The California Birthday Book Part 20

Thou mystic one! Thou prophet h.o.a.r!

Thy teachings quicken--man's shall fade.

Ere man was dust thou wert before; Thy bosom for his resting place was made.

And when thou tak'st in thy embrace And hold'st me up against the sky And Earth's fair 'broideries I trace-- All girdled in by circling bands that tie Unto her side my destiny-- Then unto me thou dost make clear Why with Life's essence here I'm thrilled.

Then all thy prophecies I hear, And in my being feel them all fulfilled.

And as the narrow rim of eye Contains the vast and all-encircling sky.

So in the confines of the soul The undulating universe may roll.

And out in s.p.a.ce, my soul set free, I turn an astral forged key Which opes the door 'twixt G.o.d and me, I hear the secrets of Eternity!

In Immortality I trust, Believing that the cosmic dust-- Alike in man and skies star-sown-- Is pollen from the Amaranth blown.

LANNIE HAYNES MARTIN.

Pause upon the gentle hillside, view San Carlos by the sea 'Gainst pale light a shape Morisco wrought in faded tapestry.

'Neath Mt. Carmel's brooding shadow, peaceful lies the storied pile, And the white-barred river near it sings a requiem all the while.

Where were roofs of tiles or thatches, roughest mounds mark every side, And where once the busy courtyard searching winds find crevice wide.

AMELIA WOODWARD TRUESDELL, in _A California Pilgrimage._

JUNE 1.

In fifteen years the Mission of San Juan Bautista had erected one of the most beautiful and ornate chapels in Alta California, which, together with the necessary buildings for the padres, living rooms and dormitories for the neophytes, storehouses and corrals for the grain and cattle, formed three sides of a patio two hundred feet square, with the corrals leading away beyond. The Indians, with only a few teachers and helpers, had done all this work.

MRS. A.S.C. FORBES, in _Mission Tales in the Days of the Dons._

JUNE 2.

From his (the Indian's) point of view there is perhaps love; even, it may be, romance. Much depends upon the standpoint one takes. The hills that look high from the valley, seem low looking down from the mountain. * * * For the world over, under white skin or skin of bronze-brown, the human heart throbs the same; for we are brothers--aye, brothers all!

IDAH MEACHAM STROBRIDGE, in _Loom of the Desert._

We had seen the spire of the Episcopal Church, which forms so pleasing a feature in the bosom of the valley, pale and fade from sight; the lofty walls of the old Mission of San Gabriel were no longer visible Suddenly from out the silence and gathering shades fell upon our ears a chime so musical and sweet, so spiritually clear and delicate, that had honest John Bunyan heard it he might well have deemed himself arrived at the land of Beulah. * * * It was the hour of vespers at the Old Mission.

BEN C. TRUMAN, in _Semi-Tropical California._

JUNE 3.

The Mission San Gabriel and its quadrangle of buildings made a beautiful picture. It nestled against distant hills, and neither stood out from the dim background nor entirely melted within it. It attracted the eye--this pink, yellow-gray of the little stone church crowned with dull-reddish tile, and supported by a bulwark of quaint b.u.t.tresses. The picture was perfect--but since then the chill hands of both temblor and tempest have touched rudely the charm and blighted the pride of all of the California Missions--San Gabriel Archangel.

MRS. A.S.C. FORBES, in _Mission Tales in the Days of the Dons._

JUNE 4.

Obey my word, O Ten-ie-ya, and your people shall be many as the blades of gra.s.s, and none shall dare to bring war unto Ah-wah-nee. But look you ever, my son, against the white hors.e.m.e.n of the great plains beyond, for once they have crossed the western mountains, your tribe will scatter as the dust before the desert wind, and never come together again.

BERTHA H. SMITH, in _Yosemite Legends._

San Juan, Aunt Phoebe, is one of the places where there is an old Mission. People in this country (California) think a great deal of them. I've remarked to Ephraim, "Many's the time," says I, "that the Missions seem to do more real good than the churches. They get hold of the people better, somehow. I'll be real glad to set me down in one, and I do hope they'll have some real lively hymns to kind of cheer us up."

ALBERTA LAWRENCE, in _The Travels of Phoebe Ann._

JUNE 5.

In proper California fashion we made our nooning by the roadside, pulling up under the shade of a hospitable sycamore and turning Sorreltop out to graze. We drew water from a traveling little river close at hand, made a bit of camp-fire with dry sticks that lay about, and in half an hour were partaking of chops and potatoes and tea to the great comfort of our physical nature.

CHARLES FRANCIS SAUNDERS, in _A Pala Pilgrimage, The Travel Magazine._

JUNE 6.

Yellow-white the Mission gleamed like an opal in a setting of velvety ranges under turquoise skies. About its walls were the cl.u.s.tered adobes of the Mexicans, like children creeping close to the feet of the one mother; and beyond that the illimitable ranges of mesa and valley, of live-oak groves and knee-deep meadows, of countless springs and canyons of mystery, whence gold was washed in the freshets; and over all, eloquent, insistent, appealing, the note of the meadow-lark cutting clearly through the hoof-beats of the herd and the calls of the vaqueros.

MARAH ELLIS RYAN, in _For the Soul of Rafael._

The missions should be thought of today as they were at their best, when, after thirty years of struggle and hardship, they had attained the height of their usefulness, which was followed by thirty years of increase and prosperity, material as well as spiritual--the proud outcome of so humble a beginning--before their final pa.s.sing away.

CHARLES FRANKLIN CARTER, in _The Missions of Nueva California._

JUNE 7.

Already the Emperor has given to us many fine paintings, vestments and a chime of sweetest bells. How we long to hear them calling out over the sea of vast silence, turning the white quiet into coral hues of deeper thrill! The church bells singing to the people of Al-lak-shak, recall the wandering Padres' labors among your thousands here in California. Those who cannot understand the great words of the teachers may look upon the beauteous pictures of the Madonna and the Child; all can understand that love.