Recalling Thomas Starr King, the Apostle of Liberty

Thomas Starr King was born on the 17^th of December, in 1824.

I like to note Unitarians, Universalists and Unitarian Universalists on the days of their birth.

Many years ago Jan, auntie & I were in Washington DC, doing some serious national tourism. Among the many interesting, sometimes moving, sometimes, well not, are the collection of one hundred statues from the states, two each.

We wandered around until we found the one we most wanted to see, which was Thomas Starr King.

I’m glad we saw it. Because not many years later, in 2009 it was replaced with a statue of Ronald Reagan.

A Universalist pastor who ended up serving as senior minister of the First Unitarian church in San Francisco, King was a person of enormous importance in tilting California to the abolitionist side as it became a state. He worked tirelessly, campaigning up and down California’s length. He continued this march to keep Californian eyes on justice in those terrible years leading to our American Civil War.

The commonly held sense is that exhausted by this work he contracted diphtheria, and in his weakened condition, he died. It was March 4^th, 1864. He was thirty-nine.

By all accounts there was sanctity about Thomas Starr King. His fierce defense of basic human rights was informed by a deep faith. And that faith seems to have been present in much of his lived life.

So, a moment honoring this American saint in our nation’s battle to reclaim its soul.