FATHER JUNIPERO AND HIS WORK.
A SKETCH OF THE FOUNDATION, PROSPERITY, AND RUIN OF THE FRANCISCAN MISSIONS IN CALIFORNIA.
I.
During the years when Saint Francis went up and down the streets of Assisi, carrying in his delicate unused hands the stones for rebuilding St. Damiano, he is said to have been continually singing psalms, breaking forth into ejaculations of gratitude; his face beaming as that of one who saw visions of unspeakable delight. How much of the spirit or instinct of prophecy there might have been in his exultant joy, only he himself knew; but it would have been strange if there had not been vouchsafed to him at least a partial revelation of the splendid results which must of necessity follow the carrying out, in the world, of the divine impulses which had blazed up in his soul like a fire. As Columbus, from the trend of imperfectly known shores and tides, from the mysterious indications of vague untracked winds, could deduce the glorious certainty of hitherto undreamed continents of westward land, so might the ardent spiritual discoverer see with inextinguishable faith the hitherto undreamed heights which must be surely reached and won by the path he pointed out. It is certain that very early in his career he had the purpose of founding an order whose members, being unselfish in life, should be fit heralds of God and mighty helpers of men. The absoluteness of self-renunciation which he inculcated and demanded startled even the thirteenth century's standard of religious devotion. Cardinals and pope alike doubted its being within the pale of human possibility; and it was not until after much entreaty that the Church gave its sanction to the "Seraphic Saint's" band of "Fratri Minores," and the organized work of the Franciscan Order began. This was in 1208. From then till now, the Franciscans have been, in the literal sense of the word, benefactors of men. Other of the orders in the Catholic Church have won more distinction, in the way of learning, political power, marvellous suffering of penances and deprivation; but the record of the Franciscans is in the main a record of lives and work, like the life and work of their founder; of whom a Protestant biographer has written: "So far as can be made out, he thought little of himself, even of his own soul to be saved, all his life. The trouble had been on his mind how sufficiently to work for God and to help men."
Under the head of helping men, come all enterprises of discovery, development, and civilization which the earth has known; and in many more of these than the world generally suspects, has been an influence dating back to the saint of Assisi. America most pre-eminently stands his debtor. Of the three to whom belongs the glory of its discovery, one, Juan Perez de Marchena, was a Franciscan friar; the other two, Queen Isabella and Columbus, were members of Saint Francis's Third Order; and of all the splendid promise and wondrous development on the California coast to-day, Franciscan friars were the first founders.
In the Franciscan College at Santa Barbara is a daguerreotype, taken from an old portrait which was painted more than a hundred years ago, at the College of San Fernando, in Mexico. The face is one, once seen, never to be forgotten; full of spirituality and tenderness and unutterable pathos; the mouth and chin so delicately sensitive that one marvels how such a soul could have been capable of heroic endurance of hardship; the forehead and eyes strong, and radiant with quenchless purpose, but filled with that solemn, yearning, almost superhuman sadness, which has in all time been the sign and seal on the faces of men born to die for the sake of their fellows. It is the face of Father Junipero Serra, the first founder of Franciscan missions in South California. Studying the lineaments of this countenance, one recalls the earliest authentic portrait of Saint Francis,—the one painted by Pisano, which hangs in the sacristy of the Assisi church. There seems a notable likeness between the two faces: the small and delicate features, the broad forehead, and the expression of great gentleness are the same in both. But the saint had a joyousness which his illustrious follower never knew. The gayety of the troubadour melodies which Francis sung all through his youth never left his soul: but Serra's first and only songs were the solemn chants of the Church; his first lessons were received in a convent; his earliest desire and hope was to become a priest.
Serra was born of lowly people in the island of Majorca, and while he was yet a little child sang as chorister in the convent of San Bernardino. He was but sixteen when he entered the Franciscan Order, and before he was eighteen he had taken the final vows. This was in the year 1730. His baptismal name, Michael Joseph, he laid aside on becoming a monk, and took the name of Junipero, after that quaintest and drollest of all Saint Francis's first companions; him of whom the saint said jocosely, "Would that I had a whole forest of such Junipers!"
Studying in the Majorca Convent at the same time with Serra, were three other young monks, beloved and intimate companions of his,—Palon, Verger, and Crespí. The friendship thus early begun never waned; and the hearty and loving co-operation of the four had much to do with the success of the great enterprises in which afterward they jointly labored, and to which, even in their student days, they looked forward with passionate longing. New Spain was, from the beginning, the goal of their most ardent wishes. All their conversations turned on this theme. Long years of delay and monastic routine did not dampen the ardor of the four friends. Again and again they petitioned to be sent as missionaries to the New World, and again and again were disappointed. At last, in 1749, there assembled in Cadiz a great body of missionaries, destined chiefly for Mexico; and Serra and Palon received permission to join the band. Arriving at Cadiz, and finding two vacancies still left in the party, they pleaded warmly that Crespí and Verger be allowed to go also. At the very last moment this permission was given, and the four friends joyfully set sail in the same ship.
It is impossible at this distance of time to get any complete realization of the halo of exalted sentiment and rapture which then invested undertakings of this kind. From the highest to the lowest, the oldest to the youngest, it reached. Every art was lent to its service, every channel of expression stamped with its sign. Even on the rude atlases and charts of the day were pictures of monks embarking in ships of discovery; the Virgin herself looking on from the sky, with the motto above, "Matre Dei montravit via;" and on the ships' sails, "Unus non sufficit orbis."
In the memoir of Father Junipero, written by his friend Palon, are many interesting details of his voyage to Vera Cruz. It lasted ninety-nine days: provisions fell short; starvation threatened; terrific storms nearly wrecked the ship; but through all, Father Junipero's courage never failed. He said, "remembering the end for which they had come," he felt no fear. He performed mass each morning, and with psalms and exhortations cheered the sinking spirits of all on board.
For nineteen years after their arrival in Mexico, Father Junipero and his three friends were kept at work there, under the control of the College of San Fernando, in founding missions and preaching. On the suppression of the Jesuit Order, in 1767, and its consequent expulsion from all the Spanish dominions, it was decided to send a band of Franciscans to California, to take charge of the Jesuit missions there. These were all in Lower California, no attempt at settlement having been yet made in Upper California.
Once more the friends, glad and exultant, joined a missionary band bound to new wildernesses. They were but three now, Verger remaining behind in the College of San Fernando. The band numbered sixteen. Serra was put in charge of it, and was appointed president of all the California missions. His biographer says he received this appointment "unable to speak a single word for tears." It was not strange, on the realization of a hope so long deferred. He was now fifty-six years old; and from boyhood his longing had been to labor among the Indians on the western shores of the New World.
It was now the purpose of the Spanish Government to proceed as soon as possible to the colonization of Upper California. The passion of the Church allied itself gladly with the purpose of the State; and the State itself had among its statesmen and soldiers many men who were hardly less fervid