- 
 tiplying fertile fields, and busy schools, and noble 
 workshops, and churches hallowed by free-will ofifer- 
 ings of prayer, and happy homes, and domes dedi- 
 cated to the laws of states that rise by magic from the 
 haunts of the buffalo and deer, all in less than a long 
 lifetime; and if we could see also how, in achieving 
 this, the flag which represents all this history is dyed 
 in traditions of exploits, by land and sea, that have 
 given heroes to American annals whose names are 
 potent to conjure with, while the world's list of 
 thinkers in matter is crowded with the names of 
 American inventors, and the higher rolls of literary 
 merit are not empty of the title of our 'representative 
 men': — if all that the past has done for us and the 
 present reveals could thus stand apparent in one pic- 
 ture, and then if the promise of the future to the chil- 
 dren of our millions under our common law, and 
 with continental peace, could be caught in one vast 
 spectral exhibition, the wealth in store, the power, 
 the privilege, the freedom, the learning, the expan- 
 sive and varied and mighty unity in fellowship, al- 
 most fulfilling the poet's dream of 
 
 'The Parliament of man, the federation of the 
 world,' 
 
 you would exclaim with exultation, 'I, too, am an 
 American!' You would feel that patriotism, next 
 to your tie to the Divine Love, is the greatest privi- 
 lege of your life; and you would devote yourselves, 
 out of inspiration and joy, to the obligations of patri- 
 
 [■74] 
 
PATRIOTIC ACTIVITIES 
 
 otism, that this land, so spread, so adorned, so colo- 
 nized, so blessed, should be kept forever one in pol- 
 ity, in spirit, and in aims! . . . 
 
 "True patriotism is pledged to the idea which one's 
 native country represents. It does not accept and 
 glory in its country merely for what it is at present 
 and has been in the past, but for what it may be. 
 Each nation has a representative value. Each race 
 that has appropriated a certain latitude which har- 
 monizes with its blood has the capacity to work out 
 special good results, and to reveal great truths in 
 some original forms. God designs that each coun- 
 try shall bear a peculiar ideal physiognomy, and he 
 has set its geographical characteristics as a bony 
 skeleton, and breathed into it a free life spirit, which, 
 if loyal to the intention, will keep the blood in health, 
 infuse vigor into every limb, give symmetry to the 
 form, and carry the flush of a pure and distinct ex- 
 pression to the countenance. It is the patriot's office 
 to study the laws of public growth and energy, and 
 to strive with enthusiastic love to guard against every 
 disease that would cripple the frame, that he may 
 prevent the lineaments of vice and brutality from 
 degrading the face which God would have radiant 
 with truth, genius, and purity. 
 
 ''He was the best patriot of ancient Greece who 
 had the widest and wisest conception of the capacities 
 and genius of Greece, and labored to paint that ideal 
 winningly before the national mind, and to direct the 
 flame of national aspiration, fanned by heroic mem- 
 ories, up to the noblest possibilities of Grecian en- 
 deavor. The truest patriot of England would be 
 the man whose mind should see in the English genius 
 and geography what that nation could do naturally 
 and best for humanity, and, seizing the traditional 
 
 [175] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 elements that are in harmony with that possibility, 
 should use them to enliven his own sympathies, and 
 to quicken the nation's energy. We might say the 
 same of Russia and Italy. The forward look is es- 
 sential to patriotism. 
 
 "And how much more emphatically and impres- 
 sively true is this when we bring our own country 
 into the foreground! We have been placed on our 
 domain for the sake of a hope. What we have done, 
 and what has been done for us, is only preparation, 
 the outline-sketching of a picture to be filled with 
 color and life in the next three centuries. Shall the 
 sketch be blurred and the canvas be torn in two? 
 That is what we are to decide in these bitter and 
 bloody days. 
 
 NATIONAL UNITY 
 
 "Our struggle now is to keep the country from 
 falling away from the idea which every great patriot 
 has recognized as the purpose towards which our 
 history, from the first, has been moving. God de- 
 vised the scheme for us of one republic. He planted 
 the further slope of the Alleghanies at first with 
 Saxon men; he has striped the Pacific Coast with the 
 energy of their descendants, protecting thus both 
 avenues of entrance to our domain against European 
 intrusion; but the great wave of population he has 
 rolled across the Alleghanies into the central basin. 
 That is the seat of the American polity. And an 
 imperial river runs through it to embarrass, and to 
 shame, and to balk all plans of rupture. The Missis- 
 sippi bed was laid by the Almighty as the keel of 
 the American ship, and the channel of every stream 
 that pours into it is one of its ribs. We have just 
 covered the mighty frame with planking, and have 
 
 [176] 
 
PATRIOTIC ACTIVITIES 
 
 divided the hull into State compartments. And the 
 rebels say, 'Break the ship in two.' They scream, 
 'We have a right to, on the ground of the sovereignty 
 of the compartments, and the principles of the Dec- 
 laration of Independence; we have a right to, and 
 we will!' The loyal heart of the nation answers,, 
 'We will knock out all your Gulf compartments and 
 shiver your sovereign bulkheads, built of ebony, to- 
 pieces, and leave you one empty territory again, be- 
 fore you shall break the keel.' That is the right 
 answer. We must do it, not only for our own safety^ 
 but to preserve the idea which the nation has beerh 
 called to fulfil, and to which patriotism is called 
 and bound to be loyal. Aye, even if there were one 
 paragraph or line in the Declaration of Indepen- 
 dence that breathed or hinted a sanction of the re- 
 bellion! Geology is older than the pen of Jefifer- 
 son; the continent is broader than the Continental 
 Congress; and they must go to the foundations to 
 learn their statesmanship. 
 
 "The Procrustes bed of American patriotism is 
 the bed of the Mississippi, and every theory of na- 
 tional life and every plan for the future must be 
 stretched on that; and woe to its wretched bones and 
 sockets if it naturally reaches but half-way! 
 
 "Providence made the country, too, when the im- 
 mense basin should be filled with its fitting millions, 
 to show the world the beauty and economy of con- 
 tinental peace. It is a destiny radically different 
 from that of Europe, with its four millions of armed 
 men, that has been indicated for us. By the inter- 
 play of widely different products into one prosperity 
 ' — cotton and cattle, tobacco and corn, metals and 
 manufactures, shipyards and banking rooms, forests 
 and fields, — and all under one law, and all enjoying 
 
 [177] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 local liberty, — sufficient centralization, but the mild- 
 est pressure on the subordinate districts and the per- 
 sonal will — Providence designed to bless us with im- 
 mense prosperity, to develop an energy unseen be- 
 fore on this globe, and to teach the nations a lesson 
 which would draw them into universal fraternity and 
 peace. 
 
 "The rebels have tried to frustrate this hope and 
 scheme. Patriotism, which discerns the idea to 
 which the nation is thus called, arms to prevent its 
 defeat. They say that there shall not be such unified 
 prosperity and all-embracing peace for the future 
 hundreds of millions on our domain. We say that 
 there shall. And we arm to enforce our vision. 
 
 "But is not that a strange way to establish peace, 
 by fighting on such a scale as the republic now wit- 
 nesses? Is it not a novel method to labor for econ- 
 omy of administration and expense in government 
 by a war which will fetter the nation with such a 
 debt? We answer, the rebellion gave the challenge, 
 and now victory at any cost is the only economy. 
 Carnage, if they will it, is the only path to peace. 
 
 'For our own good 
 All causes shall give way; we are in blood 
 Stept in so far, that, should we wade no more, 
 Returning were as tedious as go o'er.' 
 
 Yes, if we return, all our blood and treasures are 
 wasted. The peace we gain by victory is for all the 
 future, and for uncounted millions. The debt we 
 incur by three years' fighting will be nothing com- 
 pared with the new energy and security aroused, 
 nothing to the next hundred years. And it will es- 
 tablish the idea to which the land was dedicated." 
 
 [178] 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 ORATORICAL CAMPAIGN FOR THE UNION 
 
 AS the nation plunged deeper and deeper into 
 war, it became evident that Starr King had 
 not underestimated the arduousness of the 
 campaign in which he was enlisted, and the drain on 
 his own powers which it involved. "What a time 
 to live in," he wrote to a friend, "worth all other 
 times ever known in our history or any other." Only 
 one thought now possessed him, his duty to his coun- 
 try. His health, always delicate, had been severely 
 tried by the exacting nature of his California experi- 
 ances. We find him writing to the chairman of his 
 parish: "It is useless to disguise the fact that I am 
 not as well as I was when in Boston. I experience 
 strange debility and singular pains and numbness in 
 the brain. For writing purposes I am nearly worth- 
 less." But, he said to a friend, "I had rather die next 
 year than be sick this." Arousing himself he jour- 
 neyed again and again over the State, the eloquent 
 champion of union and liberty. Everywhere he met 
 with enthusiastic welcome, and his popularity and 
 influence became unbounded. His course in pre- 
 paring the public mind for the deeper issues of the 
 war displayed rare judgment and tact. At first his 
 
 [179] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 utterances were all for the maintenance of the Union. 
 With unanswerable logic he proved the necessity for 
 its preservation, and exposed the fallacy and unjusti- 
 fiableness of the Rebellion against the Central Gov- 
 ernment. "Rebellion," he declared, "sins against 
 the Mississippi, it sins against the coast line, it sins 
 against the ballot box, it sins against oaths of alle- 
 giance, it sins against public and beneficent progress 
 and history and hope — the worth of the laborer, the 
 rights of man. It strikes for barbarism against civ- 
 ilization." 
 
 Growing bolder and more confident he would feel 
 his audiences with an occasional reference to the ques- 
 tion of negro soldiery, striving to uproot the preju- 
 dices they might entertain against this war measure. 
 "Cannon balls are black," he would say, "war does 
 not whitewash them. Powder is black. War does 
 not bleach it. Why then, this absurd prejudice 
 against a race of the same color in the grain as you 
 and I?" Soon the responses came thicker and faster. 
 The popular mind grew with the public necessity. 
 He could give utterance to the most radical senti- 
 ments and meet only applause, and bursting its 
 shackles of diplomacy his eloquence thrilled them 
 with its fervent appeals for the equal rights of all 
 men, white or black. 
 
 Referring to the ardently awaited Proclamation 
 emancipating the Slaves, he declared with passionate 
 eagerness: "O that the President would soon speak 
 that electric sentence, — inspiration to the loyal North, 
 
 [.80] 
 
CAMPAIGN FOR THE UNION 
 
 doom to the traitorous aristocracy whose cup of guilt 
 is full. Let him say that it is a war of mass against 
 class, of America against feudalism, of the school- 
 master against the slave-master, of workmen against 
 the barons, of the ballot-box against the Barracoon. 
 This is what the struggle means. Proclaim it so, 
 and what a light breaks through our leaden sky! 
 The ocean-wave rolls then with the impetus and 
 weight of an idea." 
 
 These patriotic sentiments were uppermost in all 
 his public utterances at the time. When he gave a 
 course of lectures on the American poets it was to 
 show that their underlying inspiration was their faith 
 in freedom and the rights of men, their love of coun- 
 try aind humanity; to thrill his hearers by reciting 
 the latest patriotic verses which his literary friends, 
 Longfellow, Holmes, Bryant, Whittier, Lowell, had 
 sent him in advance of their publication at the East. 
 Was 'Taradise Lost" his theme? It was to find in 
 the fallen angels and their doom a parallel with the 
 seceding states of the South. 
 
 This literary activity for the Union cause will ex- 
 plain the following letters to Eastern correspondents. 
 
 To Dr. Henry W. Bellows: 
 
 "San Francisco, October, 1862. 
 
 "I have a matter to speak of, which is very deli- 
 cate. 
 
 "We are to build a new church here at a cost of 
 about fifty thousand dollars. Added to that the 
 land cost eighteen thousand. Then a new organ, 
 
 [.81] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 to be built out here (one of my hobbies) , to cost four 
 thousand, and all to be paid for in a year. It will 
 be a very hard pull. But I must carry it through, 
 in spite of war and all other calls for money. For 
 I ought to leave here, year after next, if the war 
 shall cease, to get a little rest, even if I return here 
 afterwards. 
 
 "Now I have promised to furnish the new organ, 
 as my gift, besides subscribing to the church build- 
 ing. A thousand dollars already are secured. And 
 about New Year I shall give a course of lectures here 
 on prominent American poets — Bryant, Longfellow, 
 Holmes, Whittier, Lowell, partly to sweeten our civ- 
 ilization, and partly to help along the organ fund. 
 
 "I think that Holmes, Whittier and Lowell will 
 each send to me a short piece which has never been 
 printed, to read at the close of the lecture devoted 
 to them. Has Bryant anything in manuscript which 
 could be sent to me to read at the close of the intro- 
 ductory lecture which will be devoted to his verse? 
 The reading of a piece here would not hinder the 
 publication in any shape at the East. And I am sure 
 that the course of lectures will help civilization here, 
 increase the demand for our best literature, and sup- 
 ply a golden strand for the cable that is to bind this 
 coast to the East. I dare not ask Mr. Bryant di- 
 rectly: perhaps you will think it not unbecoming to 
 make the suggestions, and you may feel sure that his 
 kindness, if the request can be granted, will not be 
 indelicately used. If he has any war-verses, or 
 wishes to say anything further about the Oregon, 
 that hears now so many other sounds than its own 
 dashings, how welcome they would be! Of course, 
 I must know very soon if I can hope for such a great 
 
 [182] 
 
CAMPAIGN FOR THE UNION 
 
 favor to our city, and if anything is sent, it had better 
 come by Wells, Fargo's Express by steamer. 
 
 'T. S. K." 
 
 It was sent — Bryant's war poem, the first verse of 
 which reads: 
 
 "O country, marvel of the earth! 
 O realm to sudden greatness grown! 
 The age that gloried in thy birth. 
 Shall it behold thee overthrown? 
 Shall traitors lay that greatness low? 
 No, land of Hope and Blessing, No!" 
 
 To William R. Alger: 
 
 "San Francisco, December, 1862. 
 "Will you take this to Jas. T. Fields — dear James 
 — and say that I am just made happy by the despatch 
 from Bellows in which, among other things, he 
 lightningizes the news that poems from Longfellow, 
 Holmes and Whittier will go Californiaward by 
 steamer of the nth of Dec. Thank James superbly, 
 and ask him piteously, beseechingly, if Lowell won't 
 also send one! It would be such a treat here, and 
 Lowell is so popular, and could touch the heart of this 
 State so electrically by a direct message. Tell James 
 T. also not to forget my request to his poetic ink- 
 stand. I know the ink is ready and it will run free if 
 he will dip his pen in. I embrace James T. and ex- 
 pect him to feel the squeeze so that the two poems 
 will appear!" 
 
 Mr. King's pulpit was draped throughout the 
 whole of this eventful period with the American flag, 
 and not infrequently the rumble of half-suppressed 
 
 [183] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 applause at the sentiments of the preacher ran 
 through the pews. The titles of some of his sermons 
 indicated the character of their teaching. Such were 
 ''The Choice between Barrabas and Jesus"; "The 
 Fall of Dagon before the Ark"; "The Treason of 
 Judas Iscariot"; "The Nation's New Year"; 
 (1863). Starr King had no fear of political 
 preaching, "He believed the pulpit to be the prow 
 of the Ship of State, and that its mission was to point 
 the way in all the great moral crises of the nation." 
 Writing to Edward Everett Hale, he tells him: 
 
 "I arranged last week for a grand jubilee thanks- 
 giving service in our church on Sunday morning, 
 February 23. We have Trenkle as organist, you 
 know. And our quartette choir is admirable. We 
 doubled it; selected the great battle psalms for re- 
 sponsive chanting, the Columbiad passages of proph- 
 ecy for Scripture reading, prayers and exultations 
 from Judas Maccabeus (Handel's, not Apocrypha's), 
 with a Gloria of Mozart for the official music, and 
 Holmes's Army Hymn for the congregation to lift 
 in an artillery chorus to the Lutheran passion of Old 
 Hundred; and thus enjoyed ourselves, with a crowd 
 that packed the house. Hundreds went away from 
 the doors. I felt the whole fervor of the congrega- 
 tion pour through me, and came near going ofT the 
 handle in the address which brought down the house. 
 Since Sunday I have been disturbed in the heart 
 region, and to-night am quite weak and a little fever- 
 ish. But I have squared accounts with that pain in 
 the head for Bull Run. So please to be more mod- 
 
 [184] 
 
CAMPAIGN FOR THE UNION 
 
 erate with your victories, unless you mean to kill 
 some of us out here. One a week is all we can bear." 
 
 The labor of preparing his lectures and addresses 
 now became overpowering. He had rarely at- 
 tempted extemporaneous speaking, and then with no 
 marked success. "I have not got," he would say, 
 "the faculty of thinking on my feet, as Beecher has 
 it." All his great war-time addresses were carefully 
 dictated or written out by himself, and read to his 
 audiences from the manuscript. Only by the elec- 
 tric quality of his delivery and his admirable elocu- 
 tion was he enabled to read his written speeches with 
 such effect. Mrs. Jessie Fremont recounts that when 
 Senator Baker of Oregon on his way to join his regi- 
 ment at the East, addressed a great meeting in Piatt's 
 Hall, Mr. King went with General and Mrs. Fre- 
 mont to hear him. As he listened to Baker's splen- 
 did periods and saw their powerful effect on his audi- 
 ence, he walked up and down the private box they 
 were occupying, in great excitement, saying again 
 and again, "That is the true way to reach men! I 
 can never do that. How I envy him!" But Mr. 
 King was soon compelled to make the attempt, and 
 his success in extempore speech was as much a sur- 
 prise to himself as it was gratifying to his friends. 
 In this iraprovised speaking the orator was even 
 more apparent. 
 
 A characteristic of Starr King's oratorical style 
 was the frequent length of his sentences. This pecu- 
 liarity was due in part to the lightning-like rapidity 
 
 [■85] 
 
THOAS STARR KING 
 
 of (his thought and imagination, and his astounding 
 fecundity of language, but even more to his habit 
 of dictating his sermons and lectures to an amanu- 
 ensis, a method unfavorable to literary condensation 
 and brevity of expression. Had Mr. King lived to 
 revise his public utterances before they were sub- 
 mitted to the printer, they would doubtless have un- 
 dergone some changes in literary form likely to make 
 them more acceptable to the reader. This draw- 
 back — if such it was — was less noticeable in his public 
 speaking; indeed it seemed to add to its efifectiveness. 
 As his sentences developed, each successive stroke 
 gave new depth and beauty to the verbal picture, 
 each added illustration made it more convincing, 
 sweeping his listeners with ever-accumulating power 
 to acceptance of its final and irresistible appeal. As 
 when a great wave out at sea lifts itself in successive 
 upheavals above the surrounding surface, and rushes 
 on, billow on billow, to the distant shore, overcoming 
 every obstacle, absorbing into itself every backward 
 current, finally with tremendous accumulated power 
 to reach its goal and hurl its watery mass in foaming 
 and resounding fury upon the beach, so Starr King 
 by the impassioned fervor of his delivery carried his 
 hearers irresistibly on through the mazes of his argu- 
 ment, overcoming successively their prejudices, 
 doubts and fears, until, as he reached the conclusion, 
 the cumulative efifect of his oratory was shown by 
 their enthusiastic acceptance of his sentiments and 
 their uproarious applause. 
 
 [.86] 
 
CAMPAIGN FOR THE UNION 
 
 I recall that on one occasion at a public rejoicing 
 over Union victories in the field, the great audience 
 in Union Hall was restless and only half-attentive 
 until Mr. King took a seat on the platform. Then 
 a welcoming burst of applause overpowered the voice 
 of the Union candidate for Governor who was ad- 
 dressing them, and in a few moments he yielded the 
 floor to Starr King. The latter came forward. The 
 swaying mass of men on the floor below, packed 
 breast to back, quieted down in an instant. With 
 their eyes riveted on him they listened in deep silence, 
 a silence only broken by the applause and cheering 
 which his words elicited. 
 
 Thus he held them enthralled, fascinated, until in 
 closing his powerful address he drew for them the 
 word-picture of a battle-field. The rush and din of 
 the sitruggle, the wave on wave of alternate advance 
 and retreat, the clash of arms, the agony, the triumph, 
 were all delineated with wonderful fidelity and 
 force. 
 
 As he retired from the platform, an answering 
 cheer went up from three thousand throats that shook 
 the building to its foundations. 
 
 A moment later, in company with Frank Bret 
 Harte, I sought him. We found Mr. King lying on 
 a sofa in the anteroom, pale and exhausted. "What 
 a triumph!" said Harte. "How did you manage to 
 get through that long last sentence?" "I hardly 
 know," returned Mr. King, "I seemed quite uncon- 
 scious of my surroundings. My imagination beheld 
 
 [■87] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 the scenes, my mind worked out the sentences mo- 
 ments before I uttered them." 
 
 Mr. King's admirable work in behalf of the United 
 States Sanitary Commission for the sick and wounded 
 soldiers deserves unstinted praise. By his urgent ad- 
 vice in the committee room not to divide and squander 
 their fund among the many applications for it, and by 
 his eloquent appeals in public, California's splendid 
 contribution of over one million and a quarter of dol- 
 lars — one fourth of the amount contributed by the 
 entire country — to this cause was mainly assured. 
 
 In a letter to Edward Everett Hale, he describes 
 the beginning of his activities in this cause: 
 
 ''In my speech I tried to shame our city for its 
 tardiness and indifference on the wounded soldiers 
 question. The papers took up the note, and last 
 Sunday night we had a mass meeting in Piatt's great 
 hall in this city to stir up the people to action. Four 
 prominent lawyers spoke, and I closed the talking 
 with an extempore appeal of three-quarters of an 
 hour. It was a glorious meeting. And this week 
 we have sent on by telegraph, as first instalment of 
 our subscriptions, one hundred thousand dollars 
 to the Sanitary Commission. We shall do a great 
 deal more next week, and I hope another hundred 
 thousand. Pray Heaven it may go to victorious 
 wounded! But alas! we have no proof as yet that 
 we have the brains to lead our forces. But why 
 speculate three weeks ahead? 
 
 "I have kept well in all the labor and distraction. 
 It is only this week that I feel used up." 
 
 Fitz-Hugh Ludlow, the Secretary and historian 
 
 [i88] 
 
CAMPAIGN FOR THE UNION 
 
 of this National philanthropy, tells us : "Starr King 
 loas the Sanitary Commission in California." 
 
 Letters written to Dr. Bellows, President of the 
 United States Sanitary Commission, the clumsily 
 named Soldier's Relief Association of the Civil War, 
 disclose the truth of this statement. 
 
 "San Francisco, March i8, 1862. 
 
 ''My dear Bellows: 
 
 "I received some time ago your eloquent acknowl- 
 edgments of the Victoria cash. Your note was for- 
 warded to the good British Yankees, and produced an 
 efifect even before it reached them. For while it was 
 on the way I received another letter from the Com- 
 mittee in Victoria, enclosing a draft for three hun- 
 dred dollars more. We always thought of you, dear 
 Bellows, superior to all ordinary laws that hedge 
 and hamper human action. This Victoria feat 
 proves that you can raise an echo before your will 
 reaches the point of resistance. 
 
 "What to do with the three hundred? Of course, 
 we couldn't send such a trifle to the Commission. 
 Well, we have an Olympic Club of gentlemen-ath- 
 letes here who gave an exhibition not long ago for 
 the benefit of our volunteers, at which I cut up some 
 antics of speech in an opening address. I made them 
 shell off two hundred dollars from their Patriotic 
 Corn Cob. Still further, we have a small associa- 
 tion here called 'The Ladies' Patriotic Fund Society.' 
 Some weeks ago they gave a Festival, at the opening 
 of which I speechified and read Mrs. Howe's 'Weave 
 no more silk, ye Lyons looms.' The festival cleared 
 $1500 for the benefit of our volunteers in this State. 
 Last Saturday, I met the Committee of excellent 
 
 [189] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 women, and tried my luck at milking that fund also 
 for your benefit. It 'gave down' five hundred dol- 
 lars, after I had pledged myself that the amount 
 should be restored if occasion should come in the 
 future for its use here. (I mean restored by a lec- 
 ture or festival here, not by you, of course.) The 
 ladies seemed very glad to serve the objects of the 
 Commission, and voted heartily to accede to my re- 
 quest, although their 'Constitution' looked on aghast 
 at the work. 
 
 "So you see I have gathered another thousand for 
 your noble work. Our collector of the port has 
 hopes, too, of sending you a contribution from funds 
 placed at his discretion. I hope he will be able to 
 make up still another thousand. If our flood-visita- 
 tion had not come, we could have done more for you, 
 but all sympathy and energy for two months were 
 drawn towards the one sacred duty of protecting the 
 homeless and clothing the naked who flocked by hun- 
 dreds to us from their ruined farms in the interior. 
 
 "We have been greatly excited here over the 'for- 
 ward march' from Washington. The telegraph first 
 told us that there had been a great battle at Manassas 
 and a total rout of the enemy. Afterwards we 
 learned that it was a retreat of the latter. When the 
 flag streams over Richmond and Charleston, things 
 will look right, so far as battle is concerned. But the 
 settlement and reconstruction! Have we statesmen 
 wise and strong enough to draw the fitting plan? I 
 see all the difficulties in the way of a summary treat- 
 ment of the slave question, and yet if its Moloch- 
 arrogance isn't crushed, Jeff Davis will be elected 
 the next President of the Nation. 
 
 "Have you met Mrs. Fremont? I hope so. Her 
 husband I am very little acquainted with; but she is 
 
 [190] 
 
CAMPAIGN FOR THE UNION 
 
 sublime, and carries guns enough to be formidable 
 to a whole Cabinet, — a She-Merrimac, thoroughly 
 sheathed, and carrying fire in the genuine Benton- 
 furnaces. 
 
 "I read all your addresses and reported speeches 
 with great admiration. Your 'Birth-pangs of the 
 Gospel' is a stream of moral electricity. If the war 
 lasts a year longer, how are you to manage living? 
 Of course you will burn out before then. I think 
 many of us will collapse when the settlement is made, 
 — go out with the Peace, as people often in consump- 
 tion 'go out with the tide.' May it not be that we 
 shall go out with shame at the terms of the Peace! 
 
 "But I am boring you. Take the thousand dol- 
 lars with our best feeling for the Sanitary Commis- 
 sion, and write me again a receipt for it, to show 
 that I am not a disciple of Cameron, or of that earlier 
 Simon who traded in the Holy Ghost. I am worn 
 out and yet on the tread-mill. How I ache to see 
 you all! Give my love to the Saints — Livermore, 
 Osgood, Frothingham, Chapin. Tell them to keep 
 a little corner in their hearts and memories for me, 
 and believe me, dear Bellows, 
 
 "Truly and warmly, 
 "Yours, T. S. King." 
 
 To the same : 
 
 "San Francisco, October lo, 1862. 
 "This will be handed to you by our excellent 
 Congressman, Hon. A. A. Sargent, a bright, honest, 
 able and handsome man. It is not for me to intro- 
 duce him to you. He carries with him the best pos- 
 sible card and commendation, in the six thousand 
 dollars of pure gold which his home city here, Ne- 
 vada, has entrusted to him for the Commission, and 
 
 [191] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 the twelve thousand dollar draft of which he is the 
 bearer from Marysville. I helped stir up the 
 Marysville saints to their good works. Nevada, hav- 
 ing Sargent in it, needed no other stimulant. And 
 both towns will do more for the Fund. 
 
 "In fact, the State is just waking up. We are 
 tasting the pleasure of doing our duty, and every 
 county here aches for some of your eloquence as a 
 special and local bounty and dainty. I advise you 
 to keep your eloquence-reservoir well supplied, with 
 the faucet free, for several weeks to come. 
 
 "My wife encloses with this note a draft for the 
 fund of $536.80, which she has bought with 
 some money sent to her to-day from some ladies in 
 Santa Clara, a village about forty miles from our 
 city. Julia is Treasurer of our Ladies' Lint Associa- 
 tion here, of which Mrs. Swain is Secretary, and 
 Mrs. Winchester, who goes to New York by this 
 steamer. President. They send some lint, etc., to you 
 by this vessel, and will send more on the 21st. 
 
 "You have received our second hundred thousand 
 with the request to send thirty of it to St. Louis. 
 Our Committee were grievously afflicted in being 
 obliged to stipulate with you at all as to distribution. 
 They are so delighted with your dispatches and so 
 thoroughly reliant upon your judgment, that they 
 wanted to pour the money into your hands and give 
 you carte blanche. To prevent any controversy be- 
 tween St. Louis and New York, our Committee, much 
 to their regret, were obliged to ask you to send from 
 the second hundred thousand enough to make fifty 
 thousand. You will not be hampered hereafter by 
 our Committee, who are unanimously in favor of 
 making you Commander in Chief now, and succes- 
 sor to Uncle Abe in 1864! 
 
 [192] 
 
CAMPAIGN FOR THE UNION 
 
 "The State continues to do nobly in contributions. 
 They are not complete yet in any counties, and there- 
 fore we have received but little in the city of what 
 has been subscribed. But I think that a hundred 
 thousand dollars has been pledged already outside 
 of San Francisco, which will soon find its way into 
 your sacred purse. I want the State to come up to 
 half a million. To-morrow I am to speak at a mass 
 meeting in one of our farming counties. Last night 
 I addressed an Agricultural Fair, and closed with an 
 appeal for the Fund. Next week and week after I 
 shall be in the same business. And all this while 
 the rebel congress are discussing the project of an 
 address to the Pacific Coast in behalf of an alliance 
 offensive and defensive! It could be nothing but 
 offensive. 
 
 'When shall we strike again from the Potomac? 
 'Little Mac' still hugs the Maryland shore. Pope was 
 a flatulent soul ; but if McClellan turns out a genius, 
 there is no truth in physiognomy. He would do to 
 invest Gibraltar, or bombard Teneriffe, or attack any 
 fossil concern that couldn't change outline, but a foe 
 that has alertness and two ideas an hour beats him 
 after he has won a victory. And Halleck is fit for 
 one bureau in the War Department. He is a man 
 of the reddest tape. Bellows, make a dash for the 
 chief command! You could do the thing and save 
 us! 
 
 "Yours, 
 
 "T. S. King." 
 To the same : 
 
 "San Francisco, Oct. 20, 1862. 
 "Behold duplicate of draft, of which original went 
 to you by Congressman Sargent on the nth inst I 
 
 [193] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 don't know that you look at such small amounts as 
 five hundreds in these days of the California hydrau- 
 lic streams. Lots of little towns here are eager to 
 put their knuckles to your battery, and get a spark 
 and shock. I am trying to stop them and save you, 
 and I hope to succeed. I am laboring to get the 
 State contributions massed in San Francisco, and 
 hurled at you by tens of thousands. We send on 
 thirty thousand to-morrow. Are we not doing well? 
 "Your letter to our Committee, in reply to the first 
 remittance of a hundred thousand, takes everybody 
 down here. It is a glorious gush of eloquence, and 
 touches California exactly in the right spot. The 
 only mistake was in your allusion to the individuals 
 that have helped the fund, etc. Who can they be? 
 I shall speak this week in the interior to stir up the 
 fund-contributions. San Francisco is to-day the 
 most loyal city of the nation. 
 
 "T. S. King." 
 
 To the same. 
 
 "San Francisco, October 28th, 1862. 
 
 "You must be tired, by this time, of seeing my 
 signature and the postmark of San Francisco. Bear 
 up a little longer and we will slacken. Contribu- 
 tions still pour in for the fund. Last week I spoke 
 four nights in the interior, as a sort of rowelling 
 process on the conscience, and every time with prom- 
 ise of good results. 
 
 "Last week, also, we published a circular which 
 I enclose, that you may see how you and I are put 
 into the same sheets in California. I am only an 
 Honorary Member of the Relief Committee here; 
 but I draw up their circulars and advise them as to 
 
 [194] 
 
CAMPAIGN FOR THE UNION 
 
 movements, etc. Otis, Norris, Redington and Mc- 
 Ruer are members of our parish. Lent would be if 
 he did not live forty miles away. I drew up the 
 enclosed circular, which has been sent all over our 
 hundred square miles, to supply the final stimulant 
 to the out-of-the-way regions where speakers cannot 
 go. I think it will ensure fifty thousand dollars ad- 
 ditional contribution, which will yield good Cali- 
 fornia interest on the cost of printing. 
 
 ''T. S. King." 
 
 From all sides now came calls for his services. 
 "To-night," he writes humorously from the mining 
 town of Yreka, "I am to speak in a village with the 
 sweet name of Dead Wood, and to-morrow at the 
 very important and cultivated settlement of Rough 
 and Ready. Scott's Bar wants me; Horsetown is 
 after me; Mugginsville bids high; Oro Fino applies 
 with a long petition of names. Mad Mule has not 
 yet sent in a request; nor Piety Hill, nor Modesty 
 Gulch; but doubtless they will be heard from in due 
 time. The Union sentiment is strong; but the seces- 
 sionists are watchful and not in despair." 
 
 He was as effective with rough miners and cow- 
 boys as with cultivated city audiences. Mr. King de- 
 clared that he never knew the exhilaration of public 
 speaking until he faced a front row of revolvers and 
 bowie knives. "On one occasion," we are told, "when 
 every seat in the building where he spoke was occu- 
 pied, the aisles and entry packed, and a compact mass 
 of people on the sidewalk, a tall, rough miner on the 
 extreme edge of the crowd, who was listening in an 
 
 [195] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 ecstasy of delight, nudged his shorter companion 
 and exclaimed: 'I say, Jim, stand on your toes and 
 get a sight of him! Why, the boy is taking every 
 trick!' " On another occasion, his impassioned plea 
 for union and liberty was interrupted by a solitary 
 hiss. Pausing for a moment Starr King remarked, 
 "There are only two kinds of animals that express 
 themselves by a hiss — the goose and the snake." 
 Then, pointing to the offender he cried: "Behold 
 the Copperhead!" He responded to every invita- 
 tion; his labors were endless and untiring. "I 
 should be broken down," he wrote a friend, "if I 
 had time to think of how I feel, but I haven't." 
 
 On his Columbia River trip occurred an incident 
 of which he made effective use in his public addresses. 
 On the deck of the steamer he heard a man declaim- 
 ing to his fellow-passengers in behalf of secession 
 and slavery. For an instant, he said, he was possessed 
 by a wild impulse to seize the traitor by the throat 
 and hurl him into the stream below. But he re- 
 frained, for he remembered that its waters were 
 clean! 
 
 This incident brings to mind a charge brought 
 against Mr. King that in his oratorical fervor he in- 
 dulged sometimes in outbursts of invective and de- 
 nunciation against the personal character and motives 
 of the enemies of his country and his kind. But let 
 it be remembered that as the champion of the national 
 idea he was confronted not only by reactionary tra- 
 ditions and the immobility of established institutions 
 
 [196] 
 
CAMPAIGN FOR THE UNION 
 
 and vested interests. He found himself opposed also 
 by personal antagonists, well-organized, rancorous, 
 and unscrupulous, actively at work in defaming him 
 and defeating his purposes. It was inevitable, there- 
 fore, that his contest with the enemies of his cause 
 should assume occasionally a personal character, 
 and that he should cherish toward them sentiments 
 of disapprobation and hostility. It was natural 
 also that in his oratorical campaigns, in seeking 
 to gain adherents to the cause for which he pleaded, 
 he should endeavor to communicate to his hearers 
 the moral passion that fired his own soul, and rouse 
 them also to indignation and hostility to these incar- 
 nate representatives of social injustice and treason. 
 This emotional appeal may be carried too far and 
 lead to heated controversies and denunciations which 
 neither advance the true interests of a cause nor are 
 worthy of its advocates. Mr. King cannot be pro- 
 nounced entirely free from these rhetorical sins. 
 But at most they were only incidental to his public 
 discourse, and had much to justify them in the aims 
 and conduct of the Secession party. It was no time 
 for soft words and the discriminating and balanced 
 consideration of rival principles and aims in the po- 
 litical order. The danger was imminent that the 
 Federal Union would be dissolved, the State of Cali- 
 fornia be made to join the Confederacy, and human 
 slavery be established within its borders. The 
 National flag had been fired on at Fort Sumter, a 
 rebel army was marching on Washington. Every 
 
 [197] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 just oratorical appeal was in order which would main- 
 tain the loyalty of the state and nation and assure the 
 supremacy of patriotic sentiments among the people. 
 Never was such an issue presented to the latter for 
 their solution. So far as the United States of Amer- 
 ica were concerned, the Civil War demanded of them 
 a devotion, a sacrifice of life and of treasure 
 greater than the Republic had hitherto known in its 
 history. We justly take pride in America's great 
 and altruistic contribution to a righteous decision of 
 the world-war just ending. But the victory of jus- 
 tice, freedom and righteousness in the Civil War of 
 1860-5 has been the most important event in our 
 career as a nation. Even a Pacifist like John Morley 
 of England declares it to have been "One war which 
 was justified by its results." 
 
 In what light Mr. King himself regarded this 
 matter is disclosed by one of his patriotic discourses, 
 "The Great Uprising." After emphatically declar- 
 ing that it is the duty of a Christian minister to feel 
 no personal animosity to any human being, he dis- 
 tinguished between a wrong done to himself and a 
 wrong done to the community. He illustrates the 
 distinction by a reference to the President of the Con- 
 federate States.^ 
 
 "He is a representative to my soul and conscience 
 of a force of evil. His cause is a pollution and a 
 horror. His banner is a black flag. I could pray 
 for him as one man, a brother man, in his private, 
 
 1 E. P. Whipple's Memoir, p. 44. 
 
 [198] 
 
CAMPAIGN FOR THE UNION 
 
 affectional and spiritual relations to Heaven. But 
 as President of the seceding states, head of brigand 
 forces, organic representative of the powers of de- 
 struction within our country — pray for him! As 
 soon as for antichrist! Never!" It would be, he 
 added, incongruous to pray for him as he prayed for 
 Abraham Lincoln. And he closed his sermon with 
 the patriotic and devout utterance: "God bless the 
 President of the United States, and all who serve 
 with him the cause of a common country! God 
 grant the blessing of repentance and return to alle- 
 giance to all our enemies, even the traitors in their 
 high places! God preserve from defeat and dis- 
 grace the sacred flag of our fathers! God give us 
 all the spirit of service and sacrifice in a righteous 
 cause! Amen!" 
 
 Starr King's public activities for his country in 
 that critical hour of its history teach with moving 
 eloquence that there is a place and need for patriot- 
 ism in the training of a human spirit, and that it is 
 a mark of impoverished blood to deride it, even if 
 it is but too often exalted at the expense of justice 
 and truth by narrow and selfish advocates of "our 
 country, right or wrong." It was one of the noblest 
 implications of our Civil War that it should have 
 stirred in the breasts of multitudes of men and 
 women, to whom until that crucial hour disinter- 
 ested and altruistic sentiments were comparatively 
 unknown, a sense of personal duty to the common 
 weal, a devotion to the ideals of liberty, justice and 
 
 [199] 
 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 humanity, which lifted them above their own sordid 
 interests and narrow sympathies into unselfish, heroic 
 service for their country and their kind. The slo- 
 gans of that day, the perpetuation of the National 
 Union and the Freedom of the Slave, became their 
 passwords of entrance into the brotherhood of man 
 and the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. Many a 
 man whom the customary appeals of religion had left 
 unaftected found in patriotism an elevation of spirit, 
 an ethical and humane impulse which led to his per- 
 sonal and social salvation. 
 
 The same thing is true of our recent world-war, 
 and is one of the redeeming features of that terrible 
 and lamentable conflict between the nations. It has 
 mightily developed in modern society the National 
 idea, which is a necessary stage in the evolution of 
 a people. This National idea springs from the con- 
 sciousness of descent from common stocks, from 
 common traditions, interests and aims. It arises 
 from the possession of a common country, language 
 and literature, and common social and political in- 
 stitutions. All these make up that homogeneity of 
 sentiment, that unity of purpose which constitutes a 
 nation. An enlightened national patriotism, there- 
 fore, is one of the chief factors of civilization and 
 the condition of moral and social progress. The his- 
 tory of mankind — from the Greek and Roman com- 
 monwealths down to the group of new nations that 
 to-day in response to this sentiment have sprung into 
 existence in Eastern Europe — impressively teaches 
 
 [200] 
 
CAMPAIGN FOR THE UNION 
 
 that only as this principle of Nationality is realized 
 can any people become free, strong and prosperous. 
 
 Moreover, as Starr King would have told us, with- 
 out this sentiment of loyalty to the Nation there can 
 be no proper ascent to the larger conceptions of 
 world-citizenship and world-brotherhood. As Maz- 
 zini said: "Nationality and humanity are equally 
 sacred. To forget humanity is to suppress the aim 
 of our labors; to cancel the nation is to suppress the 
 instrument by which to achieve that aim." Society 
 has expanded from devotion to clan or tribe to de- 
 votion to nation. We may believe that this will not 
 be its final form. The existing state may in time give 
 way to larger and wider forms of political organiza- 
 tion. The proposed League of Nations points the 
 way to a world-state, a universal brotherhood of man- 
 kind. But this last is a sublime Utopia which can be 
 made actual only in a far-ofif and happier time, and 
 then only by a natural and legitimate expansion of 
 our national loyalties and duties. Nor is there any 
 necessary conflict between patriotism and the love of 
 mankind, between nationality and humanity, if we 
 only see to it that our devotion to our country does 
 not assume narrow, intolerant and unjust forms. 
 Fundamentally the interests of individuals, of na- 
 tions, and of the race are identical. It is only man's 
 folly and wickedness that produce a conflict between 
 them. 
 
 As the world-war reveals to us, love of country, 
 love of nationality, is still a master passion of the 
 
 [201] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 human heart. It is an inevitable and necessary stage 
 in the evolution of human society, preparing the way 
 for ever-enlarging conceptions of human brother- 
 hood, of that new world in which nations and states 
 will not be abolished but federated, and live together 
 in peace and goodwill and service to one another. 
 
 This larger view of patriotism is well set forth in 
 an oration on "The Organization of Liberty on the 
 Western Continent," delivered before the Municipal 
 Authorities of the City of Boston, July 4th, 1852. 
 
 This oration, written by Starr King in his 28th 
 year, closes with an eloquent, and, in the light of re- 
 cent events, remarkable presentation of the ideal aims 
 of human society, a glowing prophecy of the New 
 World which it is the privilege of the present genera- 
 tion to see arising out of the ruins of the old order, 
 and in which justice, mercy, brotherhood and peace 
 are to be the corner stones of a higher civilization; 
 the precious fruits of an enlightened patriotism, 
 whose ultimate aim is the redemption and uplift of 
 the human race. 
 
 Said Mr. King: 
 
 "The mission of our land is still the path of or- 
 ganization, not aggressive propagandism or military 
 interference. Let its influence be felt, in the lines of 
 just and holy law, by process of construction through 
 moral forces in favor of a higher national morality; 
 by forcible protests against oppressive interference 
 on the part of other nations in violation of the inter- 
 national code, but still with the dignity that shows 
 the desire to keep the posture of peaceful friendship 
 
 [202] 
 
CAMPAIGN FOR THE UNION 
 
 and practical instruction towards the European 
 world. 
 
 ''Our responsibility to the oppressed of other 
 lands is a deeper one than that of furnishing ammuni- 
 tion and supplies; it is the responsibility of faithful- 
 ness here to republican ideas, and of progress in the 
 path suggested by the promptings of our history and 
 the beckonings of Providence. Every noble institu- 
 tion we build up here is a more encouraging beacon 
 to the struggling people of Europe than the fire-light 
 of war. The striking ofif of each new fetter here 
 resounds cheeringly through Europe. A musical 
 tone travels much farther than a growl; and the 
 effluence of a righteous victory of freedom on our 
 shores will reach farther at last, and work more 
 benefit for other races, than the sputter of our mus- 
 ketry in Trieste, and the roar of our floating batteries 
 on the Danube. Let us not doubt that the wiping 
 out of an oppressive statute in our code somehow 
 makes the throne of Nicholas less firm. And all the 
 prosperity, stability, and peace with which we in- 
 vest the possession of freedom hasten the doom of 
 foreign bondage, for they shed a light and a 
 fragrance into the public sentiment that will guide 
 the footsteps and revive the courage of the army of 
 liberty in Europe, and they shame the lies that would 
 brand republicanism as anarchy. . . . 
 
 "And so the lesson of our theme warns and be- 
 seeches us, as patriots and as lovers of the world, to 
 go on in the work of organization. Our fathers have 
 left us a work to do. We are no spiritual children 
 of theirs if we believe that all which is desirable, 
 and can be made safely operative in society, has 
 been embodied here. Plainly enough there are un- 
 finished portions of their scheme which it is for our 
 
 [203] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 generation and those who come after us, to complete, 
 out of reverence for their memory, adoration of the 
 truth and love of mankind. 
 
 "If there is a race within our borders for which 
 there is no organization of liberty, but upon whom 
 the architecture of the Saxon institutions frowns 
 like the sullen masonry of forts and jails; to whom 
 their security is the security of the dungeon; and for 
 whom the strength of law is the strength of bolts and 
 chains: how plain is the call upon those of our 
 people whose hands can help them, to consider their 
 case in the light and by the methods of a practical 
 and sinewy wisdom! . . . 
 
 "It is a problem of life, that may take generations 
 perhaps to solve, but yet that must be solved, guided 
 by the fixed principle that there must come the time 
 when every human being who stands on American 
 soil shall have rights that are hedged by friendly 
 statutes, and a sacred freedom which the whole spirit 
 of society is pledged to maintain. 
 
 "In whatever way the spirit of social justice can 
 be made to enter more deeply into our policy, or 
 domesticate itself in new features of our code with- 
 out disruption of order, — in plans of land reform, 
 — in adjustments of the relations of labor, so that 
 the laborer may be more efficiently a man, — in the 
 projection of schemes for the safety and nurture of 
 the perishing classes, — we are called on cautiously 
 to make the experiment; and to show how far and 
 with what results the forces of society may shoot out 
 into regions that have hitherto been abandoned to 
 grim laws of competition and caprices of private 
 charity. . . . 
 
 "Where is the American spirit that should be 
 nurtured by our institutions, if, in the very light of 
 
 [204] 
 
CAMPAIGN FOR THE UNION 
 
 our history, we are to distrust the power of the people 
 to organize better institutions for themselves than 
 the brain of a tyrant can devise? Do you say that 
 the path of revolution for Europe is a perilous and 
 shaded way? We know it. But the last spirit to be 
 fostered in the American breast is that which would 
 bring all the perils that may beset the popular effort 
 for self-government into any comparison with the 
 quiet maintained by unscrupulous despotism. Insti- 
 tutions like ours Europe may not be able to establish, 
 may not devise, may not desire; a long and bloody 
 storm may intervene between the overthrow of 
 oppression and the organization of peace; but it is 
 not for us to preach and nourish hopeless distrust of 
 the ability of popular Europe, — if left for a gen- 
 eration, or for half a century, in the experiment of 
 liberty, — to correct mistakes, to prune excesses, and 
 to find the preparation for republicanism which we 
 so earnestly talk about, but which will never be 
 gained by living under the shadow of absolute 
 thrones. 
 
 ^'And finally, we are warned by our history not 
 to distrust the capacity of the human race to attain a 
 social order upon the earth of a higher stamp than 
 any yet secured. It is justice which, thus far in 
 human experience, has been heaving the founda- 
 tions of society, that some of its principles may gain 
 a solid place. The great struggle has been to bal- 
 ance the interests of the masses against the power of 
 the few, so that nature might be, in some sense, a 
 home for them, and existence a blessing. In the 
 institution of such justice, at least for the white 
 races, our land stands preeminent, far ahead of the 
 nations that have gone before. Two centuries ago 
 it would have seemed impossible, Utopian, to the 
 
 [205] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 wisest statesmen and thinkers of the world, to realize 
 on a scale such as this country now exhibits, such a 
 scheme of self-supporting, orderly and stable democ- 
 racy. But there are dreams of men, yes, promises of 
 a wisdom higher than man's, that this earth is yet 
 to be the scene of organizations nobler than those of 
 justice, — organizations of love. It is inspiring to 
 think of some far-ofif centuries as destined to witness 
 the birth, the progress, and the completion of such 
 a blessing for our race. And, looking at our condi- 
 tion from the cruel feudal times, or from the level 
 of a Patagonian degradation, such an organization 
 of love upon the earth does not seem wholly a dream. 
 And so this great value belongs to our history, that 
 the philosophy of it helps our Christian hope. It 
 makes prophecy seem more sober. It brings the 
 rhetoric of Isaiah within the sympathy of common 
 sense. 
 
 "It is a summit from which the thinker may look 
 off, like Moses from the mount, upon new and charm- 
 ing fields lying sweet in the smile of Heaven, where 
 the armies of humanity — that have come up out of 
 the bondage of despotism, and marched with sad- 
 ness, but with courage, through the wastes and want 
 of the desert of selfishness, — shall find a home, shall 
 build amid plenty, and enjoy in peace; and the na- 
 tions, bound into solidarity of life despite their varie- 
 ties, — as the globe, with all its latitudes and zones, 
 its polar and tropic climes, its mountains and 
 prairies, its streams and seas, is organized into one 
 physical republic, — 'shall beat their swords into 
 ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks,' 
 and praise the Creator through a life of song, labor, 
 and prayer." 
 
 [206] 
 
CHURCH AND TOMB OF THOMAS STARR KING IN SAN FRANCISCO 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 DEDICATION OF THE NEW CHURCH 
 
 RETURNING to Mr. King's ministerial 
 duties we find him occupied with the com- 
 pletion of the new church his society was 
 erecting. 
 
 Its corner stone was laid with appropriate exer- 
 cises on December 3rd, 1862. Since no other clergy- 
 men of his own faith were on the Pacific Coast to 
 assist him in the dedicatory exercises, Mr. King asked 
 his colleagues on the Atlantic Seaboard to be present 
 by letters or telegraphic message and share in the 
 congratulation and joy of the occasion. 
 
 ''Our new church will be completed about the 
 last of July, and I wish to have letters, read on the oc- 
 casion from Bellows, Hedge, Dewey and Alger. 
 Bartol will send a hymn, and perhaps Hedge also 
 with his letter. So I hope, and so I trust you will 
 urge them to respond. I do not ask for long and 
 elaborate letters. A sheet of letter paper will be 
 enough. We want the magnetic wire to connect 
 us, that day, with the heart of the East. It will do 
 us good to get shocks from all of you I mention. So 
 do not fail to respond to this call for a little mission- 
 ary labor. Write by the tenth of June, send by 
 overland mail, and the letters will be in season. Do 
 not delay after that." 
 
 [207] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 He himself contributed over $5,000, to the under- 
 taking, raising the money by lectures wrung from his 
 over-worked brain. Mr. King felt that this was to 
 be the crowning act of his life. "The new church 
 completed and paid for," he writes, "I shall be ready 
 to drop into my grave." 
 
 At length the handsome structure on Geary Street, 
 since surrendered to the encroachment of business, 
 was completed, and dedicated on Sunday, January 
 tenth, 1864, in two successive services, to the Worship 
 of God and the Service of Man. The hymn which 
 the poet Whittier contributed to the service was espe- 
 cially admired. 
 
 Amidst these glorious works of thine, 
 The solemn minarets of the pine, 
 And awful Shasta's icy shrine, — 
 
 Where swell thy hymns from wave and gale, 
 And organ-thunders never fail, 
 Behind the cataract's silver veil, 
 
 Our puny walls to Thee we raise, 
 Our poor reed-music sounds thy praise: 
 Forgive, O Lord, our childish ways! 
 
 For, kneeling on the altar stairs. 
 
 We urge Thee not with selfish prayers. 
 
 Nor murmur at our daily cares. 
 
 Before Thee, in an evil day. 
 Our country's bleeding heart we lay. 
 And dare not ask thy hand to stay; 
 
 [208] 
 
DEDICATION OF THE NEW CHURCH 
 
 But, through the war-cloud, pray to thee 
 For union, but a union free, 
 With peace that comes of purity! 
 
 That Thou wilt bare thy arm to save. 
 And, smiting through this Red Sea wave, 
 Make broad a pathway for the slave! 
 
 For us, confessing all our need. 
 
 We trust nor rite nor word nor deed. 
 
 Nor yet the broken stafT of creed. 
 
 Assured alone that Thou art good 
 To each, as to the multitude. 
 Eternal Love and Fatherhood, — 
 
 Weak, sinful, blind, to Thee we kneel, 
 Stretch dumbly forth our hands, and feel 
 Our weakness is our strong appeal. 
 
 So, by these Western gates of Even 
 
 We wait to see with thy forgiven 
 
 The opening Golden Gate of Heaven! 
 
 Suffice it now. In time to be 
 Shall holier altars rise to thee, — 
 Thy Church our broad humanity! 
 
 White flowers of love its walls shall climb. 
 Soft bells of peace shall ring its chime. 
 Its days shall all be holy time. 
 
 A sweeter song shall then be heard, — 
 The music of the world's accord 
 Confessing Christ, the Inward Word! 
 
 [209] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 That song shall swell from shore to shore, 
 One hope, one faith, one love, restore 
 The seamless robe that Jesus wore. 
 
 Mr. King wrote his thankfulness and joy to a 
 friend. 
 
 "San Francisco, January nth, 1864. 
 
 "My dear Alger: 
 
 "I seize the first moment that ofifers after the cares 
 and joys of the Dedication to write to you greeting, 
 thanks and friendship. . . . How long delayed our 
 Inauguration has been! The Contractors and Ar- 
 chitects promised us the Church in August last: 
 they were four months behind time and they were 
 tedious months to our Committee and myself. But 
 we saw the church finished about Christmas and 
 waited until we could get assurance that it would be 
 paid for by subscription. We dedicated it yesterday. 
 
 "What a scene it was! It will hold fifteen hun- 
 dred, and it was packed with souls that seemed to feel 
 reverence and joy. A more beautiful church inter- 
 nally I never saw. The general arrangements were 
 planned by myself, but the architect, Mr. Wm. 
 Patton, a thoroughly trained English artist in 
 Gothic, carried out the design with rare nobleness 
 and taste. The whole cost is $90,000 for Church 
 and Chapel and all appointments. We have just 
 made a subscription in our city of $200,000 for the 
 Soldiers' Sanitary fund, a large share of which 
 comes from men interested in our movement. It 
 was no boy's play to get 70 or 80 thousand dollars 
 more for our church at Christmas time. But before 
 the year is over — many say before a month — every 
 cent will be paid. No mortgage will be allowed on 
 
 [210] 
 
DEDICATION OF THE NEW CHURCH 
 
 the building. We rent the pews for a year and ob- 
 tained $20,000 in one night! Our plate collections 
 are $5,000 a year. So that our income this year will 
 be $25,000. 
 
 "We stand this year, I believe, in proportion to 
 our pews No. One in the United States, so far as 
 the amount voluntarily contributed for church ex- 
 penses is concerned. Beecher raised $30,000 a year, 
 out of a house twice as large. The letters from our 
 Eastern brethren were a great feature of the dedica- 
 tion. I read them all, except Bellows', which was 
 too long for the time at command, and will be read 
 when the baptismal font his church has given shall 
 be finished. All the letters were admirable. I 
 never knew so hearty expressions of intellectual ap- 
 preciation and grateful satisfaction as came to me at 
 once after service yesterday, in response to your 
 letters. Heartiest thanks for them. 
 
 "I long to get your book. How glorious is Mar- 
 tineau's article on Renan! I long to see you all. 
 Gladly now would I surrender our exquisite church 
 to a new man in all its prosperity, and let him enjoy 
 the satisfaction of success. I begin to feel tired and 
 lonely." 
 
 Mr. King was now led to think of rest and change 
 of scene. The church was built, the State was safe, 
 giving 30,000 majority for the re-election of Abraham 
 Lincoln. Brilliant victories — New Orleans, Vicks- 
 burg and Chattanooga — had assured the permanence 
 of the National Union. A remunerative investment 
 in one of the Washoe silver mines, made on the ad- 
 vice of business friends in San Francisco, seemed to 
 have rendered secure his own and his family's 
 
 [211] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 worldly fortunes. A journey to South America, a 
 year of study thereafter in Germany, a work on 
 the California Sierras, and one on Philosophy, 
 were among his dreams. Yet through it all predom- 
 inated the feeling that he should not live to realize 
 these hopes. Mr. King was exhausted when he came 
 to California, and the four years of his sojourn there 
 were intensely exciting and wearing. Only by his 
 powerful will and sense of patriotic duty had his 
 frail body kept up its service until now. Like his 
 father before him, he had always felt that he should 
 not long survive his fortieth year, and it proved a 
 true prophecy. 
 
 [212] 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 DEATH OF THE PATRIOT AND PREACHER 
 
 IN the midst of plans for recuperation and future 
 usefulness Starr King suddenly broke down. 
 He attended on a Friday evening a social gath- 
 ering of his parish. As he left the hall I observed 
 his pallor and weakness, and entreated him to spare 
 himself. On Sunday, February 28, 1864, his church 
 remained closed and the report went forth of his sud- 
 den and serious illness. The physician, now called 
 for the first time, pronounced it diphtheria, and said 
 he should have been summoned at least a week ear- 
 lier. It was evident that his illness resulted from 
 the utter exhaustion of his physical system — he was 
 dying from overwork, and for two days was barely 
 kept alive. Pneumonia set in, but his wonderful re- 
 cuperative power enabled him to resist this danger- 
 ous foe. But on Friday a second attack of pneumo- 
 nia occurred, and his physicians gave up all hope of 
 saving him. The story of his last hours is touching 
 and beautiful. 
 
 When the second attack set in, Mr. King asked, 
 'What is this? Is this pneumonia too?" His 
 physician. Dr. J. N. Eckel, replied that it was. "Can 
 I survive it?" Mr. King asked calmly. The doctor 
 
 [213] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 replied, "I fear not" ''How long can I live?" 
 "Not half an hour!" was the reply. "Are you sure 
 that I cannot live longer than that?" asked Mr. King. 
 The doctor replied sadly that he feared not. His 
 sufferings now left him, and his voice, hitherto raised 
 hardly above a whisper, responding to his will re- 
 turned in full strength and power. Friends about 
 his bedside inquired if he had anything to say. 
 "Yes," he replied, "a great deal to say; first, I want 
 to make my will." Calmly dictating his will, he 
 had it read to him, paragraph by paragraph, saying 
 **A1I right," at the close of each, and finally, "It is 
 just as I want it." With a steady hand he signed his 
 name in a handwriting as firm and clerkly as he ever 
 wrote in his life, punctuating it and putting an ac- 
 customed flourish beneath it. After a few minutes 
 of rest his friends came up one after another to bid 
 him farewell. In every instance he greeted them 
 with a pleasant smile, saying in his sweet tones, 
 "Good-bye," and grasping their hands with fervor. 
 To the maid, Sarah, he returned thanks for all her 
 care for him, and commended to her his little son. 
 He whispered to his wife, "Be sure and tell Dr. 
 Eckel I think he has done everything a human agent 
 could do." He sent a farewell message to his con- 
 gregation: "Tell them it is my earnest desire that 
 they pay the remaining debt on the church. Let the 
 church, free from debt, be my monument. I want no 
 better." To his wife he said : "Do not weep for me. 
 I know it is all right. I wish I could make you feel 
 
 [214] 
 
DEATH OF THE PATRIOT 
 
 so. I wish I could describe my feelings. It is strange I 
 I feel all the privileges and greatness of the future!" 
 "I see," he said to another, "a great future before me. 
 It already looks grand, beautiful!" "Tell them at 
 home," said he, "that I went lovingly, trustfully, 
 peacefully." "To-day is the 4th of March. Sad news 
 will go over the wires to-day." A moment of quiet 
 ensued. Some one asking, "Are you happy?" he 
 turned his full, bright eyes upon him, — "Yes! 
 Happy, resigned, trustful." Thereupon in a clear, 
 well-modulated voice he repeated the 23rd Psalm, 
 "The Lord is my Shepherd, — I shall not want." At 
 the words, "Yea; though I walk through the valley 
 and the Shadow of Death, I will fear no evil; for 
 Thou art with me ; thy rod and thy staff they comfort 
 me," he raised his finger with an accustomed gesture, 
 and his voice was full of emotion. His little son 
 was now brought to his bedside. "Dear little fel- 
 low! He's a beautiful boy," he said, and kissed his 
 hand to the child as he was carried away. This was 
 his last act on earth. Calmly closing his eyes his 
 soul went forth into the great hereafter. 
 
 It is such a death as this that robs the grave of its 
 terrors, and reinforces the oft o'erclouded instinct of 
 immortality with the prophecy and assurance of eter- 
 nal life. 
 
 The grief that followed the announcement of Mr. 
 King's death was universal and unrestrained. A 
 solemn hush seemed to have settled over the city 
 which awoke as usual that morning to its restless and 
 
 [215] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 busy life. One by one the thousand flags that had 
 fluttered so gaily in the morning breeze dropped half- 
 way down, symbols at once of bereavement and com- 
 memoration. The usual activity of business life was 
 suspended. The Mint and other Government ofiices 
 were ordered closed. The various district and local 
 courts, after listening to brief tributes to his memory, 
 adjourned for the day. The legislature of the State 
 voted an intermission of three days. All felt it to 
 be a national and not merely a local loss, and the 
 sorrow even in the families that had never known 
 him was all-prevailing and profound. On learning 
 the sad intelligence, I went with a friend to his be- 
 reaved home. Our German friend. Dr. J. N. Eckel, 
 met us on the threshold. Said he, "I would will- 
 ingly have died if it could have saved him." In the 
 well-known parlor lay all that was mortal of our de- 
 parted friend. It seemed peculiarly fitting that the 
 flag he loved so well, and for which he had sacrificed 
 his life as truly as if he had fallen in battle under its 
 folds, should become his burial shroud. 
 
 It was only a few hours since his death, yet his 
 features wore a contracted and rigid look as if from 
 physical suffering. It seemed difficult to believe that 
 this slight frame and worn countenance could have 
 enshrined so great a soul. The poet Whittier nobly 
 uttered the sentiment of the American community in 
 that hour in his tribute to Starr King: 
 
 ''The great work laid upon his two-score years 
 Is done, and well done. If we drop our tears 
 
 [216] 
 
DEATH OF THE PATRIOT 
 
 Who loved him as few men were ever loved, 
 We mourn no blighted hope nor broken plan 
 With him whose life stands rounded and approved 
 In the full growth and stature of a man. 
 Mingle, O bells, along the Western slope 
 With your deep toll a sound of faith and hope! 
 Wave cheerily still, O banner, halfway down, 
 From thousand-masted bay and steepled town! 
 Let the strong organ with its loftiest swell 
 Lift the proud sorrow of the land, and tell 
 O East and west, O morn and sunset, — twain 
 No more forever! Has he lived in vain 
 Who priest of Freedom, made ye one, and told 
 Your bridal service from his lips of gold?" 
 
 The funeral service took place on the following 
 Sunday. A military guard had been placed to main- 
 tain order. Young men of the parish, the writer 
 among them, acted as ushers. When the doors of the 
 church were opened to the public a continuous stream 
 of people for hours flowed in and out of the edifice 
 to gaze once more upon the loved features of its min- 
 ister, whose lifeless form lay at the foot of the altar 
 enshrouded by the American flag. On his breast 
 was a tiny bouquet of violets, placed there in compli- 
 ance with a telegram from Mrs. Jessie Fremont: 
 "Put violets for me on our dear friend who rests." 
 
 Never shall I forget the two negro women who 
 came forth with streaming eyes from the throng, and 
 kneeling by the inanimate form of this friend of their 
 race, with passionate sobs kissed the folds of the 
 United States flag which formed his burial shroud. 
 
 [217] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 It was by the sacrifices of such heroes of the spirit 
 that the Stars and Stripes had become to them also 
 the emblem of liberty, the flag of their country. 
 
 The commemorative services were conducted by 
 the Masonic body, of which he had been Grand 
 Orator. Two large-hearted Orthodox ministers, a 
 Presbyterian and a Methodist, assisted. With the 
 organ, his gift to the church, sobbing a mournful 
 miserere, with the triumphant song by a woman's 
 voice: *'I know that my Redeemer liveth!" and the 
 afternoon sun sifting its rays through a stained glass 
 window upon the preacher's lifeless form before the 
 altar; with the booming of Government cannon from 
 the adjacent square and Fort Alcatraz; with flags at 
 half-mast from public buildings and the shipping in 
 the harbor, while a vast crowd of twenty thousand 
 people surged in and about the church, we bade him 
 a last farewell on earth. 
 
 A telegraphic message sent from New York City 
 by his friend Rev. Dr. Henry W. Bellows, President 
 of the United States Sanitary Commission, best 
 voiced the universal grief and sentiment of the hour. 
 
 "New York, March 5, 1864. 
 **To the People of California: 
 
 "The sad tidings of to-day have broken our hearts. 
 Thousands here will weep with you over his bier. 
 You have had our brightest, our noblest, our best, 
 and he has lived and died, in the fulness of his man- 
 hood, in your service. Who shall fill his place on 
 the platform, in the pulpit, in the hearts of his 
 
 [218] 
 
DEATH OF THE PATRIOT 
 
 friends? His full, quick, penetrative mind, winged 
 with fancy and with restlessness in the service of 
 truth, liberty and righteousness — his soul, glowing 
 with natural sympathy, Christian patriotism, uni- 
 versal philanthropy; his every action made to utter 
 and diffuse the noble, inspiring convictions of his 
 pure, loving nature; his eye the window of an open, 
 honest, fervent soul — his whole character, 'made 
 uip of every creature's best' ; strong and gentle, gen- 
 erous and prudent, aspiring and modest, controlling 
 and deferential; knowing the world and its ways, 
 yet clean of its stains; pious without sanctimony — 
 what but his own living, undying confidence in the 
 absolute goodness of God can enable us to sustain 
 such a measureless loss? 
 
 "The mountains he loved and praised are hence- 
 forth his monument and his mourners. The White 
 Hills and the Sierra Nevada are to-day wrapped in 
 his shroud. His dirge will be perpetually heard in 
 their forests. 
 
 "Farewell, genial, generous, faithful and be- 
 loved friend! Thou hast gone from those who 
 loved thee best. God comfort thy family, thy flock, 
 thy broken-hearted friends on both sides of a con- 
 tinent!" 
 
 On Sunday evening, April 3rd, 1864, there was 
 held in the Hollis Street Church in Boston an im- 
 pressive memorial service to its former pastor, whom 
 the congregation four years previously had so re- 
 gretfully surrendered to the larger missionary needs 
 of the Pacific Coast. The beautiful edifice was filled 
 to overflowing with his admirers and friends. An 
 impressive simplicity characterized the proceedings, 
 
 [219] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 revealing a grief that lay too deep for external expres- 
 sion. Loving hands had wreathed the pulpit with 
 dark evergreens entwined with white immortelles, 
 while across it was laid the silken robe of the departed 
 preacher. The marble font below was filled with 
 many-hued flowers, emblematic of his many-sided 
 and radiant genius. The solemn music of the organ, 
 the pathetic chanting of the choir, voiced the pre- 
 vailing sentiment of the hour. The religious exer- 
 cises were conducted by Mr. King's successor in the 
 pastorate, Rev. George Leonard Chaney. In suc- 
 cession three of his most intimate friends, Edward 
 Everett Hale, Edwin P. Whipple and Dr. E. H. 
 Chapin, rose and paid eloquent and tender tribute 
 to his personal gifts of mind and heart, and eminent 
 public services. 
 
 The remains of the patriot-preacher, enshrined in a 
 sarcophagus of marble, were deposited on the green 
 plot by the side of the church edifice in San Fran- 
 cisco; for years an object of reverential regard to the 
 passers-by and a place of pilgrimage for the admirers 
 of Thomas Starr King. 
 
 [220] 
 
STARR KING MOM MINT IN GOLDEN GATE PARK, SAN FRANCISCO 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 IN APPRECIATION 
 
 FROM whatever point of view we contemplate 
 Starr King, whether as minister, orator, citi- 
 zen, or simply as a man, we shall find much 
 to admire, little to condemn. 
 
 Some men are eminent through their intellect, 
 others through their conscience and courage, others 
 still by their love and consecrated service. Starr 
 King was notable in all these attributes of manhood. 
 Few men were so free from faults or weaknesses. 
 Says his intimate friend. Dr. Cyrus Bartol, ''I abode 
 with him by the month and never discovered a fault 
 in him. I am profoundly ignorant, if he be a sinner, 
 of the nature of his sins." Dr. Edward Everett Hale, 
 William R. Alger, and others of his earlier friends 
 have borne similar testimony. "Wherever he went," 
 says his eulogist, Edwin P. Whipple, "he ennobled 
 men. Meanness, bigotry, avarice, hatred, low views 
 of public and private duty, all bad purposes and pal- 
 try expediences, sunk abashed away from the minds 
 which felt the light of that sunlike nature. Every- 
 body was more generous from contact with that radi- 
 ating beneficence. Everybody caught the contagion 
 of that cheerful spirit of humanity. Everybody felt 
 
 [221] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 grateful to that genial exorcist who drove the devils 
 of selfishness and pride from their hearts and replaced 
 them with high and generous sentiments." 
 
 His death elicited from Frank Bret Harte two 
 poetic tributes. One of these: "Relieving Guard," 
 with its beautiful imagery of a falling star, is well 
 known. The other — "On a Pen of Starr King" — is 
 a more personal and appreciative utterance and may 
 appropriately be quoted here: 
 
 "This is the reed the dead musician dropped, 
 
 With tuneful magic in its sheath still hidden; 
 The prompt allegro of its music stopped, 
 Its melodies unbidden. 
 
 "But who shall finish the unfinished strain, 
 Or wake the instrument to awe and wonder, 
 And bid the slender barrel breathe again, — 
 An organ-pipe of thunder? 
 
 "His pen! what humbler memories cling about 
 Its golden curves! what shapes and laughing 
 graces 
 Slipped from its point, when his full heart went out 
 In smiles and courtly phrases! 
 
 "The truth, half-jesting, half in earnest flung; 
 The word of cheer, with recognition in it; 
 The note of alms, whose golden speech outrung 
 The golden gift within it. 
 
 "But all in vain the enchanter's wand we wave; 
 No stroke of ours recalls his magic vision; 
 The incantation that its power gave 
 Sleeps with the dead magician." 
 [222] 
 
IN APPRECIATION 
 
 Consider him as a patriot, and what nobler instance 
 of devotion, of unselfish heroism is to be found in the 
 annals of our Civil War? Though he died not on the 
 field of battle, yet he gave his utmost to his country's 
 need, and fell at last as true a martyr to the sacred 
 causes of human freedom and national integrity as 
 if he had dropped in the thick of the fight or wasted 
 away in a military prison. 
 
 The service Starr King rendered his adopted State 
 in her hour of peril has not been over-estimated. By 
 his example and speech he did more than any other 
 man, than any dozen men of his time, to lift the 
 Pacific Coast to higher levels of patriotic duty and 
 national sentiment. Not untruly did General Win- 
 field Scott, commander in chief of the union armies, 
 declare that Starr King had ''saved California to 
 the Union." It is known that President Abraham 
 Lincoln was of the same opinion. And still his mem- 
 ory lingers among the mountains and valleys, the 
 towns and mining camps of California, lending a 
 lofty personal association to her magnificent scenery 
 and romantic past, and preserving the tradition of 
 moral heroism and patriotic service in the minds of 
 her people. 
 
 Let us not forget what California did for him in 
 return. It was in that new society that his genius, 
 freed from the shackles of conventional thought and 
 life, found its opportunity, soared to a higher circle 
 of activities, and displayed its full maturity of power. 
 His Eastern intimates were unable to understand how 
 
 [223] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 one whom they had esteemed simply as a scholarly 
 preacher and lecturer and a delightful companion, 
 could disclose such remarkable abilities as a moulder 
 of public sentiment, and become an idolized leader 
 and inspirer of the masses, a heroic figure in our 
 national history. "He was one of the last men," Dr. 
 Henry W. Bellows confesses, "we should have 
 thought of to spring to the helm in a time of public 
 danger. He did not reveal himself to us as a man 
 of action, a responsible leader of public opinion and 
 a guide of practical affairs." 
 
 Amidst all our admiration for his eminent services 
 to his country and his kind the thought intrudes how 
 much more he might have accomplished if his life 
 had been extended beyond the forty years allotted 
 by Providence ; what precious intellectual fruit might 
 have been produced by his matured powers; what 
 keen enjoyment to himself from the universal grati- 
 tude and love of his friends East and West and the 
 Nation at large. But it was not to be, and we must 
 rise to his own brave acceptance of destiny, and his 
 lofty, unfaltering faith in the providential ordering 
 of life and the eternity of the spiritual capacities of 
 man. 
 
 His brief but brilliant career should teach high- 
 minded and altruistic American youth how well 
 worth while is the profession of a Christian minister; 
 that no vocation offers greater opportunities for per- 
 sonal culture, ethical influence and public service, 
 none confers such individual happiness or is more 
 
 [224] 
 
IN APPRECIATION 
 
 widely useful in the community; especially in these 
 latter days when more than ever the safety and wel- 
 fare of human society depend on the larger accept- 
 ance of moral and religious ideals. 
 
 Henceforth Starr King's name and fame will be 
 forever associated with California as one of the moral 
 founders of that young and growing commonwealth, 
 and a champion of the national idea among our 
 American people. 
 
 There is no lack of fitting testimonials to the im- 
 portance of the service he rendered. The printed 
 tributes of his friends and admirers are many. A 
 collection of his lectures and sermons, prefaced with 
 a memoir by Edwin P. Whipple, was published in 
 two volumes. Two grand mountain peaks, Mt. 
 Starr King in the Yosemite National Park, and Mt. 
 Starr King in his beloved White Hills of New 
 Hampshire, uplift his name and fame into the region 
 of storms and stars. One of the kingly giants of the 
 forest in the Mariposa Sequoia Grove is also called 
 after him. By the side of the present Unitarian 
 Church in San Francisco stands, as it did by the 
 earlier structure, the marble sarcophagus containing 
 his ashes. The California Legislature has more re- 
 cently voted to make Father Junipero Serra, founder 
 of the early California Missions, and Thomas Starr 
 King, its two representative heroes in the National 
 Hall of Fame in the Capitol at Washington, and has 
 made an appropriation for their effigies in marble 
 for this purpose. 
 
 [225] 
 
THOMAS STARR KING 
 
 In the great city park of San Francisco which over- 
 looks the Golden Gate there was erected in 1892 by 
 popular subscription a bronze statue of Starr King, 
 lifting his endeared image against the sunlit blue of 
 a California sky, a constant reminder of his services 
 and an abiding incentive to equal patriotism and 
 devotion. The gifted sculptor, Daniel French, has 
 imparted such a life-like and spirited expression to 
 his work that it almost seems as if those bronze lips 
 must open with lofty and impassioned speech. 
 
 '*So let the light 
 Stream on his deeds of love that shamed the light 
 Of all but heaven, and in the book of fame 
 The glorious record of his virtues write. 
 And hold it up to men, and bid them claim 
 A palm like his and catch from him the hallowed 
 flame." 
 
 [226] 
 
, U^' I V ^ " 
 
 • v7. DR£E'^ b rRE£l* 
 
1 
 DATE DUE 
 
 
 ^Upp 
 
 
 
 
 (, , 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 CAVLORO 
 
 
 
 PniNTCOINU.C.A. 
 
r 
 
 .7 
 
 ''''^^^ sr^^ --'