HKB
the express image of God,--as the Son who reveals to us the Father,--as the ideal embodiment of a perfected Humanity. Such a person had a natural call to the ministry."
His first sermon was preached in Woburn, in the autumn of 1845. In the summer of the next year he was invited to the pastorate of the Universalist Church in Charlestown, then made vacant by the removal of the Rev. E. H. Chapin to Boston. He accepted the call, and enjoyed a busy and happy ministry there, until his urgent call to become the minister of the Hollis Street (Unitarian) Church in Boston. The first invitation he declined, and made a voyage to Fayal to recruit his health which had been impaired by his incessant labors. The invitation was renewed on his return home, and he was installed in his new place in December, 1848. This course on his part was not agreeable to many of his Universalist friends, but they had no doubt that it was conscientiously taken by him, and most of them always retained their good will and heart-fellowship for him. They knew that his work would be mainly in the right direction always; and they were not disappointed. As a public literary lecturer, he was among the foremost in the land.
In April, 1860, Mr. King took charge of the Unitarian Church in San Francisco, Cal. He saw a field there which he deemed it an opportunity to occupy, both as a Christian minister and an American patriot. He entered with his whole soul into the defence of the national cause and in opposition to the traitorous intent of the secession conspirators. In the pulpit and on the platform he vindicated the national honor and pleaded for the maintenance of the national Union. As his biographer, Mr. Whipple, writes: "As far as regards the keeping of California loyal to the Union during the civil war, he ranks at least in the first file of its eminent citizens. His reputation was not confined to the Pacific coast, but extended over the whole country."[45] He literally wore out his life in this great and glorious field of exertion. Diphtheria came finally, and he passed into the higher life, March 4, 1865. His words at the last were: "I feel all the privileges and greatness of the future."