The The Unitarian Church in NSW PO Box 355, Darlinghurst NSW 1300 15 Francis Street, East Sydney (near Museum Station) Tel: (02) 9360 2038 SUN www.sydneyunitarianchurch.org Sydney Unitarian News Editor: M.R. McPhee April/May 2010 ‘THE PREACHER WHO SAVED CALIFORNIA’ Thomas Starr King was born in New York City on 17 December 1824, to a Universalist minister, Thomas Farrington King and his wife, Susan. He was always known as ‘Starr’, though that was his mother’s family name. He grew up in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and in Charlestown, Massachusetts, where he studied to attend college and then divinity school. However, Starr King was 15 when his father died and he worked as a clerk, assistant teacher, grammar school principal, and bookkeeper at the naval yard to support his mother and siblings. That last job particularly suited him, as his working hours enabled him to attend some classes at Harvard College, even though he had never completed high school. King was assisted by the Unitarian minister, Rev. Hosea Ballou II, a friend of his father, who designed a systematic course of study for the ministry for him. He gave his first public address in 1845, at the age of twenty, and preached his first sermon later that year. He was recommended to the ministry by the legendary Rev. Theodore Parker and, after a short apprenticeship at a small church in Boston, became the minister of the Charlestown Universalist Church. That had been his father’s church and he felt the congregants still thought of him as a boy, so he resigned and, after a brief period at the Second Unitarian Church of New York, took the pulpit of the Hollis Street Unitarian Church in Boston in 1848. Shortly thereafter, he married Julia Wiggin, by whom he would have two children, Edith and Frederick. King did not feel that he had actually changed denominations, as he said the only reason the Unitarians and Universalists had not already joined together was that they were “too near of kin to be married”. (He also liked to say: “The one [Universalist] thinks God is too good to damn them forever, the other [Unitarian] thinks they are too good to be damned forever.” – however, that adage was probably first expressed by another Universalist minister, Rev. Thomas Gold Appleton.) The Hollis Street church had been riven by discord over temperance and Abolition, so it was King’s task to rebuild the membership. He was there for eleven years, during which time he increased the church’s numbers to five times what it had been when he arrived. For all that, he had to supplement his meagre salary by giving public lectures around New England and beyond, from Maine to Missouri. On the strength of his academic and religious activities, King was awarded an honorary Master of Arts degree by Harvard College in 1850. 1 For all that, King became dissatisfied in Boston, where he felt looked down on due to his lack of formal credentials. He wrote to his friend and erstwhile mentor, Rev. Henry Bellows: “I do think we are unfaithful in huddling so closely around the cozy stove of civilization in this blessed Boston, and I, for one, am ready to go out into the cold and see if I am good for anything.” In 1860, he moved with his family to San Francisco – which, in those days, meant taking a boat to Panama, crossing the isthmus by train and sailing north again. The San Francisco Unitarian Society, founded 10 years earlier, was the only Unitarian church on the west coast of the United States. He preached twice each Sunday and, under King’s careful supervision, the Society built a beautiful gothic church which was dedicated in January, 1864. However, King saw his ministry as threefold: to his congregation, to the Christians in the region and to the people of California. He had a vision of a unified liberal Christian church and his preaching brought people from well inland to hear him. With his orations throughout Northern California, he helped to educate the San Francisco elite, labourers, blacks and miners about Socrates, contemporary poets, materialism and the beauty of nature. He also became involved in politics in the lead-up to the Civil War, campaigning for Abraham Lincoln from his pulpit and travelling by stagecoach throughout California to promote the Union. His skills as an orator and the power of his personality helped to elect a Republican (i.e., pro-Union) governor and state congress in 1861, after which he worked tirelessly to raise massive funds for the US Sanitary Commission (later the Red Cross), which oversaw the health and medical care of the Union Army. The commander-in- chief, General Winfield Scott, later said that King had “saved California to the Union”. King had always been a short and slight individual whose health failed at times. On 04 March 1864, after only four years in California and barely 39 years old, he died from diphtheria, pneumonia and (in the words of his future son-in-law) “the slow suicide of overwork”. His memorial service was attended by some 20,000 people as flags flew at half-mast from public buildings and even on ships in the harbour. [This article is based on an address written by Arliss Ungar of the Mt. Diablo UU Church in Walnut Creek, California, and an article in the (on-line) Dictionary of UU Biography by Celeste DeRoche and Peter Hughes. The former is long overdue for our attention, as Arliss intended to deliver that address at our church on 16 September 2001, when she visited Sydney with her husband, Art. Unfortunately, that service was just after the ‘9-11’ event and the minister of the day decided that we should have an open forum on the implications of that. Please see p. 7 for yet another ‘Ungar connection’ and pp. 11/12 for some more infor- mation affecting Starr King.] SERVICE DIARY Meetings every Sunday from 10.30 –11.30am (followed by coffee, tea and food) Date Presenter Topic 4th April Rev. Dr. Ian Ellis-Jones God as Light 11th April Rev. Dr. Ian Ellis-Jones Newton: Scientist and Unitarian 18th April Rev. Dr. Ian Ellis-Jones Fundamentalist Militant Atheists * 25th April Chad Vindin/Walter Mason Music and Meditation Service 2nd May Rev. Dr. Ian Ellis-Jones Rev. Charles Strong and the Australian Church ** 9th May Dr. Edi Bilimoria Sir Isaac Newton: England’s Greatest Occultist and Mystic 16th May Rev. Dr. Ian Ellis-Jones A Unitarian Crucifix 23rd May Walter Mason Teaching Without Utterance: The Philosophy of Taoism 30th May Chad Vindin/Walter Mason Music and Meditation Service * This will be the date of the re-scheduled Annual General Meeting. ** Dr. Edi Bilimoria is a mechanical engineer and a prominent member of the Theosophical Society. [Please check the church website (www.sydneyunitarianchurch.org) for updates. The program for June will be available from the beginning of May.] 2 Gbogbo Eda Dapo, Let all nations live together in unison E Jo Yin Oluwa. And praise GOD together. E Pa Ohun nyin po, Speak with one voice Lati Fe Oro Na; To LOVE and accept the Word. K’ ife da orin ope nla, Let LOVE create great songs of praise Ki gbogbo eda k’o si gbe. For all living souls to sing together. Submitted by the First Unitarian Church of Nigeria; Yoruba and English words written by its General Secretary, Olufemi Matimoju. Au nom de la Miséricorde et de la Compassion: In the name of compassion and loving-kindness: Suivant les traces d’Ibn Arabi, maître soufi, nous Following the paths of Ibn Arabi, a Sufi master, laissons se dilater nos coeurs, afin de les rendre we let our hearts dilate to enable them to fit all capables d'étreindre toute forme spirituelle ou spiritual or existential kinds. existentielle. For those who seek, our hearts have become Notre cœur, pour celles et ceux qui cherchent, est church, temple, synagogue, mosque, sanctuary; devenu une église, un temple, une synagogue, une stronghold for the poor, for those who are suffering, mosquée, un sanctuaire, une citadelle pour les for minorities wherever they come from. humbles, les souffrants et les minorités d'où qu'elles We believe in the religion of Love, which has no viennent. gender, and to which all personal stories are Nous croyons en la religion de l'Amour, qui n'a pas leading. de genre, vers laquelle se dirigent les histoires Because Love is our religion and our faith. personnelles. Car l'Amour est notre religion et notre foi. [Submitted by Yohann Amal on behalf of the Council of French Unitarians and Universalists (Conseil des Unitariens et Universalistes Français).] [These are the Chalice Lightings from the International Council of Unitarians and Universalists for the months of March and April.] The First Unitarian Church of Nigeria was founded in Lagos in 1994 by Rev. Olatunji Matimoju “to propa- gate a gospel of freedom and service”. Today, it is led by his sons, Rev. Adeyenka and Olufemi Matimoju, the latter of whom is a member of the ICUU Council. Elsewhere in Lagos is the Unitarian Brotherhood Church (Ijo Isokan Gbogbo Eda), founded in 1917 by an ex-Anglican Bishop, Adeniran Adedeji Isola. This congregation offered a religion based on liberal Christianity which also included services in the Yoruba language and traditional music (native drums). The FUCN was formed by members of that church and, as a result of deaths in the latter’s senior leadership, the Matimoju brothers are now in charge of both and working toward a formal union with a single Nigerian membership in the ICUU.