Carmel-by-the-Sea was California's representative at the celebration
which Spain did not fail to hold in honor of her illustrious son;
and Mr. Powers indeed proved a worthy representative, returning to
California with renewed enthusiasm for the saintly Serra, and his
lectures have been listened to with keen delight. And can any praise
seem superfluous for California's apostles in particular for the saintly
Serra? At the civil exercises, held in Monterey on the occasion of the
celebration we are speaking of, Senator Reginaldo del Valle, of Los
Angeles, Mr. Michael Williams and Mr. Charles Phillips of San Francisco
each paid exquisite tributes to our hero whom the opening lines of Mr.
Phillips' beautiful ode described as:

"A young boy dreaming by the Spanish main:
Knee-high in waving grain
He halts at eve and dreams,
Where green Majorca fronts the cycling sea,
And far worlds ceaselessly
Beckon with passing sail and swinging tide,
And plunging galleons ride
Home from adventure, or away, away
To silken bright Cathay,
Or where dark India her golden treasure yields;
A young boy dreaming in his father's fields,
Who plucks a lily from the bending wheat
And stands with veiled gaze and searching eyes
Pale with some great emprise,
Beyond the homing waters of his isle,
Beyond Majorca's skies;--
And dreams and dreams the while!"

"And they who love him wonderingly ask:
"What lad is this of ours
Who dreams away the hours,
And when the windy night-tide running sings,
So strangely seems
Converse to hold with far compelling things?
Or what these spirit-smiling ecstasies,"
They reverent cry,
"That halt him at his task
And hold him tranced in bright reveries?
Is this our lad, indeed,
Who with such Heaven-given grace--
Ay, with the light of Heaven on his face!--
Makes question of the very world about?"

One of the sweetest features of this day was that hereafter by a
decree of Governor Hiram Johnson, who also did not fail to send a
representative to Monterey in the person of Judge Griffin, November
the twenty-fourth was declared a state holiday. May Serra day long
be welcomed by loyal Californians! We cannot close this chapter after
speaking of the bright constellation of the past which appeared