rm and tempest of the time
irresistibly attractive to men and women whose sympathies were on fire
for the Northern cause. King's patriotism won for him a liberal hearing
on subjects that otherwise the people would have declined to consider.

But we must not forget that "our preacher" was endowed with that rare
and radiant gift, an altogether charming and persuasive personality.
Appearance, manner, voice, were all instruments of attractiveness,
fitting modes of expression to a gentle and noble spirit. When a friend
and comrade of King's earlier ministry was asked to name the preacher's
preeminent gift, he immediately answered, "his voice." The reply seems
trivial. Yet it was seriously spoken by one whose knowledge of King
during his Boston ministry was close and personal. William Everett, who
had listened to New England's renowned orators, to Emerson's sweet and
satisfying voice, and to the music of Wendell Phillip's speech, said
of King, "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
argument in his very voice. It thrilled and throbbed through an audience
like an organ carrying conviction captive before its wonderful melody."
If it is true that William Pitt once ruled the British Nation by his
voice, as good authority affirms, if it is true, that Daniel O'Connell's
voice

Glided easy as a bird may glide,
And played with each wild passion as it went,

may it not also be true that Starr King's clear, penetrating, musical
voice, answering to the moods of the soul as a loved instrument to the
hand of the player, was in itself a kind of gospel of good will to men?

Horace Davis, Starr King's son-in-law, was accustomed to insist that
writers had wholly failed to note one element of the great orator's
power, namely, his humor. Not wit, Mr. Davis would remark, but a most
genial and kindly, and at the same time illuminating humor. A careful
examination of King's published sermons, speeches and lectures gives
but slight evidence of this gift, owing doubtless to false ideas of what
constitutes decorum in the work of a preacher. Occasionally satisfying
evidence is found of the truth of Mr. Davis' judgment, as in the
following:

"On many a tombstone where it is written, 'Here lies so and so, aged
seventy years', the true inscription would read 'In memory of one who in