lifornia, think, one and the
same. The pueblo of San Jose is now the modern city of that name, the
home of the State Normal School, and the starting-point for Mount
Hamilton. But Mission San Jose is a small settlement, nearly twenty
miles east and north, in the foothills overlooking the southeast end of
San Francisco Bay. The Mission church has entirely disappeared, an
earthquake in 1868 having completed the ruin begun by the spoliation at
the time of secularization. A modern parish church has since been built
upon the site. Nothing of the original Mission now remains except a
portion of the monastery. The corridor is without arches, and is plain
and unpretentious, the roof being composed of willows tied to the
roughly hewn log rafters with rawhide. Behind this is a beautiful old
alameda of olives, at the upper end of which a modern orphanage,
conducted by the Dominican Sisters, has been erected. This avenue of
olives is crossed by another one at right angles, and both were planted
by the padres in the early days, as is evidenced by the age of the
trees. Doubtless many a procession of Indian neophytes has walked up and
down here, even as I saw a procession of the orphans and their
white-garbed guardians a short time ago. The surrounding garden is kept
up in as good style under the care of the sisters as it was in early
days by the padres.

The orphanage was erected in 1884 by Archbishop Alemany as a seminary
for young men who wished to study for the priesthood, but it was never
very successful in this work. For awhile it remained empty, then was
offered to the Dominican Sisters as a boarding-school. But as this
undertaking did not pay, in 1891 Archbishop Riordan offered such terms
as led the Mother General of the Dominican Sisters to purchase it as an
orphanage, and as such it is now most successfully conducted. There are
at the present time about eighty children cared for by these sweet and
gentle sisters of our Lord.

Two of the old Mission bells are hung in the new church. On one of these
is the inscription: "S.S. Jose. Ano de 1826." And on the upper bell,
"S.S. Joseph 1815, Ave Maria Purisima."

The old Mission baptismal font is also still in use. It is of hammered
copper, about three feet in diameter, surmounted by an iron cross about
eight inches high. The font stands upon a wooden base, painted, and is
about four feet high.

CHAPTER XXIV

SAN JUAN BAUTISTA

The second of the "filling up the links of t