X.



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