Starr King in California | Page 4

the two denominations which he equally
represents, being a sort of soft ligament between the Chang of
Universalism and the Eng of Unitarianism."
This last criticism invites us to notice - all too briefly - a phase of
King's experience in New England fitting him most admirably for the
larger work he was to do on the Pacific Coast. From 1840 to 1860 the
Lyceum flourished in the United States as never before or since. Large
numbers of lecture courses, extending even to the small cities and
towns, were liberally patronized and generously supported. In many
communities this was the one diversion and the one extravagance. To
fill the new demand an extraordinary group of public speakers appeared;
Emerson, Edward Everett, Wendell Phillips, Dr. Chapin, Oliver
Wendell Holmes, George William Curtis, Henry Ward Beecher,
Frederick Douglas, Theodore Parker and others, whose names are
reverently spoken to this day by aged men and women who remember

the uplift given them in youth by these giants of the platform.
That he was always wanted with such rivals as those is proof enough of
King's power with the people, of his fame as an orator, even before his
greater development and his more wonderful achievements in
California. His lecture circuit extended from Boston to Chicago. His
principal subjects were "Goethe," "Socrates," "Substance and Show," a
lecture which ranks next to Wendell Phillips' "Lost Arts" in popularity.
Not withstanding the academic titles King gave his lectures they
seemed to have been popular with all classes. "Grand, inspiring,
instructive," lectures," said the learned. "Thems' idees," said unlettered
men of sound sense. It was thought to be a remarkable triumph of
platform eloquence that King could make such themes fascinating to
Massachusetts farmers and Cape Cod fishermen. In fine phrase it was
said of him that he lectured upon such themes as Plato and Socrates
"with a prematureness of scholarship, a delicacy of discernment, a
sweet innocent combination of confidence and diffidence, which were
inexpressibly charming."
It may be claimed with all candor that few public teachers have ever
been able so to enlist scientific truth in the service of the spirit. That
spirit and life are the great realities, that all else is mainly show, at best
but the changing vesture of spirit, is set forth in King's lectures so
completely that he may be said to have made, even at this early age, a
genuine and lasting contribution to the thought of his time. All this be it
noted before he had set foot upon the Pacific Coast, where he was
destined to do his real work.
One other service King had rendered the country, and especially New
England, should here be gratefully recalled. Always in delicate health,
he had formed the habit of spending his vacations in the White Hills of
New Hampshire. Benefited in mind and body, and charmed by the rare
beauty of a region then unknown, he endeavored to reveal to the people
of Boston, and other Eastern cities, the neglected loveliness lying at
their very doors. The result was King's "The White Hills, Their
Legends, Landscape and Poetry." Although this pioneer nature-book is
now probably quite forgotten, even by the multitudes who visit the

scenes it so glowingly describes, it is well to remember that it was,
indeed, one of the first attempts to entice the city dweller "back to
nature." Published in 1859, it followed Thoreau's at that time unread
"Walden" by only five years, while it preceded Murray's "Adventures
in the Wilderness," and the earliest of John Burroughs' delightful
volumes, by a full generation. It was in every way a commendable, if
not great, adventure in authorship.
From this brief review it is evident that when Starr King preached his
last sermon in Boston, March 25, 1860, he had made for himself an
enviable reputation in three difficult fields of work, as preacher,
lecturer and writer. The feeling of Boston and New England upon his
departure was fittingly expressed by Edwin Percy Whipple in a leading
journal of the day in which this eminent author "appealed to thousands
in proof of the assertion that though in charge of a large parish, and
with a lecture parish which extended from Bangor to St. Louis, he still
seemed to have time for every noble work, to be open to every demand
of misfortune, tender to every pretension of weakness, responsive to
every call of sympathy, and true to every obligation of friendship; all
will indulge the hope that California, cordial as must be the welcome
she extends him, will still not be able to keep him long from
Massachusetts."
On the day before he sailed from New York a "Breakfast Reception"
was given him at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, at which three hundred guests
were seated at the tables. The poet,