reer; and as we look back over the record of it, our wonder
is, not that he should have died when he did, but rather that he had not
killed himself many years before. His is surely one of those cases in
which supreme spiritual power and sheer force of will triumph over an
accumulation of bodily ills. Far from robust of constitution, he
had never given himself consideration or repose, forcing himself to
exertions which it would have appeared utterly impossible that his frame
could bear, and adding to the constant strain of his labours and travels
the hardships of self-inflicted tortures of a severe ascetic regime. He
had always been much troubled by the old ulcer on his leg, though
this, no matter how painful, he never regarded save when it actually
incapacitated him for work; and for many years he had suffered from a
serious affection of the heart, which had been greatly aggravated, even
if it was not in the first instance caused, by his habit of beating
himself violently on his chest with a huge stone, at the conclusion of
his sermons--to the natural horror of his hearers, who, it is said,
were often alarmed lest he should drop dead before their eyes. The fatal
issue of such practices could only be a question of time. At length,
mental anxiety and sorrow added their weight to his burden--particularly
disappointment at the slow progress of his enterprise, and grief over
the death of his fellow-countryman and close friend, Father Crespi, who
passed to his well-earned rest on New Year's Day, 1782. After this
loss, it is recorded, he was never the same man again, though he held so
tenaciously to his duties, that only a year before the call came to him,
being then over seventy, he limped from San Diego to Monterey, visiting
his missions, and weeping over the outlying Indian rancherias, because
he was powerless to help the unconverted dwellers in them. He died at
San Carlos, tenderly nursed to the end by the faithful Palou, on the
28th August, 1784; and his passing was so peaceful that those watching
thought him asleep. On hearing the mission bells toll for his death, the
whole population, knowing well what had occurred, burst into tears; and
when, clothed in the simple habit of his order, his body was laid out
in his cell, the native neophytes crowded in with flowers, while the
Spanish soldiers and sailors pressed round in the hope of being blessed
by momentary contact with his corpse. He was laid beneath the mission
altar be