THOMAS STARR KING.

 

            ALL the men of whom I have spoken in this series of reminiscences had within them more or less of the earth --  earthy. Thomas Starr King had not enough of base metal in his nature to hold his spirit long in this world. Gold has to be alloyed with a harder metal to endure the attrition of daily use. There was no alloy in Starr King, and he was quickly worn out.

            He weighed, I judge, about one hundred and forty pounds. He was slight and fair, but the head above his shoulders was a royal one ; the face a sovereign one, and notwithstanding his delicate appearance, his voice held within it all the sweetness of the harp when struck by a master hand, all the power and solemn grandeur of a great cathedral organ. He had, more- over, that subtle magnetism which drew and retained his audience while he talked. But his was never a dress parade eloquence. It was, after all, the thoughts behind his words that held men and women captive while he spoke; the thoughts and words and that majesty which comes from the soul of some men, maybe once in a century. Listening to him one thought involuntarily of the statement that when the Master was in the Garden by the brook Kidron, the soldiers came to arrest him and when they told him whom they sought and he replied : "I am He," they walked backward and fell to the ground. He was of New England's bluest blood. He was denied a university training. His father, a clergyman, had prepared him for college, but when the boy was fifteen years of age the father suddenly died and the care of the mother and younger children, turned him to labor for them. He worked as a clerk, then as a teacher.

            But while the training of his brain in the schools was for the time arrested, his soul was growing and at nineteen he began to preach. The recognition of his genius was instantaneous. He was wanted everywhere, and for eleven years he held New England enthralled. Boston had claimed him and

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counted on him as one of that royal circle which half a century and more ago was an intellectual Aurora Borealis in that northern latitude of New England.

            He was a Unitarian minister and Edward Everett Hale was a foster father to him.

            While young in his ministry a great longing for the west came upon him, and amid the sorrow and good wishes of the highest in Boston intellectual circles, he sailed for California. When he landed in San Francisco, though few knew the fact, it was really the coming of an apostle of religion and an evangel of patriotism. A pulpit was waiting for him, and his first sermon made clear that the west coast had gained a treasure richer than any in her mines, for from the first, men instinctively felt that behind all that he said, there was a character so lofty that it was interwoven into the very texture of the man himself ; a something which was as much a part of the man as were his vocal chords or as was the blood in his arteries.

            He preached and lectured, and wrote, and grew constantly in public estimation he was a light to the west coast, for every man was his brother in his own estimation, and it was his duty to hold up the hands of his fellows and to affirm the mercy and glory of God.

            With the coming of the great Civil war he was strangely agitated. How native land was to be saved in its entirety; how the old love and trust were to be wooed back were problems that exercised his mind continually.

            When the scheme to raise money to purchase comforts and medicines for the soldiers and to pay nurses for attending upon the sick and the wounded was broached, he became its instant advocate, and to further it he lectured through the Pacific states. He drew all classes to those lectures until his fame, which had been, in most part, confined to San Francisco and surrounding towns, filled the whole coast. His travels, too, gave him every day new scenes from which to draw illustrations.

            It is presumptions to try to give an idea of his style or his methods on the rostrum, but we will relate one incident. He was delivering a lecture in Carson City, Nevada, for the

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benefit of the sanitary fund. He finally, in his lecture, as preliminary to an apostrophe to patriotism, told how, a few days before, he was sailing down the Columbia, and the theme of all on board was a great battle, news of which had just reached the west coast. He noticed a solitary man sitting by the rail and showing no interest in what was going on.

            Going over to him, he said :  "Have you no interest in the tremendous events now convulsing the country?"

            "None at all," was the reply, "all I want is to be left alone."

            "Do you realize that the life of the republic is hanging in the balance, and that your countrymen are dying by thousands?"

            "I have lost no one. All I want is to be left alone," said the man, doggedly.

            "Have you no love of country? No appreciation of the blessings that have been yours all your life under the flag and the splendor that it represents?' 1 was the next question.

            "No, I jist want to be let alone," was the querulous answer.

            Then straightening himself and stretching outward and downward his right hand, and in a voice that thrilled all who heard it, Starr King cried : "And that abject, cowering wretch sat there, though Mount Hood in its majesty was towering above him, and the Columbia was rolling at his feet."

            It was not what he said, but the way he said it that thrilled those who listened and made them realize more fully the full meaning of what he said on another occasion, which was :

            "The soul is not a shadow; the body is. Genius is not a shadow ; it is a substance. Patriotism is not a shadow, it is light."

            At that time there were thousands of men on the coast who were working to cause the secession of California, Oregon and Nevada, and to have them join the Southern confederacy or to organize an independent Pacific Republic. King's soul was on fire, and his appeals were bugle calls.

            In the lecture field he sounded all literature for illustrations and all the moods of men were his to play upon. Every-

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thing was at his command, but there was thought behind all his words. For instance, how expressive is this: ''He who composes a poem that has no burning thought in it, is not so original as he who constructs an original mouse trap. The one is a mere artisan in words, the other an original thinker in wire and wood."

            And again : "So many of us there are who have no majestic landscapes for the heart, no gardens in the inner life ! We live on the flats, in a country which is dry, droughty, barren.

            We look up to no heights where shadows fall and streams flow, singing. We have no great hopes. We have no sense of infinite guard and care. We have no sense of divine, all-enfolding love. We may make an outward visit to the Sierras, but there are no Yosemites in the soul."

And hear this :

            "History, until of late, has been mostly a record of battles, many of which had no effect on society. But history truly written will show that the hinge-epoch of centuries was when no battle sound was heard on the earth when in Galilee One was uttering sentiments in a language now nowhere spoken, never deigning to write a line, but entrusting to the air His words. The Caesar, whose servant ordered His crucifixion -- all the Caesars -- are dead, but His words live yet, the substantial agents of civilization, the pillars of our welfare, the hope of the race."

And again :

            "Running up through the realm of science to society, and to the life of nations, we find that the apex-truth which the intellect discovers is this : Character is of supreme importance for national growth, prosperity and stability. How impressive does history seem as a study, when we find that every country is a huge pedestal, lifting up one national figure, which symbolizes the prospects and the perils of the millions that dwell around its base."

            So he lived, working constantly and for only three things -- his fellow men, his country and the glory of God.

            The secret of his charm was in his absolute sincerity and in the loftiness of his character. He was intensely human in all

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his acts; every man who had a sorrow was his brother, but when an intellectual field was to be explored he was every- where a leader ; whenever a righteous cause needed a champion his voice was loudest and sweetest of all. He believed that all men should be educated ; that there was no safety to society except in obedience to law ; his apostrophes to charity in all its forms were sometimes anthems, sometimes trumpet calls; he believed in full liberty ; he consecrated his life to duty, and wore himself out and died just as he reached the zenith of his intellectual power. When dying he said :

            "Do not weep for me. I know it's right. I wish I could make you feel so. I wish I could describe my feelings. They are strange ! I feel all the privileges and greatness of the future. It already looks grand, beautiful."

            I feel that the forgoing does not nearly do justice to the wonderful man, and close by copying the little poem which Bret Harte wrote, evidently feeling the same way, to a pen that the great soul had written with :

'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 instruments to awe and wonder,

And bid the slender barrel breath again

An organ-pipe of thunder?

 

"His pen ! What haunting 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 its magic vision ;

The incantation that its power gave

Sleeps with the dead magician."