Though Junipero's subordinates had thus done without him in these important developments at San Francisco and Santa Clara, he still resolved to go north, both to visit the new foundations and to inspect for himself the marvellous country of which he had heard much, but which he had not yet seen. As usual, he was long detained by urgent affairs, and it was not till autumn that he succeeded in breaking away. He made a short stay at Santa Clara, and then pushed on to San Francisco, which he reached in time to say mass on St. Francis' day. After a ten days' rest, he crossed to the presidio and feasted his eyes on the glorious vision of the Golden Gate—a sight which once seen is never to be forgotten. "Thanks be to God!" he cried, in rapture (these, says Palou, were the words most frequently on his lips); "now our Father St. Francis, with the Holy Cross of the procession of missions, has reached the ultimate end of this continent of California. To go further ships will be required!" Yet his joy was tempered with the thought that the eight missions already founded were very far apart, and that much labour would be necessary to fill up the gaps.
It was thus with the feeling that, while something had been done, far more was left to do, that the padre returned to his own special charge at San Carlos. Various circumstances in combination had caused the postponement, year after year, of that third mission, which, according to original intentions, was to have followed immediately upon the establishments at San Diego and Monterey. Three new settlements were now projected on the Santa Barbara Channel, and the first of these was to be the mission of San Buenaventura. It was not until 1782, however, that the long-delayed purpose was at length accomplished. The site chosen was at the southeastern extremity of the channel, and close to an Indian village, or ranchería to which Portalà's expedition in 1769 had given the name of Ascencion de Nuestra Señora, or, briefly, Assumpta. A little later on, in pursuance of the same plan, the then governor, Filipe de Neve, took formal possession of a spot some ten leagues distant, and there began the construction of the presidio of Santa Barbara. It was Junipero's earnest desire to proceed at once with the adjoining mission. But the governor, for reasons of his own, threw obstacles in the way, and in the end this fresh undertaking was left to other hands.
For we have now come to the close of Father Junipero's long and strenuous career; and as we look back over the record of it, our wonder is, not that he should have died when he did, but rather that he had not killed himself many years before. His is surely one of those cases in which supreme spiritual power and sheer force of will triumph over an accumulation of bodily ills. Far from robust of constitution, he had never given himself consideration or repose, forcing himself to exertions which it would have appeared utterly impossible that his frame could bear, and adding to the constant strain of his labours and travels the hardships of self-inflicted tortures of a severe ascetic régime. He had always been much troubled by the old ulcer on his leg, though this, no matter how painful, he never regarded save when it actually incapacitated him for work; and for many years he had suffered from a serious affection of the heart, which had been greatly aggravated, even if it was not in the first instance caused, by his habit of beating himself violently on his chest with a huge stone, at the conclusion of his sermons—to the natural horror of his hearers, who, it is said, were often alarmed lest he should drop dead before their eyes. The fatal issue of such practices could only be a question of time. At length, mental anxiety and sorrow added their weight to his burden—particularly disappointment at the slow progress of his enterprise, and grief over the death of his fellow-countryman and close friend, Father Crespì, who passed to his well-earned rest on New Year's Day, 1782. After this loss, it is recorded, he was never the same man again, though he held so tenaciously to his duties, that only a year before the call came to him, being then over seventy, he limped from San Diego to Monterey, visiting his missions, and weeping over the outlying Indian rancherìas, because he was powerless to help the unconverted dwellers in them. He died at San Carlos, tenderly nursed to the end by the faithful Palou, on the 28th August, 1784; and his passing was so peaceful that those watching thought him asleep. On hearing the mission bells toll for his death, the whole population, knowing well what had occurred, burst into tears; and when, clothed in the simple habit of his order, his body was laid out in his cell, the native neophytes crowded in with flowers, while the Spanish soldiers and sailors pressed round in the hope of being blessed by momentary contact with his corpse. He was laid beneath the mission altar beside his beloved friend Crespì; but when, in after years, a new church was built, the remains of both were removed and placed within it.
It is not altogether easy to measure such a man as Junipero Serra by our ordinary modern standards of character and conduct. He was essentially a religious enthusiast, and as a religious enthusiast he must be judged. To us who read his story from a distance, who breathe an atmosphere totally different from his, and whose lives are governed by quite other passions and ideals, he may often appear one-sided, extravagant, deficient in tact and forethought, and, in the excess of his zeal, too ready to sacrifice everything to the purposes he never for an instant allowed to drop out of his sight. We may even, with some of his critics, protest that he was not a man of powerful intellect; that his views of people and things were distressingly narrow; that, after his kind, he was extremely superstitious; that he was despotic in his dealings with his converts, and stiffnecked in his relations with the civil and military authorities. For all this is doubtless true. But all this must not prevent us from seeing him as he actually was—charitable, large-hearted, energetic, indomitable; in all respects a remarkable, in many ways, a really wise and great man. At whatever points he may fall short of our criteria, this much must be said of him, that he was fired throughout with the high spirit of his vocation, that he was punctual in the performance of duty as he understood it, that he was obedient to the most rigorous dictates of that Gospel which he had set himself to preach. In absolute, single-hearted, unflinching, and tireless devotion to the task of his life—the salvation of heathen souls—he spent himself freely and cheerfully, a true follower of that noblest and most engaging of the mediaeval saints, whose law he had laid upon himself, and whom he looked up to as his guide and examplar. Let us place him where he belongs—among the transcendent apostolic figures of his own church; for thus alone shall we do justice to his personality, his objects, his career. The memory of such a man will survive all changes in creeds and ideals; and the great state, of which he was the first pioneer, will do honour to herself in honouring him.
After Junipero's death the supervision of the missions devolved for a time upon Palou, under whose management, owing to difficulties with the civil powers, no new foundations were undertaken, though satisfactory progress was made in those already existing. In 1786, Palou was appointed head of the College of San Fernando, and his place as mission president was filled by Father Firmin Francisco de Lasuen, by whom the mission of Santa Barbara was dedicated, on the festival day of that virgin-martyr, before the close of the year6. Just twelve months later, the third channel settlement was started, with the performance of the usual rites, on the spot fixed for the Mission of La Purisima Concepcion, at the western extremity of the bay; though some months passed before real work there was begun. Thus the proposed scheme, elaborated before Junipero's death, for the occupation of that portion of the coast, was at length successfully carried out.
Hardly had this been accomplished before the viceroy and governor, having resolved upon a further extension of the mission system, sent orders to Father Lasuen to proceed with two fresh settlements, one of which was to be dedicated to the Holy Cross, the other to Our Lady of Solitude. Time was, as usual, consumed in making the necessary preparations, and the two missions were finally founded within a few weeks of each other—on the 28th of August and the 9th of October, 1791, respectively. The site selected for the Mission of Santa Cruz was in the neighborhood already known by that name, and near the San Lorenzo River; that of Nuestra Señora de la Soledad, on the west side of the Salinas River, in the vicinity of the present town of Soledad, and about thirty miles from Monterey.
A glance at the map of California will help us to understand the policy which had dictated the creation of the four missions founded since Junipero's death. The enormous stretch of country between San Francisco and San Diego, the northern and southern extremes of evangelical enterprise, was as yet quite insufficiently occupied, and these new settlements had been started with the object of to some extent filling up the vast vacant spaces still left among those already existing. For the efficient performance of missionary work something more was needed than a number of separate establishments, no matter how well managed and successful these in themselves might be. Systematic organization was essential; for this it was requisite that the various missions should be brought, by proximity, into vital relations with one another, that communication might be kept up, companionship enjoyed, and, in case of need, advice given and assistance rendered. The foundations of Santa Barbara, La Purisima, Santa Cruz and Soledad, had done something, as will be seen, towards the ultimate drawing together of the scattered outposts of church and civilization. But with them a beginning had only been made. Further developments of the same general plan which aimed, it will be understood, not alone at the spiritual conquest, but also at the proper control of the new kingdom—were now taken under consideration. And, as a result, five fresh missions were presently resolved upon. One of these was to be situated between San Francisco and Santa Clara; the second, between Santa Clara and Monterey; the third, between San Antonio and San Luis Obispo; the fourth, between San Buenaventura and San Gabriel; and the fifth, between San Juan Capistrano and San Diego. The importance of these proposed settlements as connecting links will be at once apparent, if we observe that by reason of their carefully chosen locations they served, as it were, to put the older missions into actual touch. When at length the preliminary arrangements had been made, no time was wasted in the carrying out of the programme, and in a little over a year, all five missions were in operation. The mission San Jose (a rather tardy recognition to the patron-saint of the whole undertaking), was founded on the 11th June, 1797; San Juan Bautista thirteen days later; San Miguel Arcángel on the 25th July, and San Fernando Rey de España on the 8th September of the same year; and San Luis Rey de Francia (commonly called San Luis Rey to distinguish it from San Luis Obispo), on the 13th of the July following. The delay which had not at all been anticipated in the establishment of this last-named mission, was due to some difficulties in regard to site. With this ended—so far as fresh foundations were concerned—the pious labours of Lasuen as padre-presidente. He now returned to San Carlos to devote himself during the remainder of his life to the arduous duties of supervision and administration. There he died, in 1803, aged eighty-three years.
His successor, Father Estevan Tapis, fourth president of the Upper California missions, signalized his elevation to office by adding a nineteenth to the establishments under his charge. Founded on the 17th September, 1804, on a spot, eighteen miles from La Purisima and twenty-two from Santa Barbara, to which Lasuen had already directed attention, this was dedicated to the virgin-martyr, Santa Inez. It was felt that a settlement somewhere in this region was still needed for the completion of the mission system, since without it, a gap was left in the line between the two missions first-named, which were some forty miles apart. With the planting of Santa Inez thorough spiritual occupation may be said to have been accomplished over the entire area between San Francisco and San Diego, and from the Coast Range to the ocean. The nineteen missions had been so distributed over the vast country, that the Indians scattered through it could everywhere be reached; while the distance from mission to mission had, at the same time, been so reduced that it was in no case too great to be easily covered in a single day's journey. The fathers of each establishment could thus hold frequent intercourse with their next neighbors, and occasional travelers moving to and fro on business could from day to day be certain of finding a place for refreshment and repose7.
Santa Inez carries us for the first time over into the nineteenth century, and its establishment may in a sense be regarded as marking the term of the period of expansion in California mission history. A pause of more than a decade ensued, during which no effort was made towards the further spread of the general system; and then, with the planting of two relatively unimportant settlements in a district thentofore unoccupied the tally was brought to a close.
The missions which thus represented a slight and temporary revival of the old spirit of enterprise, were those of San Rafael Arcángel and San Francisco Solano. The former, located near Mount Tamalpais, between San Francisco de Assis and the Russian military station at Fort Ross, dates from the 17th December, 1817; the latter, situated still further north, in the Sonoma Valley, from the 4th July, 1823. Some little uncertainty exists as to the true reasons and purposes of their foundation. The commonly accepted version of the story connects them directly with problems which arose out of the course of affairs at San Francisco. In 1817 a most serious epidemic caused great mortality among the Indians there; a panic seemed inevitable; and on the advice of Lieutenant Sola, a number of the sick neophytes were removed by the padres to the other side of the bay. The change of climate proved highly beneficial; the region of Mount Tamalpais was found singularly attractive; and a decision to start a branch establishment, or asistencia, of the mission at San Francisco was a natural result. The patronage of San Rafael was selected in the hope that, as the name itself expresses the "healing of God," that "most glorious prince" might be induced to care "for bodies as well as souls." While considerable success attended this new venture, the condition of things at San Francisco, on the other hand, continued anything but satisfactory; and a proposal based on these two facts was presently made, that the old mission should be removed entirely from the peninsula, and refounded in a more favorable locality somewhere in the healthy and fertile country beyond San Rafael. It was thus that the name of San Francisco got attached from the outset to the new settlement at Sonoma; and when later on (the old mission being left in its place) this was made into an independent mission, the name was retained, though the dedication was transferred, appropriately enough, from St. Francis of Assisi to that other St. Francis who figures in the records as "the great apostle of the Indies."
Such is the simpler explanation of the way in which the last two missions came to be established. It has, however, been suggested that, while all this may be true as far as it goes, other causes were at work of a subtler character than those specified, and that these causes were involved in the development of political affairs. It will have been noted that, though the threatened encroachments of the Russians had been one of the chief reasons for this Spanish occupation of Alta California, there had hitherto been no attempt to meet their possible advances in the very regions where they were most to be expected—that is, in the country north of San Francisco. In course of time, however, always with the ostensible purpose of hunting the seal and the otter, the Russians were found to be creeping further and further south; and at length, under instructions from St. Petersburg, they took possession of the region of Bodega Bay, establishing there a trading post of their Fur Company, and a strong military station which they called Fort Ross. As this settlement was on the coast, and only sixty-five miles, as the crow flies, from San Francisco, it will be seen that the Spanish authorities had some genuine cause for alarm. And the mission movement north of San Francisco is considered by some writers to have been initiated, less from spiritual motives, than from the dread of continued Russian aggression, and the hope of raising at least a slight barrier against it. However this may be, the two missions were never employed for defensive purposes; nor is it very clear that they could have been made of much practical service in case of actual need.
Such, in briefest outline, is the story of the planting of the twenty-one missions of Alta California. This story, as we have seen, brings us down to the year 1823. But by this time, as we follow the chronicles, our attention has already begun to be diverted from the forces which still made for growth and success to those which ere long were to co-operate for the complete undoing of the mission system and the ruin of all its work.
Perhaps it was in the nature of things (if one may venture here to employ a phrase too often used out of mere idleness or ignorance) that the undertaking which year by year had been carried forward with so much energy and success, should after a while come to a standstill; and the commonest observation of life will suffice to remind us that when progress ceases, retrogression is almost certain to set in. The immense zeal and unflagging enthusiasm of Junipero Serra and his immediate followers could not be transmitted by any rite or formula to the men upon whose shoulders their responsibilities came presently to rest. Men they were, of course, of widely varying characters and capabilities—some, unfortunately, altogether unworthy both morally and mentally, of their high calling; many, on the contrary, genuine embodiments of the great principles of their order—humane, benevolent, faithful in the discharge of daily duty, patient alike in labour and trial, and careful administrators of the practical affairs which lay within their charge. But without injustice it may be said of them that for the most part they possessed little of the tremendous personal force of their predecessors, and a generous endowment of such personal force was as needful now as it ever had been.
Not unless we wish to emulate Southey's learned friend, who wrote whole volumes of hypothetical history in the subjunctive mood, it is hardly necessary for present purposes to discuss the internal changes which, had the missions been left to themselves, might in the long run have brought about their decay. For as a matter of fact the missions were not left to themselves. The closing chapter of their history, to which we have now to turn, is mainly concerned, not with their spiritual management, or with their success or failure in the work they had been given to do, but with the general movement of political events, and the upheavals which preceded the final conquest of California by the United States.
In considering the attitude of the civil authorities towards the mission system, and their dealings with it, we must remember that the Spanish government had from the first anticipated the gradual transformation of the missions into pueblos and parishes, and with this, the substitution of the regular clergy for the Franciscan padres. This was part of the general plan of colonization, of which the mission settlements were regarded as forming only the beginning. Their work was to bring the heathen into the fold of the church, to subdue them to the conditions of civilization, to instruct them in the arts of peace, and thus to prepare them for citizenship; and this done, it was purposed that they should be straightway removed from the charge of the fathers and placed under civil jurisdiction. No decisive step towards the accomplishment of this design was, however, taken for many years; and meanwhile, the fathers jealously resisted every effort of the government to interfere with their prerogatives. At length, with little comprehension of the nature of the materials out of which citizens were thus to be manufactured, and with quite as little realization of the fact that the paternal methods of education adopted by the padres were calculated, not to train their neophytes to self-government, but to keep them in a state of perpetual tutelage, the Spanish Cortes decreed that all missions which had then been in existence ten years should at once be turned over to bishops, and the Indians attached to them made subject to civil authority. Though promulgated in 1813, this decree was not published in California till 1820, and even then was practically a dead letter. Two years later, California became a province of the Mexican Empire, and in due course the new government turned its attention to the missions, in 1833 ordering their complete secularization. The atrocious mishandling by both Spain and Mexico of the funds by which they had been kept up, and the large demands made later upon them for provisions and money, had by this time made serious inroads upon their resources; notwithstanding which they had faithfully persisted in their work. The new law now dealt them a crushing blow. Ten years of great confusion followed, and then an effort was made to save them from the complete ruin by which they were threatened by a proclamation ordering that the more important of them, twelve in number, should be restored to the padres. Nothing came of this, however; the collapse continued; and in 1846, the sale of the mission buildings was decreed by the Departmental Assembly. When in the August of that year, the American flag was unfurled at Monterey, everything connected with the missions—their lands, their priests, their neophytes, their management—was in a state of seemingly hopeless chaos. Finally General Kearney issued a declaration to the effect that "the missions and their property should remain under the charge of the Catholic priests... until the titles to the lands should be decided by proper authority." But of whatever temporary service this measure may have been, it was of course altogether powerless to breathe fresh life into a system already in the last stages of decay. The mission-buildings were crumbling into ruins. Their lands were neglected; their converts for the most part dead or scattered. The rule of the padres was over. The Spanish missions in Alta California were things of the past.
In these late days of a civilization so different in all its essential elements from that which the Franciscans laboured so strenuously to establish on the Pacific Coast, we may think of the fathers as we will, and pass what judgment we see fit upon their work. But be that what it may, our hearts cannot fail to be touched and stirred by the pitiful story of those true servants of God who, in the hour of ultimate disaster, firmly refused to be separated from their flocks.
Among the ruins of San Luis Obispo, in 1842, De Mofras found the oldest Spanish priest then left in California, who, after sixty years of unremitting toil, was then reduced to such abject poverty that he was forced to sleep on a hide, drink from a horn, and feed upon strips of meat dried in the sun. Yet this faithful creature still continued to share the little he possessed with the children of the few Indians who lingered in the huts about the deserted church; and when efforts were made to induce him to seek some other spot where he might find refuge and rest, his answer was that he meant to die at his post. The same writer has recorded an even more tragic case from the annals of La Soledad. Long after the settlement there had been abandoned, and when the buildings were falling to pieces, an old priest, Father Sarría, still remained to minister to the bodily and physical wants of a handful of wretched natives who yet haunted the neighborhood, and whom he absolutely refused to forsake. One Sunday morning in August, 1833, after his habit, he gathered his neophytes together in what was once the church, and began, according to his custom, the celebration of the mass. But age, suffering, and privation had by this time told fatally upon him. Hardly had he commenced the service, when his strength gave way. He stumbled upon the crumbling altar, and died, literally of starvation, in the arms of those to whom for thirty years he had given freely whatever he had to give. Surely these simple records of Christ-like devotion will live in the tender remembrance of all who revere the faith that, linked with whatever creed, manifests itself in good works, the love that spends itself in service, the quiet heroism that endures to the end.
The California missions, though greatly varying of course in regard to size and economy, were constructed upon the same general plan, in the striking and beautiful style of architecture, roughly known as Moorish, which the fathers transplanted from Spain, but which rather seems by reason of its singular appropriateness, a native growth of the new soil. The edifices which now, whether in ruins or in restoration, still testify to the skill and energy of their pious designers, were in all cases later, in most cases much later, than the settlements themselves. At the outset, a few rude buildings of wood or adobe were deemed sufficient for the temporary accommodation of priests and converts, and the celebration of religious services. Then, little by little, substantial structures in brick or stone took the place of these, and what we now think of as the mission came into being.
The best account left us of the mission establishment in its palmy days is that given by De Mofras in his careful record of travel and exploration along the Pacific Coast; and often quoted as this has been, we still cannot do better here than to translate some portions of it anew. The observant Frenchman wrote with his eye mainly upon what was perhaps the most completely typical of all the missions—that of San Luis Rey. But his description, though containing a number of merely local particulars, was intended to be general; and for this reason may the more properly be reproduced in this place.
"The edifice," he wrote, "is quadrilateral, and about one hundred and fifty metres long in front. The church occupies one of the wings. The façade is ornamented with a gallery [or arcade]. The building, a single storey in height, is generally raised some feet above the ground. The interior forms a court, adorned with flowers and planted with trees. Opening on the gallery which runs round it are the rooms of the monks, majordomos, and travelers, as well as the workshops, schoolrooms, and storehouses. Hospitals for men and women are situated in the quietest parts of the mission, where also are placed the schoolrooms. The young Indian girls occupy apartments called the monastery (el moujerìo), and they themselves are styled nuns (las moujas)... Placed under the care of trustworthy Indian women, they are there taught to spin wool, flax, and cotton, and do no leave their seclusion till they are old enough to be married. The Indian children attend the same school as the children of the white colonists. A certain number of them, chosen from those who exhibit most intelligence, are taught music—plain-chant, violin, flute, horn, violincello, and other instruments. Those who distinguish themselves in the carpenter's shop, at the forge, or in the field, are termed alcaldes, or chiefs, and given charge of a band of workmen. The management of each mission is composed of two monks; the elder looks after internal administration and religious instruction; the younger has direction of agricultural work... For the sake of order and morals, whites are employed only where strictly necessary, for the fathers know their influence to be altogether harmful, and that they lead the Indians to gambling and drunkenness, to which vices they are already too prone. To encourage the natives in their tasks, the fathers themselves often lend a hand, and everywhere furnish an example of industry. Necessity has made them industrious. One is struck with astonishment on observing that, with such meagre resources, often without European workmen or any skilled help, but with the assistance only of savages, always unintelligent and often hostile, they have yet succeeded in executing such works of architecture and engineering as mills, machinery, bridges, roads, and canals for irrigation. For the erection of nearly all the mission buildings it was necessary to bring to the sites chosen, beams cut on mountains eight or ten leagues away, and to teach the Indians to burn lime, cut stone, and make bricks.
"Around the mission," De Mofras continues, "are the huts of the neophytes, and the dwellings of some white colonists. Besides the central establishment, there exists, for a space of thirty or forty leagues, accessory farms to the number of fifteen or twenty, and branch chapels (chapelles succursales). Opposite the mission is a guard-house for an escort, composed of four cavalry soldiers and a sergeant. These act as messengers, carrying orders from one mission to another, and in the earlier days of conquest repelled the savages who would sometimes attack the settlement."
Of the daily life and routine of a mission, accounts of travelers enable us to form a pretty vivid picture; and though doubtless changes of detail might be marked in passing from place to place, the larger and more essential features would be found common to all the establishments.
At sunrise the little community was already astir, and then the Angelus summoned all to the church, where mass was said, and a short time given to the religious instruction of the neophytes. Breakfast followed, composed mainly of the staple dish atole, or pottage of roasted barley. This finished, the Indians repaired in squads, each under the supervision of its alcalde, to their various tasks in workshop and field. Between eleven and twelve o'clock, a wholesome and sufficiently generous midday meal was served out. At two, work was resumed. An hour or so before sunset, the bell again tolled for the Angelus; evening mass was performed; and after supper had been eaten, the day closed with dance, or music, or some simple games of chance. Thus week by week, and month by month, with monotonous regularity, life ran its unbroken course; and what with the labours directly connected with the management of the mission itself, the tending of sheep and cattle in the neighboring ranches, and the care of the gardens and orchards upon which the population was largely dependent for subsistence, there was plenty to occupy the attention of the padres, and quite enough work to be done by the Indians under their charge. But all this does not exhaust the list of mission activities. For in course of time, as existence became more settled, and the children of the early converts shot up into boys and girls, various industries were added to such first necessary occupations, and the natives were taught to work at the forge and the bench, to make saddles and shoes, to weave, and cut, and sew. In these and similar acts, many of them acquired considerable proficiency.
It is pleasant enough to look back upon such a busy yet placid life. But while we may justly acknowledge its antique, pastoral charm, we must guard ourselves against the temptation to idealization. Beautiful in many respects it must have been; but its shadows were long and deep. According to the first principles adopted by the missionaries, the domesticated Indians were held down rigorously in a condition of servile dependence and subjection. They were indeed, as one of the early travelers in California put it, slaves under another name—slaves to the cast-iron power of a system which, like all systems, was capable of unlimited abuse, and which, at the very best, was narrow and arbitrary. Every vestige of freedom was taken from them when they entered, or were brought into, the settlement. Henceforth they belonged, body and soul, to the mission and its authority. Their tasks were assigned to them, their movements controlled, the details of their daily doings dictated, by those who were to all intents and purposes their absolute masters; and corporal punishment was visited freely not only upon those who were guilty of actual misdemeanor, but also upon such as failed in attendance at church, or, when there, did not conduct themselves properly. From time to time some unusually turbulent spirit would rise against such paternal despotism, and break away to his old savage life. But these cases, we are told, were of rare occurrence. The California Indians were for the most part indolent, apathetic, and of low intelligence; and as, under domestication, they were clothed, housed and fed, while the labour demanded from them was rarely excessive, they were wont as a rule to accept the change from the hardships of their former rough existence to the comparative comfort of the mission, if not exactly in a spirit of gratitude, at any rate with a certain brutal contentment.
It does not fall within the scope of this little sketch, in which nothing more has been aimed at than to tell an interesting story in the simplest possible way, to enter into any discussion of a question to which what has just been said might naturally seem to lead—the question, namely, of the results, immediate and remote, of the mission system in California. The widely divergent conclusions on this subject registered by the historians will, on investigation, be found, as in most such cases, to depend quite as much upon bias of mind and preconceived ideals, as upon the bare facts presented, concerning which, one would imagine, there can hardly be much difference of opinion. To decide upon the value of a given social experiment, we must, to begin with, wake up our minds as to what we should wish to see achieved; and where there is no unanimity concerning the object to be reached, there will scarcely be any in respect of the means employed. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that critical judgment upon the Franciscan missionaries and their work has been given here in terms of unqualified laudation, and there in the form of severest disapproval, and that everyone who touches the topic afresh is expected to take sides. In their favor it must, I think, be universally admitted that they wrought always with the highest motives and the noblest intentions, and that their labours were really fruitful of much good among the native tribes. On the other hand, when regarded from the standpoint of secular progress, it seems equally certain that their work was sadly hampered by narrowness of outlook and understanding, and an utter want of appreciation of the demands and conditions of the modern world. Thus while we give them the fullest credit for all that they accomplished by their teachings and example, we have still frankly to acknowledge their failure in the most important and most difficult part of their undertaking—in the task of transforming many thousands of ignorant and degraded savages into self-respecting men and women, fit for the duties and responsibilities of civilization. Yet to put it in this way is to show sharply enough that such failure is not hastily to be set down to their discredit. It is often said, indeed, that they went altogether the wrong way to work for the achievement of the much-desired result; and it is unquestionably true, as La Pérouse long ago pointed out, that they made the fundamental, but with them inevitable mistake, of sacrificing the temporal and material welfare of the natives to the consideration of so-called "heavenly interests." Yet in common fairness we must remember the stuff with which they had to deal. The Indian was by nature a child and a slave; and if, out of children and slaves they did not at once manufacture independent and law-abiding citizens, is it for us, who have not yet exhibited triumphant success in handling the same problem under far more favorable conditions, to cover them with our contempt, or dismiss them with our blame? Civilization is at best a slow and painful affair, as we half-civilized people ought surely to understand by this time—a matter not of individuals and years, but of generations and centuries; and nothing permanent has ever yet been gained by any attempt, how promising soever it may have seemed, to force the natural processes of social evolution. The mission padres bore the cross from point to point along the far-off Pacific coast; they built churches, they founded settlements, they gave their strength to the uplifting of the heathen. Little that was enduring came out of all this toil. Perhaps this was partly because their methods were shortsighted, their means inadequate to the ends proposed. But when we remember that they had set their hands to an almost impossible task, we shall perhaps be inclined rather to acknowledge their partial success, than to deal harshly with them on the score of their manifest failure.
Be all this as it may, however, the missions of California passed away, leaving practically nothing behind them but a memory. Yet this is surely a memory to be cherished by all who feel a pious reverence for the past, and whose hearts are responsive to the sense of tears that there is in mortal things. And alike for those who live beneath the blue skies of California, and for those who wander awhile as visitors among her scenes of wonder and enchantment, the old mission buildings will ever be objects of curious and unique interest. Survivals from a by-gone era, embodiments not only of the purposes of their founders, but of the faith which built the great cathedrals of Europe, they stand pathetic figures in a world to which they do not seem to belong. In the noise and bustle of the civilization which is taking possession of what was once their territory, they have no share. The life about them looks towards the future. They point mutely to the past. A tender sentiment clings about them; in their hushed enclosures we breathe a drowsy old-world atmosphere of peace; to linger within their walls, to muse in their graveyards, is to step out of the noisy present into the silence of departed years. In a land where everything is of yesterday, and whose marvellous natural beauties are but rarely touched with the associations of history or charms of romance, these things have a subtle and peculiar power—a magic not to be resisted by any one who turns aside for an hour or two from the highways of the modern world, to dream among the scenes where the old padres toiled and died. And as in imagination he there calls up the ghostly figures of neophyte and soldier and priest, now busy with the day's task-work, now kneeling at twilight mass in the dimly-lighted chapel; as the murmur of strange voices and the faint music of bell and chant steal in upon his ears; he will hardly fail to realize that, however much or little the Franciscan missionaries accomplished for California, they have passed down to our prosaic after-generation a legacy of poetry, whereof the sweetness will not soon die away.
1 (return)[ In the sequel, it may here be noted, the Franciscans ceded Baja California to the Dominicans, keeping Alta California to themselves.]
2 (return)[ The mission was transferred in 1874 from the location selected by Junipero to a site some two miles distant, up the river.]
3 (return)[ The Diary, furnishing a detailed itinerary of the expedition, is given in full in Palou's noticias de la Nueva California.]
4 (return)[ This is now colloquially known as the Mission Dolores. Its proper title is, however, Mission of San Francisco de Assis. It originally stood on the Laguna de los Dolores (now filled up); and hence its popular name.]
5 (return)[ The site originally chosen lay too low, and from the outset danger of inundation was foreseen. A flood occurred in 1779, and in 1784 the mission was removed to higher ground. The present buildings date from 1825-26.]
6 (return)[ The original adobe church was injured by earthquakes in 1806 and 1812. The present edifice was begun in 1815 and finished in 1820.]
7 (return)[ The table given by the French traveler, De Mofras, in his authoritative Exploration du Territoire de L'Oregon, les Californies, etc., shows us that the distance between mission and mission nowhere exceeded nineteen leagues, and that it was often very much less.]