rs to have been initiated, less
from spiritual motives, than from the dread of continued Russian
aggression, and the hope of raising at least a slight barrier against
it. However this may be, the two missions were never employed for
defensive purposes; nor is it very clear that they could have been made
of much practical service in case of actual need.

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 possessed little of the tremendous personal force
of their predecessors, and a generous endowment of such personal force
was as needful now as it ever had been.

Not unless we wish to emulate Southey's learned friend, who wrote whole
volumes of hypothetical history in the subjunctive mood, it is hardly
necessary for present purposes to discuss the internal changes which,
had the missions been left to themselves, might in the long run have
brought about their decay. For as a matter of fact the missions were not
left to themsel