Starr, John Walcott, a Congregational minister, was born at Guilford, Conn., March 9, 1848. He grad- uated at Yale College in 1871, and at the New Haven Theological Seminary in 1873. Soon after graduation he engaged in missionarj' labor in the town of Stratton, and in the following year he went to the town of Sleepy Eye, Minn. He accepted an invitation from the Home Missionary Society of New Hampshire to preach in West Stewartstown. He was ordained to this work June 18, 1875. His labors were of a short period, and he was early called to his reward. Young, and his life full of promise of great usefulness to the Church, he was called to labor in a higher sphere. He died in 1875. (W. P. S.)
Starr, John Wesley (1), a minister of the Meth-
odist Episcopal Church, South, was born in Wilkes County, Ga., .\ug. 7, 1806, and associated himself with the Church when fourteen years of age. He was li- censed to preach Sept. 17, 1830, and in 1833 was admitted into the Georgia Conference. In 1839 he was trans- ferred to the Alabama Conference; superannuated in 1848; agent for the Oak Bowery Female Institute in 1849 ; in 1866 again superannuated, and so remained until his death, in Bibb County, Feb. 24, 1870. See Minutes of Annual Conferences of the M. E. Church, South, 1870, p. 438.
Starr, John 'Wesley (2), a minister of the Meth- odist Episcopal Church, South, was born in Henry County, Ga., Oct. 23, 1830, and was converted in 1841. He was educated at Oxford, Ga. ; was admitted on trial into the (ieorgia Conference in 1852, and sent to Mobile, where he died within a year. See Miniit(s if Annual Conferences of the M. E. Church, South, l^b'i, p. 479.
Starr, William H., a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, was born in Edentown, N. C, ]\Iay 7, 1793. He was converted when twenty-two, and was admitted into the Virginia Conference, Janua- ry, 1816. In 1843-44 he was a supernumerary; active in 1845; chaplain of the Seaman's Bethel from 1846 to 1848; and in 1850 became again a supernumerary. After serving as colporteur two months, he acted for three years as agent of the American Colonization So- ciety, and then of the Virginia Colonization Society till the close of 1858. He was supernumerary with appoint- ment from 1862 to 1864, when he became superannuated, and held that relation until his death, near Murfrees- borough, N. C, Feb. 14, 1867. See Minutes of Annual Conferences of the M. E. Church, South, 1867, p. 102.
Stars, Seven, the Great Bear, which never sets, and is the emblem of the everlasting state of the Catholic Church (Rev. i, 20).
Stata Mater, a Roman divinity to whom an image was dedicated in the forum, and whose rites con- sisted in the lighting of fires nightly before her image. She was regarded as a protectress against damage by fire, and was supposed to be either a wife of Vulcan or identical with the goddess Vesta.
State and Church. See Church and State.
Stater (ararlip; Vulg. stater; A. V. "a piece of money;" margin, "stater"), a coin of frequentoccurrence in the Gniico-Roman period. See Money.
1. The term stater, from 'irrrrjiii, to stand, is held to signify a coin of a certain weight, but perhaps means a standard coin. It is not restricted by the Greeks to a single denomination, but is applied to standard coins of gold, electrum, and silver. The gold staters were di- drachms of the later Phoenician and the Attic talents, which, in this denomination, differ only about four grains troy. Of the former talent were the Daric staters, or Darics (ffrwrijptf Aapti/coi, AapfiKoi), the famous Per- sian gold pieces [see Dakic], and those of Cnesus (KpotffeToi) ; of the latter, the stater of Athens. The electrum staters were coined by the (ireek towns on the west coast of Asia Elinor; the most famous were those of Cj'zicus {arari'ipig Kv^iKrji'oi, Kv'iiKjfvoi), which weigh about 248 grains. They are of gold and silver, mixed in the proportion, according to ancient au- thority— for we believe these rare coins have not been analyzed — of three parts of gold to one of silver (Pliny, /list. iVat. xxxiii, 4, 23). The gold was alone reckoned in the value, for it is said (I)emosth. i« Phor7n.\).9li) that one of these coins was ccpial to 28 Atlicnian silver drachn)s; while the Athenian gold stater, weighing about 132 grains, was equal (Xcnoph. A nab. i, 7, 8) to 20 (20 : 132 : : 28 : 184 + , or f of a Cyzicene stater). This stater was thus of 184+ grains, and equivalent to a di- drachm of the yEginetan talent. The staters of Croe- sus, which were the oldest gold coins that came to Greece (Herod, i, 54), have about the same weight as
STATER
996
STATES OF THE CHURCH
the (lariis. i. c 128 prains troy. Other staters are men- lioiied a- lniiiK' in Liriulatioii intlreece; those of Lamp- Bacus. wliith in all .specimens hitherto seen have ex- actly tlie wi-ii,'ht of a .laric; of Phociea (^Thiicyil. iv, 52; Demosth. i;i littol. p. 1019); of Corinth (I'olliix, iv, 174; ix, **0) ; ami those of Philip of Mace<lon and Alexander the tJreat.who issued thetn of the weighl of Attic didrachiiis. Thus far the stater is always a di- drachni. In silver, however, the term was in later times applii-d to the tetr.tdraclim of Athens (Phot. s. v. IVirn'/w: llisych. s. V. V\avK(^- AnvfJiwriKai), and at- tempts have been made to prove that even in the time ofThucydidis the letradrachm bore the name of stater (Thuoyd. iii. 70, Dr. Arnold's note). The terra stater was also applied to the gold tetradrachms (commonly calU-d octodrachms) of the Ptolemies (.losephus, .1h^ iii, K.2). There can therefore be no doubt that the name stater was a))plied to the standard denomination of lH)th metals, and does not positively imply cither a di- drachm or a tetradrachm. See Didkach.m.