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.