Part 3 (1/2)
This condition which the governanization of the United States Sanitary Coh the founder of this anization, Rev
H W Bellows, of New York, encountered the opposition of high officials who deemed the whole plan quixotic Even President Lincoln at first regarded the Commission unnecessary and called it ”a fifth wheel to the coach” Brief experience, however, deovernment could not provide all that was necessary for the soldier, either in sickness or in health, and the Sanitary Commission became often the only hope of brave men in dire distress In fact, at this day, it is difficult to see how the Northern cause would have triumphed at all but for the widespread and wholly helpful activity of the arreatest difficulty encountered by the leaders of this noble philanthropy was to provide necessary funds Again and again it seemed that the work ive no more At sundry critical junctures California came to the rescue, and made possible the continuance of this ”most beneficent of all charities” But at whose h Ludlow says, ”Starr King was the Sanitary Coeration, for King made it his peculiar mission to raisesoldiers In the interest of the Commission he traveled to every part of the Coast, and in the face of the greatest obstacles beca 1,235,000, about one-fourth of the entire sue Under the most favorable circumstances this would have been a phenomenal achievement, but e learn that in 1862 a flood destroyed over fifty million dollars' worth of property in the Sacra to the extent of six and one-half ht entirely ruined the wheat crop, and made hay so scarce that it sold for sixty dollars a ton, resulting in a stagnation in business which threw thousands of men out of employment, in view of these multiplied disasters, onder by what fire of patriotis drew froe a sum for use on distant battle fields Old Californians still re appeals which few could resist We are aly as we find in ”Lights and Shadows of the Pacific Coast,” by S D Woods, a venerable San Franciscan, who vividly recalls King's heroic service in that far off ti Gentleness radiated froht radiates from the sun No one could resist the charm and fascination of his presence It is hard to make a pen picture of his face, for there were lines too pure, lights too fleeting to be caught by words In the poise of his head there was nobility and power inexpressible There was in his face the serenity of one who had seen a vision, and to whom the vision had become a benediction At the time of his death he was the first pulpit orator in America, and without doubt had no superior in the world”
This large praise ment of Rev Dr H W Bellows, that as an orator ”Beecher and Chapin were his only competitors He was the admirer and friend of both, and both repaid his affection and his esteem He had the superior charm of youth and novelty, with a nature more varied, and more versatile faculties and endowments than either He had a far hts ran into 's unequalled service to the State and the Nation was officially rendered when upon the announceislature adjourned for the space of three days after resolving ”that he had been a tower of strength to the cause of his country”
Brilliant as was the record of King as the champion of the Sanitary Co and end of his philanthropic labors The forlorn condition of the Chinese--as hts of citizenshi+p--stirred his sympathy and he hts as belong to industry The cause of labor, seldoht in those days to come within the scope of a er attention, and he improved every opportunity to declare his reverence for the world's workers in earth, and stone, and iron In a fine passage in a lecture on ”The Earth and the Mechanic Arts,” he writes:
”If ere to choose from the whole planet a score of lobe or in soreat hus, dukes, prime-ministers, the richest men, we should appoint as a here, but the great thinkers, artists, and workers, the thinkers in ink, the thinkers in stone and color, the thinkers in force and holobe up towards the Creator's iination and purpose; and on this o side by side with Shakespeare and Milton, Angelo and Wren, Newton and Cuvier
”In England, now, they are preparing statues of Brunel the engineer, and the Stephensons, father and son, to be finished and erected about the sainning to bow to the occupations and the genius that have added to her power ten thousand fold,--is beginning to bow to labor, noble, glorious, sacred labor”
Not alone in public pleas for unpopular causes but in private charity King see he said and did of co he could bestow” We are told that ahis doorbell they found entrance, and always as they came back, the ”step was quicker which was slow before, the head was up which was down before, and the lips wreathed in smiles that were sad before”
Thus we can see that it was not solely his eloquent defense of liberty and justice which caused a San Francisco journal, reporting his funeral, to say, ”Perhaps more deeply beloved by a vast number of our people than any other who has lived and toiled and died aood deeds ies ever given mortal man, ”No heart ever ached because of hi the philanthropist, a friend to all who needed his friendshi+p
It would al in California” ere altogether forgetting that he did not come to the State to influence its political action, or even to alleviate poverty and distress He came as a preacher of Liberal Christianity, and to build up the church that had honored hi before he left Boston it ritten concerning hi, and that it was his ambition to pay the debt which every able man is said to owe to his profession, namely to contribute some work of permanent value to its literature” At that early period a discri critic bears testimony, ”that his piety, pure, deep, tender, serene and warht and beneficence, not the negative ones of darkness and depravity, and--hiion of spiritual joy”
It was King's first and chief ambition to be an effective preacher In a letter, written in 1855, he says, ”Hoe do need good preaching Would that I could preach extempore” A wish that six years later ”ca atreat era, King cast his h he made careful preparation, as every ain sube of the ”written serifts and teain Indeed, Bostonian Californians were a unit in declaring that Easterners could have no conception of the reat years of his brief life
Speedily the little church in which he preached proved too sathered to hear him, and on the 3d day of Deceer and more beautiful edifice was laid
We shall find it no easy matter to analyze the sources of his power and popularity Often-times success and failure are equal mysteries
Doubtless no small part of his triumph arose froht talents that coer temper of the time fitted his sincere and earnest spirit It was a perfect adjustment of the man and the hour, the workman and his task
No small part of his popularity arose froht and duty as a reat questions of state in the pulpit The vicious gulf churchmen discover between the sacred and the secular was hidden from his eyes All that affected the humblest of his fellow hteousness he was commissioned to preach In the old Boston days he had discussed freely in the pulpit such theitive Slave Law,” and ”The Dred Scott Decision” Burning questions these, and they were handled with no fear of man to daunt the severity of his condemnation when he declared that in the Dred Scott Decision the majority of the Supreme Court had betrayed justice for a political purpose It was not likely that such a man would remain silent in the pulpit upon the so-called ”war issues” of 1861 Early in that memorable year he boldly infor as the war lasted He would not equivocate and he would not be silent Henceforth stirring patriotic sermons, as the deation to which he ministered The character of these discourses may be partly determined from such titles as, ”The Choice between Barabbas and Jesus,” ”The Treason of Judas Iscariot,” ”Secession in Palestine,” and ”Rebellion Pictures from Paradise Lost” ”After the lapse of more than sixty years,” so the Hon Horace Davis assured the writer, ”I can distinctly remember the fire and passion of those terrible indictments of treason and rebellion”
”Terrible indictments” truly, and in the storm and tempest of the time irresistibly attractive to men and wo's patriotis on subjects that otherwise the people would have declined to consider
But we et that ”our preacher” was endoith that rare and radiant gift, an altogether char and persuasive personality
Appearance,entle and noble spirit When a friend and co's earlier ift, he immediately answered, ”his voice” The reply seee of King during his Boston ministry was close and personal Willialand's renowned orators, to E voice, and to the , ”His was one of the noblest and sweetest voices I ever heard”
Edward Everett Hale once wrote, ”Starr King was an orator, whom no one could silence and no one could answer” Says another, ”There was arguh an audience like an organ carrying conviction captive before its wonderful melody”
If it is true that Williaood authority affirms, if it is true, that Daniel O'Connell's voice
Glided easy as a bird lide, And played with each wild passion as it went,
,to the moods of the soul as a loved instruospel of good will to 's son-in-laas accustomed to insist that writers had wholly failed to note one elereat orator's power, naenial and kindly, and at the sa's published serht evidence of this gift, owing doubtless to false ideas of what constitutes decoru evidence is found of the truth of Mr Davis' judg:
”On ed seventy years', the true inscription would read 'In memory of one who in seventy years lived about five minutes and that hen he first fell in love'”