Glimpses of Three Coasts Part 3

"Then consider me a beast," answered Serra; "consider this sore on my leg a sore back, and give me the same treatment you would apply to a beast."

Thus adjured, the muleteer took courage, and saying, "I will do it, Father, to please you," he proceeded to mix herbs in hot tallow, with which he anointed the wound, and so reduced the inflammation that Father Junipero slept all night, rose early, said matins and ma.s.s, and resumed his journey in comparative comfort. He bore this painful wound to the end of his life; and it was characteristic of the man as well as of the abnormal standards of the age, that he not only sought no measures for a radical cure of the diseased member, but, obstinately accepting the suffering as a cross, allowed the trouble to be aggravated in every way, by going without shoes or stockings and by taking long journeys on foot.

A diary kept by Father Crespi on his toilsome march from Velicata to San Diego is full of quaint and curious entries, monotonous in its religious reiterations, but touching in its simplicity and unconscious testimony to his own single-heartedness and patience. The nearest approach to a complaint he makes is to say that "nothing abounds except stones and thorns." When they journey for days with no water except scanty rations from the precious casks they are carrying, he always piously trusts water will be found on the morrow; and when they come to great tracts of impenetrable cactus thickets, through which they are obliged to hew a pathway with axes, as through a forest, and are drenched to the skin in cold rains, and deserted by the Christian Indians whom they had brought from Lower California as guides, he mentions the facts without a murmur, and has even for the deserters only a benediction: "May G.o.d guard the misguided ones!" A far more serious grievance to him is that toward the end of the journey he could no longer celebrate full ma.s.s because the wafers had given out. Sometimes the party found themselves hemmed in by mountains, and were forced to halt for days while scouts went ahead to find a pa.s.s. More than once, hoping that at last they had found a direct and easy route, they struck down to the sea-sh.o.r.e, only to discover themselves soon confronted by impa.s.sable spurs of the Coast Range, and forced to toil back again up into the labyrinths of mesas and cactus plains. It was Holy Thursday, the 24th of March, when they set out, and it was not until the 13th of May that they reached the high ground from which they had their first view of the bay of San Diego, and saw the masts of the ships lying at anchor there,--"which sight was a great joy and consolation to us all," says the diary.

They named this halting-place "Espiritu Santo." It must have been on, or very near, the ridge where now runs the boundary line between the United States and Mexico, as laid down by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. It is a grand promontory, ten miles southeast of San Diego, thrusting out to sea; bare of trees, but matted thick with the dewy ice-plant, and in early spring carpeted with flowers. An ugly monument of stone stands there, bearing the names of the American and Mexican commissioners who established this boundary line in October, 1849. It would seem much more fitting to have there a monument bearing the names of the heroic men--friars and soldiers of Spain--who on that spot, on May 14, 1769, sang the first Easter hymn heard on California sh.o.r.es.

It was a sore grief for Father Crespi that the commandant of the party would not wait here for him to say a ma.s.s of thanksgiving; but with the port in sight, impatience could not be restrained, and the little band pushed on. As soon as the San Diego camp was seen, the soldiers discharged a salute of fire-arms, which was answered instantly from sh.o.r.e and ship. Great joy filled every heart. The friars who had come by sea ran to meet and embrace their brothers. The gladness was dampened only by the sad condition of the ships' crews, many of whom were dead or dying. They had been four months, with their poor charts and poorer ships, making their way from La Paz up to San Diego; and in consequence of insufficient and unwholesome food, the scurvy had broken out among them. It was a melancholy beginning for the new enterprise. When, six weeks later, the second land party with Father Junipero arrived, eager to proceed to the establishing of the mission, they found that their first duty was to the sick and dying of their own people. In fifteen days twenty-nine of the sailors and soldiers died. The Indians, who at first had been gentle and friendly, grew each day more insolent and thievish, even tearing off the clothes of the sick lying helpless in the tents or tule huts on the beach. At last, on the 16th of July, a cross was set up facing the port, and in a rude booth of branches and reeds, ma.s.s was celebrated and the grand hymn of "Veni Creator" was sung, the pilgrims "supplying the want of an organ by discharging fire-arms," says the old record, and with only the "smoke of muskets for incense." Thus was founded the Mission of San Diego; and thus was laid the corner-stone of the civilization of California on July 16, 1769.

Two days before this the indefatigable Crespi had set off with another overland party, Portala at its head, to find Monterey. On this journey, also, Father Crespi kept a diary,--little suspecting, probably, with how much interest it would be studied a century later.

It was not strange that with only a compa.s.s and seventeenth-century charts to guide them along the zigzagging labyrinths of bays, headlands, and sand-hills which make the California sh.o.r.e, they toiled to no purpose seeking the Monterey harbor. It is pitiful to read the record of the days when they were close upon it, setting up a cross on one of its hills, and yet could not see it; even querying, so bewildered and lost were they, if it might not have been filled up with sands since Viscayno's time. Forty leagues north of it they went, and discovered the present bay of San Francisco, which they at once recognized by Viscayno's description; and recalling the speech of Galvez in regard to Saint Francis pointing out a port if he wanted a mission of his own name, the pious fathers thought it not unlikely that the saint himself had hidden Monterey from their sight, and led them to his own harbor. Month after month pa.s.sed, and still they were wandering. They were footsore, weary, hungry, but not disheartened.

Friendly Indians everywhere greeted them kindly, gave them nuts, and sh.e.l.l-fish, and bread made from acorn flour. At one time seventeen of the party were too ill to travel. Twice they halted and held council on the question of abandoning the search. Some were ready to continue as long as the provisions held out, then to eat their mules, and go back on foot. Fathers Crespi and Gomez volunteered to be left behind alone.

At last, on the 11th of November, it was decided to return by the route by which they had come. On the 20th, finding that their flour had been stolen by the soldiers, they divided the remainder into equal parts, giving to each person enough to last him two days. On Christmas Day they had a present of nuts from friendly Indians, and on New Year's Day they had the luck to kill a bear and three cubs, which gave them a feast for which they offered most devout thanksgivings. For the rest, they lived chiefly on mussels, with now and then a wild goose.

On the 24th of January they came out on the table-lands above San Diego, six months and ten days from the time of their departure.

Firing a salute, they were answered instantly by shots from the camp, and saw an eager crowd running to meet them, great anxiety having been felt at their long absence.

It is worth while, in studying the history of these Franciscan missions, to dwell on the details of the hardships endured in the beginning by their founders. Only narrow-minded bigotry can fail to see in them proofs of a spiritual enthusiasm and exaltation of self-sacrifice which are rarely paralleled in the world's history. And to do justice to the results accomplished, it is necessary to understand thoroughly the conditions at the outset of the undertaking.

The weary, returned party found their comrades in sorry plight. The scurvy had spread, and many more had died. Father Junipero himself had been dangerously ill with it; provisions were running low; the Indians were only half friendly, and were not to be trusted out of sight. The supply-ships looked for from Mexico had not arrived.

A situation more helpless, unprotected, discouraging, could not be conceived than that of this little, suffering band, separated by leagues of desert and leagues of ocean from all possible succor. At last an examination showed that there were only provisions sufficient left to subsist the party long enough to make the journey back to Velicata. It seemed madness to remain longer; and Governor Portala, spite of Father Junipero's entreaties, gave orders to prepare for the abandonment of the missions. He fixed the 20th of March as the last day he would wait for the arrival of the ship. This was Saint Joseph's Day. On the morning of it Father Junipero, who had been praying night and day for weeks, celebrated to Saint Joseph a high ma.s.s, with special supplications for relief. Before noon a sail was seen on the horizon. One does not need to believe in saints and saints'

interpositions to feel a thrill at this coincidence, and in fancying the effect the sudden vision of the relief-ship must have produced on the minds of devout men who had been starving. The ship appeared for a few moments, then disappeared; doubtless there were some who scoffed at it as a mere apparition. But Portala believed, and waited; and, four days later, in the ship came!--the "San Antonio," bringing bountiful stores of all that was needed.

Courage and cheer now filled the very air. No time was lost in organizing expeditions to go once more in search of the mysteriously hidden Monterey. In less than three weeks two parties had set off,--one by sea in the "San Antonio." With this went Father Junipero, still feeble from illness. Father Crespi, undaunted by his former six months of wandering, joined the land party, reaching the Point of Pines, on Monterey Harbor, seven days before the ship arrived. As soon as she came in sight, bonfires were lighted on the rocks, and the ship answered by firing cannon. It was a great rejoicing. The next day, June 1st, the officers of the two parties met, and exchanged congratulations; and on the third they took formal possession of the place: first, in the name of the Church, by religious ceremonies; secondly, in the name of the King of Spain, unfurling the royal standard, and planting it in the ground, side by side with the cross.

To one familiar with the beauty of the Monterey sh.o.r.e in June, the picture of this scene is vivid. The sand-dunes were ablaze with color; lupines in high, waving ma.s.ses, white and yellow; and great mats of the glittering ice-plant, with myriads of rose-colored umbels, lying flat on the white sand. Many rods inland, the air was sweet with their fragrance, borne by the strong sea-wind. On long cliffs of broken, tempest-piled rocks stood ranks upon ranks of grand old cypress-trees,--gnarled, bent, twisted, defiant, full of both pathos and triumph in their loneliness, in this the only spot on earth to which they are native.

The booth of boughs in which the ma.s.s was performed was built under a large oak, on the same spot where Viscayno had landed and his Carmelite monks had said ma.s.s one hundred and sixty-seven years before. The ceremonies closed with a ringing Te Deum,--sailors, soldiers, monks, alike jubilant.

When the news of the founding of this second mission reached the city of Mexico, there was a furore of excitement. The bells of the city were rung; people ran up and down the streets telling each other; and the viceroy held at his palace a grand reception, to which went all persons of note, eager to congratulate him and Galvez. Printed proclamations, giving full accounts, were circulated, not only in Mexico but throughout Spain. No province so remote, no home so lowly, as to fail to hear the good news. It was indeed good news to both State and Church. The fact of the occupation of the new country was accomplished; the scheme for the conversion and salvation of the savage race was fairly inaugurated; Monterey and San Diego being a.s.sured, ultimate possession of the whole of the coast line between would follow. Little these gladdened people in Spain and Mexico realized, however, the cost of the triumph over which they rejoiced, or the true condition of the men who had won it.

The history of the next fifteen years is a history of struggle, hardship, and heroic achievement. The indefatigable Serra was the mainspring and support of it all. There seemed no limit to his endurance, no bound to his desires; nothing daunted his courage or chilled his faith. When, in the sixth year after the founding of the San Diego Mission, it was attacked by hostile Indians, one of the fathers being most cruelly murdered, and the buildings burned to the ground, Father Junipero exclaimed, "Thank G.o.d! The seed of the Gospel is now watered by the blood of a martyr; that mission is henceforth established;" and in a few months he was on the spot, with money and materials, ready for rebuilding; pressing sailors, neophytes, soldiers, into the service; working with his own hands, also, spite of the fears and protestations of all, and only desisting on positive orders from the military commander. He journeyed, frequently on foot, back and forth through the country, founding a new mission whenever, by his urgent letters to the College of San Fernando and to the Mexican viceroys, he had gathered together men and money enough to do so. In 1772, when perplexities seemed inextricably thickened and supplies had fallen so short that starvation threatened the missions, he took ship to San Blas. With no companion except one Indian boy, he toiled on foot from San Blas to Guadalajara, two hundred and forty miles. Here they both fell ill of fever, and sank so low that they were supposed to be dying, and the Holy Viatic.u.m was administered to them. But they recovered, and while only partly convalescent, pushed on again, reaching the city of Mexico in February, 1773. Hard-hearted indeed must the Mexican viceroy have been to refuse to heed the prayers of an aged man who had given such proofs as this of his earnestness and devotion. The difficulties were cleared up, money and supplies obtained, and Father Junipero returned to his post with a joyful heart. Before leaving, he kissed the feet of the friars in the college, and asked their blessing, saying that they would never behold him more.

Father Junipero's most insatiable pa.s.sion was for baptizing Indians; the saving of one soul thus from death filled him with unspeakable joy. His biographer ill.u.s.trates this by the narrative of the first infant baptism attempted at the San Diego Mission. The Indians had been prevailed upon to bring an infant to receive the consecration.

Everything was ready: Father Junipero had raised his hand to sprinkle the child's face; suddenly heathen terror got the better of the parents, and in the twinkling of an eye they s.n.a.t.c.hed their babe and ran. Tears rolled down Father Junipero's cheeks: he declared that only some unworthiness in himself could have led to such a disaster; and to the day of his death he could never tell the story without tears, thinking it must be owing to his sins that the soul of that particular child had been lost.

When he preached he was carried out of himself by the fervor of his desire to impress his hearers. Baring his breast, he would beat it violently with a stone, or burn the flesh with a lighted torch, to enhance the effect of his descriptions of the tortures of h.e.l.l. There is in his memoir a curious engraving, showing him lifted high above a motley group of listeners, holding in his hands the blazing torch and the stone.

In the same book is an outline map of California as he knew it. It is of the coast line from San Diego to San Francisco, and the only objects marked on it are the missions and dotted lines showing the roads leading from one to another. All the rest is a blank.

There were nine of these missions, founded by Serra, before his death in 1784. They were founded in the following order: San Diego, July 16, 1769; San Carlos de Monterey, June 3, 1770; San Antonio de Padua, July 14, 1771; San Gabriel, Sept. 8, 1771; San Luis Obispo, Sept. 1, 1772; San Francisco (Dolores), Oct. 9, 1776; San Juan Capistrano, Nov. 1, 1776; Santa Clara, Jan. 18, 1777; San Buena Ventura, March 31, 1782.

The transports into which Father Junipero was thrown by the beginning of a new mission are graphically told by the companion who went with him to establish the mission of San Antonio. With his little train of soldiers, and mules laden with a few weeks' supplies, he wandered off into the unexplored wilderness sixty miles south of Monterey, looking eagerly for river valleys promising fertility. As soon as the beautiful oak-shaded plain, with its river swift and full even in July, caught his eye, he ordered a halt, seized the bells, tied them to an oak bough, and fell to ringing them with might and main, crying aloud: "Hear, hear, O ye Gentiles! Come to the Holy Church! Come to the faith of Jesus Christ!" Not a human creature was in sight, save his own band; and his companion remonstrated with him. "Let me alone,"

cried Father Junipero. "Let me unburden my heart, which could wish that this bell should be heard by all the world, or at least by all the Gentiles in these mountains;" and he rang on till the echoes answered, and one astonished Indian appeared,--the first instance in which a native had been present at the foundation of a mission. Not long afterward came a very aged Indian woman named Agreda, begging to be baptized, saying that she had seen a vision in the skies of a man clad like the friars, and that her father had repeated to her in her youth the same words they now spoke.

The history of this San Antonio Mission justified Father Junipero's selection. The site proved one of the richest and most repaying, including, finally, seven large farms with a chapel on each, and being famous for the best wheat grown, and the best flour made in the country. The curious mill in which the flour was ground is still to be seen,--a most interesting ruin. It was run by water brought in a stone-walled ditch for many miles, and driven through a funnel-shaped flume so as to strike the side of a large water-wheel, revolving horizontally on a shaft. The building of this aqueduct and the placing of the wheel were the work of an Indian named Nolberto, who took the idea from the balance-wheel of a watch, and did all the work with his own hands. The walls are broken now; and the sands have so blown in and piled around the entrance, that the old wheel seems buried in a cellar; linnets have builded nests in the dusky corners, and are so seldom disturbed that their bright eyes gaze with placid unconcern at curious intruders.

Many interesting incidents are recorded in connection with the establishment of these first missions. At San Gabriel the Indians gathered in great force, and were about to attack the little band of ten soldiers and two friars preparing to plant their cross; but on the unfurling of a banner with a life-size picture of the Virgin painted on it, they flung away their bows and arrows, came running toward the banner with gestures of reverence and delight, and threw their beads and other ornaments on the ground before it, as at the feet of a suddenly recognized queen.

The San Gabriel Indians seem to have been a superior race. They spoke a soft, musical language, now nearly lost. Their name for G.o.d signified "Giver of Life." They had no belief in a devil or in h.e.l.l, and persisted always in regarding them as concerning only white men.

Robbery was unknown among them, murder was punished by death, and marriage between those near of kin was not allowed. They had names for the points of the compa.s.s, and knew the North Star, calling it Runi.

They had games at which they decked themselves with flower garlands, which wreathed their heads and hung down to their feet. They had certain usages of politeness, such as that a child, bringing water to an elder, must not taste it on the way; and that to pa.s.s between two who were speaking was an offence. They had song contests, often lasting many days, and sometimes handed down to the next generation.

To a people of such customs as these, the symbols, shows, and ceremonies of the Catholic Church must needs have seemed especially beautiful and winning.

The records of the founding of these missions are similar in details, but are full of interest to one in sympathy either with their spiritual or their historical significance. The routine was the same in all cases. A cross was set up; a booth of branches was built; the ground and the booth were consecrated by holy water, and christened by the name of a saint; a ma.s.s was performed; the neighboring Indians, if there were any, were roused and summoned by the ringing of bells swung on limbs of trees; presents of cloth and trinkets were given them to inspire them with trust, and thus a mission was founded. Two monks (never, at first, more) were appointed to take charge of this cross and booth, and to win, baptize, convert, and teach all the Indians to be reached in the region. They had for guard and help a few soldiers, and sometimes a few already partly civilized and Christianized Indians; several head of cattle, some tools and seeds, and holy vessels for the church service, completed their store of weapons, spiritual and secular, offensive and defensive, with which to conquer the wilderness and its savages. There needs no work of the imagination to help this picture. Taken in its sternest realism, it is vivid and thrilling; contrasting the wretched poverty of these single-handed beginnings with the final splendor and riches attained, the result seems wellnigh miraculous.

From the rough booth of boughs and reeds of 1770 to the pillars, arched corridors, and domes of the stately stone churches of a half-century later, is a change only a degree less wonderful than the change in the Indian, from the naked savage with his one stone tool, grinding acorn-meal in a rock bowl, to the industrious tiller of soil, weaver of cloth, worker in metals, and singer of sacred hymns. The steps of this change were slow at first. In 1772, at the end of five years' work, five missions had been founded, and four hundred and ninety-one Indians baptized. There were then, in these five missions, but nineteen friars and sixty soldiers. In 1786, La Perouse, a French naval commander, who voyaged along the California coast, leaves it on record that there were but two hundred and eighty-two soldiers, and about one hundred officers and friars, all told, in both Upper and Lower California, from Cape Saint Lucas to San Francisco, a line of eight hundred leagues. At this time there were five thousand one hundred and forty-three Indians, in the missions of Upper California alone. In the year 1800 there were, at the mission of San Diego, fifteen hundred and twenty-one Indians; and the San Diego garrison, three miles away from the mission, numbered only one hundred and sixty-seven souls,--officers, soldiers, servants, women, and children.

Such figures as these seem sufficient refutation of the idea sometimes advanced, that the Indians were converted by force and held in subjection by terror. There is still preserved, in the archives of the Franciscan College at Santa Barbara, a letter written by Father Junipero to the Viceroy of Mexico, in 1776, imploring him to send a force of eighty soldiers to be divided among seven missions. He patiently explains that the friars, stationed by twos, at new missions, from sixty to a hundred miles distant from each other, cannot be expected to feel safe without a reasonable military protection; and he asks pertinently what defence could be made, "in case the enemy should tempt the Gentiles to attack us." That there was so little active hostility on the part of the savage tribes, that they looked so kindly as they did to the ways and restraints of the new life, is the strongest possible proof that the methods of the friars in dealing with them must have been both wise and humane.

During the first six years there was but one serious outbreak,--that at San Diego. No retaliation was shown toward the Indians for this; on the contrary, the orders of both friars and military commanders were that they should be treated with even greater kindness than before; and in less than two years the mission buildings were rebuilt, under a guard of only a half-score of soldiers with hundreds of Indians looking on, and many helping cheerfully in the work. The San Carlos Mission at Monterey was Father Junipero's own charge. There he spent all his time, when not called away by his duties as president of the missions. There he died, and there he was buried. There, also, his beloved friend and brother, Father Crespi, labored by his side for thirteen years. Crespi was a sanguine, joyous man, sometimes called El Beato, from his happy temperament. No doubt his gayety made Serra's sunshine in many a dark day; and grief at his death did much to break down the splendid old man's courage and strength. Only a few months before it occurred, they had gone together for a short visit to their comrade, Father Palon, at the San Francisco Mission. When they took leave of him, Crespi said, "Farewell forever; you will see me no more."

This was late in the autumn of 1781, and on New Year's Day, 1782, he died, aged sixty years, and having spent half of those years in laboring for the Indians. Serra lived only two years longer, and is said never to have been afterwards the same as before. For many years he had been a great sufferer from an affection of the heart,--aggravated, if not induced, by his fierce beatings of his breast with a stone while he was preaching. But physical pain seemed to make no impression on his mind. If it did not incapacitate him for action, he held it of no account. Only the year before his death, being then seventy years old, and very lame, he had journeyed on foot from San Diego to Monterey, visiting every mission and turning aside into all the Indian settlements on the way. At this time there were on the Santa Barbara coast alone, within a s.p.a.ce of eighty miles, twenty-one villages of Indians, roughly estimated as containing between twenty and thirty thousand souls. He is said to have gone weeping from village to village because he could do nothing for them.

He reached San Carlos in January, 1784, and never again went away. The story of his last hours and death is in the old church records of Monterey, written there by the hand of the sorrowing Palon, the second day after he had closed his friend's eyes. It is a quaint and touching narrative.

Up to the day before his death, his indomitable will upholding the failing strength of his dying body, Father Junipero had read in the church the canonical offices of each day, a service requiring an hour and a half of time. The evening before his death he walked alone to the church to receive the last sacrament. The church was crowded to overflowing with Indians and whites, many crying aloud in uncontrollable grief.

Father Junipero knelt before the altar with great fervor of manner, while Father Palon, with tears rolling down his cheeks, read the services for the dying, gave him absolution, and administered the Holy Viatic.u.m. Then rose from choked and tremulous voices the strains of the grand hymn "Tantum Ergo,"--

"Tantum ergo Sacramentum Veneremur cernui, Et antiquum doc.u.mentum Novo cedat ritui; Praestet fides supplementum Sensuum defectui.

"Genitori genitoque Laus et jubilatio, Salus, honor, virtus quoque Sit et benedictio; Procedenti ab utroque Compar sit laudatio."

A startled thrill ran through the church as Father Junipero's own voice, "high and strong as ever," says the record, joined in the hymn. One by one the voices of his people broke down, stifled by sobs, until at last the dying man's voice, almost alone, finished the hymn.

After this he gave thanks, and returning to his cell-like room spent the whole of the night in listening to penitential psalms and litanies, and giving thanks to G.o.d; all the time kneeling or sitting on the ground supported by the loving and faithful Palon. In the morning, early, he asked for the plenary indulgence, for which he again knelt, and confessed again. At noon the chaplain and the captain of the bark "St. Joseph," then lying in port at Monterey, came to visit him. He welcomed them, and cordially embracing the chaplain, said, "You have come just in time to cast the earth upon my body."

After they took their leave, he asked Palon to read to him again the Recommendations of the Soul. At its conclusion he responded earnestly, in as clear voice as in health, adding, "Thank G.o.d, I am now without fear." Then with a firm step he walked to the kitchen, saying that he would like a cup of broth. As soon as he had taken the broth, he exclaimed, "I feel better now; I will rest;" and lying down he closed his eyes, and without another word or sign of struggle or pain ceased to breathe, entering indeed into a rest of which his last word had been solemnly prophetic.

Ever since morning the grief-stricken people had been waiting and listening for the tolling death-bell to announce that all was over. At its first note they came in crowds, breathless, weeping, and lamenting. It was with great difficulty that the soldiers could keep them from tearing Father Junipero's habit piecemeal from his body, so ardent was their desire to possess some relic of him. The corpse was laid at once in a coffin which he himself had ordered made many weeks before. The vessels in port fired a salute of one hundred and one guns, answered by the same from the guns of the presidio at Monterey,--an honor given to no one below the rank of general. But the hundred gun salutes were a paltry honor in comparison with the tears of the Indian congregation. Soldiers kept watch around his coffin night and day till the burial; but they could not hold back the throngs of the poor creatures who pressed to touch the hand of the father they had so much loved, and to bear away something, if only a thread, of the garments he had worn.

His ardent and impa.s.sioned nature and his untiring labors had won their deepest affection and confidence. It was his habit when at San Carlos to spend all his time with them, working by their side in the fields, making adobe, digging, tilling, doing, in short, all that he required of them. Day after day he thus labored, only desisting at the hours for performing offices in the church. Whenever an Indian came to address him, he made the sign of the cross on his forehead, and spoke to him some words of spiritual injunction or benediction. The arbitrariness--or, as some of his enemies called it, haughty self-will--which brought Serra at times into conflict with the military authorities when their purposes or views clashed with his own, never came to the surface in his spiritual functions, or in his relation with the Indian converts. He loved them, and yearned over them as brands to be s.n.a.t.c.hed from the burning. He had baptized over one thousand of them with his own hands; his whole life he spent for them, and was ready at any moment to lay it down if that would have benefited them more. Absolute single-heartedness like this is never misunderstood by, and never antagonizes equally single-hearted people, either high or low. But to be absolutely single-hearted in a moral purpose is almost inevitably to be doggedly one-ideaed in regard to practical methods; and the single-hearted, one-ideaed man, with a great moral purpose, is sure to be often at swords' points with average men of selfish interests and mixed notions. This is the explanation of the fact that the later years of Serra's life were marred by occasional collisions with the military authorities in the country. No doubt the impetuosity of his nature made him sometimes hot in resentment and indiscreet of speech. But in spite of these failings, he yet remains the foremost, grandest figure in the missions' history. If his successors in their administration had been equal to him in spirituality, enthusiasm, and intellect, the mission establishments would never have been so utterly overthrown and ruined.

Father Junipero sleeps on the spot where he labored and died. His grave is under the ruins of the beautiful stone church of his mission,--the church which he saw only in ardent and longing fancy.

It was perhaps the most beautiful, though not the grandest of the mission churches; and its ruins have to-day a charm far exceeding all the others. The fine yellow tint of the stone, the grand and unique contour of the arches, the beautiful star-shaped window in the front, the simple yet effective lines of carving on pilaster and pillar and doorway, the symmetrical Moorish tower and dome, the worn steps leading up to the belfry,--all make a picture whose beauty, apart from hallowing a.s.sociations, is enough to hold one spell-bound. Reverent Nature has rebuilt with gra.s.s and blossoms even the crumbling window-sills, across which the wind blows free from the blue ocean just beyond; and on the day we saw the place, golden wheat, fresh reaped, was piled in loose mounds on the south slope below the church's southern wall. It reminded me of the tales I had heard from many aged men and women of a beautiful custom the Indians had of scattering their choicest grains on the ground at the friars' feet, as a token of homage.

The roof of the church long ago fell in; its doors have stood open for years; and the fierce sea-gales have been sweeping in, piling sands until a great part of the floor is covered with solid earth on which every summer gra.s.ses and weeds grow high enough to be cut by sickles.

Of the thousands of acres which the Mission Indians once cultivated in the San Carlos valley, only nine were finally decreed by the United States Government to belong to the church. These were so carelessly surveyed that no avenue of approach was left open to the mission buildings, and a part of the land had to be sold to buy a right of way to the church. The remnant left makes a little farm, by the rental of which a man can be hired to take charge of the whole place, and keep it, if possible, from further desecration and ruin. The present keeper is a devout Portuguese, whose broken English becomes eloquent as he speaks of the old friars whose graves he guards.

"Dem work for civilize," he said, "not work for money. Dey work to religion."

In clearing away the earth at the altar end of the church, in the winter of 1882, this man came upon stone slabs evidently covering graves. On opening one of these graves, it was found to hold three coffins. From the minute description, in the old records, of Father Junipero's place of burial, Father Carenova, the priest now in charge of the Monterey parish, became convinced that one of these coffins must be his. On the opposite side of the church is another grave, where are buried two of the earliest governors of California.

It is a disgrace to both the Catholic Church and the State of California that this grand old ruin, with its sacred sepulchres, should be left to crumble away. If nothing is done to protect and save it, one short hundred years more will see it a shapeless, wind-swept mound of sand. It is not in our power to confer honor or bring dishonor on the ill.u.s.trious dead. We ourselves, alone, are dishonored when we fail in reverence to them. The grave of Junipero Serra may be buried centuries deep, and its very place forgotten; yet his name will not perish, nor his fame suffer. But for the men of the country whose civilization he founded, and of the Church whose faith he so glorified, to permit his burial-place to sink into oblivion, is a shame indeed!

II.

If the little grief-stricken band of monks who stood weeping around Junipero Serra's grave in 1784 could have foreseen the events of the next thirty years, their weeping would have been turned into exultant joy; but not the most daring enthusiast among them could have dreamed of the harvest of power destined to be raised from the seed thus sown in weakness.

Almost with his dying breath Father Junipero had promised to use "all his influence with G.o.d" in behalf of the missions. In the course of the next four months after his death more converts were baptized than in the whole three years previous; and it became at once the common belief that his soul had pa.s.sed directly into heaven, and that this great wave of conversions was the result of his prayers. Prosperity continued steadily to increase. Mission after mission was successfully founded, until, in 1804, the occupation of the sea-coast line from San Francisco to San Diego was complete, there being nineteen mission establishments only an easy day's journey apart from each other.