sometimes a few 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 with which to conquer the wilderness and, its savages.

There needs no work of the imagination to help this picture. Taken in the 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 well-nigh miraculous.

-HELEN HUNT JACKSON.

"COME TO ME"

(Matthew xi. 28-30)

Oh, hear the Master's voice, all you oppressed!
"Come to Me, child, and I will give you rest;
Take up My yoke upon you - it is sweet,
And lay your heavy burdens at My feet.

"I will refresh you, free you from all pain,

You that labor hard with scarred hands and brain.
Come to your Father, with your cares and grief,
Rest on My loving Heart - there find relief!"

- HENRY COYLE.

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 laboring for the Indians.

Serra lived only two years longer, and is said never to have been afterward the same as before. For many years he had been a great sufferer from an affection

SAN DIEGO MISSION.

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 space 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

Viaticum. Then rose from choked and tremulous voices the strains of the grand hymn "Tantum Ergo."

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 God; 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 God, 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