d forever, one and inseparable!"

The landing was made on Saturday, and the following day Starr King spoke
for the first time in California. An hour before the service was to
begin, the church was wedged tight. The preacher had much difficulty in
making his way through the dense mass of humanity to reach the pulpit.
"Is that the man?" went up the smothered exclamation, as Starr King
reached the platform and faced his audience. His slight, slender figure
and boyish face were plainly a disappointment, but this was not to last.
The preacher had prepared a sermon--such a sermon as he had given many
times to well-dressed, orderly and cultured Boston.

And if this California audience was surprised, the speaker also was no
less. The men to women were as seven to one. He saw before him a sea of
bronzed and bearded faces, earnest, attentive and hungry for truth.
There were occasional marks of dissipation and the riot of the senses,
softened by excess into penitence--whipped out and homesick. Here were
miners in red-flannel shirts, sailors, soldiers in uniform and soldiers
of fortune. The preacher looked at the motley mass in a vain attempt to
pick out his old friends from New England. The genteel, slightly blase
quality of culture that leans back in its cushioned pew and courteously
waits to be instructed, was not there. These people did not lean back:
they leaned forward, and with parted lips they listened for every word.
There was no choir, and when "an old familiar hymn" was lined off by a
volunteer who knew his business, that great audience arose and sang as
though it would shake the rafters of heaven.

Those who go down to the sea in ships, sing; shepherds who tend their
flocks by night, sing; men in the forest or those who follow the
trackless plains, sing. Congregational singing is most popular among
those who live far apart--to get together and sing is a solace.
Loneliness, separation and heart-hunger all drive men into song.

These men, many of them far from home, lifted up their voices, and the
sounds surged through that church and echoed, surged again and caught
even the preacher in their winding waves. He started in to give one
sermon and gave another. The audience, the time, the place, acted upon
him.

Oratory is essentially a pioneer product, a rustic article. Great
sermons and great speeches are given only to people who have come from
afar.

Starr King forgot his manuscript and pulpit manners. His deep voice