The original _padres_ were almost without exception zealous, devoted to
poverty, uplifted by a fanatic desire to further their cause. The
original Spanish temporal leaders were in general able, energetic,
courageous, and not afraid of work or fearful of disaster.

At the end of that period, however, things began to suffer a change. The
time of pioneering came to an end, and the new age of material
prosperity began. Evils of various sorts crept in. The pioneer priests
were in some instances replaced by men who thought more of the flesh-pot
than of the altar, and whose treatment of the Indians left very much to
be desired. Squabbles arose between the civil and the religious powers.
Envy of the missions' immense holdings undoubtedly had its influence.
The final result of the struggle could not be avoided, and in the end
the complete secularization of the missions took place, and with this
inevitable change the real influence of these religious outposts came to
an end.

Thus before the advent in California of the American as an American, and
not as a traveler or a naturalized citizen, the mission had disappeared
from the land, and the land was inhabited by a race calling itself the
_gente de razón_, in presumed contradistinction to human beasts with no
reasoning powers. Of this period the lay reader finds such conflicting
accounts that he either is bewildered or else boldly indulges his
prejudices. According to one school of writers--mainly those of modern
fiction--California before the advent of the _gringo_ was a sort of
Arcadian paradise, populated by a people who were polite, generous,
pleasure-loving, high-minded, chivalrous, aristocratic, and above all
things romantic. Only with the coming of the loosely sordid, commercial,
and despicable American did this Arcadia fade to the strains of dying
and pathetic music. According to another school of writers--mainly