, golden sheaves,
luxuriant pastures and fleecy lambs, were as the least gifts of these
matchless institutions, for we can never exaggerate the marvels wrought
for the betterment of the heathen natives, or the fairer fruits of the
countless heroic virtues practiced within these enclosures. The Indians
clung to the Fathers like little children to their parents, and from the
vices of paganism, under a healthy and kind rule drawn for them by the
wise Fathers, christian virtues took a deep root in at least a great
many of these poor "children of the soil" and so great was the care
exercised by the Fathers that nightly they would make a round of the
rooms allotted to every christian and neophyte Indian family to see
that order and decency reigned in each group; for we must remember these
souls were but recently rescued from the dark sins of heathenism.

Blessed temples! noble hospices! heroic priests! We are loathe to change
the scene, but winter's storms must come ere the laurel wreath crowns
the glorified brow! Still, we need not leave the "enchanted palace" yet,
vernal loveliness still charms the eyes and summer is just begun.

If it be but for one brief moment let us ruminate the glories, the
wealth, the beauty of mission joys, before the least cruel echoes of
Secularization are heard. The sun of Franciscan and Spanish glory is
still mounting the firmament higher and higher. The sky still wears
Our Lady's blue [2] and no penitential purple has appeared with the
departing rays of sunset, only the royal purple and gold which years
before had made the scene a fairylike setting for the heavenset relief
ship to San Diego and assured the noble enterprise of the exploration
and christianizing of California.

Chapter III

More About San Carlos Mission and Monterey

As we have seen in the preceding chapter, Monterey was the capital of
the Spanish Possessions in California, consequently San Carlos Mission
was the headquarters of Junipero Serra. And what was not San Carlos
Mission of Carmelo in the days of her glory! We are in a maze of thought
as to how to begin to tell her story. Of the beauty of the spot where
this mission was built we have already spoken, as well as of how the
golden valley of Carmelo came to be named. And here we may well exclaim
with that dear English Saint of the thirteenth century, Saint Simon
Stock, who invoked the Immaculate Virgin with the following beautiful
lines:

"Carmel