King’s personality was magnetic and winning. Gentleness radiated from him as light radiates from the sun. No one could resist the charm and fascination of his presence…. There was in his face the serenity of one who had seen a vision, and to whom the vision had become a benediction…
-from Philanthropist and Preacher

German-American minister Thomas Starr King was already famous for his oratory in New England when he arrived in San Francisco at the age of 35, in 1860, and over the next few years, his tireless energy and the fiery passion of his public rhetoric would be instrumental in maintaining California within the Union during the Civil War.

This 1917 biography of the preacher-patriot is a stirring tribute to an unsung hero of Californian-and American-history, and it will delight Civil War buffs who thought they’d heard all the stories that dramatic period had to tell.

American writer WILLIAM DAY SIMONDS (1855-1920) also wrote The Christ of the Human Heart, Patriotic Addresses, and Sermons from Shakespeare.