Volume Ii Part 120 (1/2)
UNSHED TEARS.
Once I believed that tears alone Could tell of sorrow deep; O blessed those whose eyes overflow!
Within my heart I weep.
And many think me calm, because My cheek unwet appears; The happy ones! they never know The pain of unshed tears.
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From The Dublin Review.
CALIFORNIA AND THE CHURCH.
1. _The Resources of California_. By JOHN S. HITTEL. San Francisco.
2. _Christian Missions_. By T.W.M. MARSHALL. Longmans.
The year 1769 will long be memorable in the annals of the world as the date of the birth of the Emperor Napoleon and of the Duke of Wellington. In the same year another event took place of small significance according to the thoughts of this world, but which in the next world was a.s.suredly regarded of infinitely greater importance; for this was the year in which a poor despised Franciscan friar, the Father Junipero Serra, entered into California Alta, the first apostle of a land which has since, for such different reasons, become so famous.
He was an Italian by birth, but had resided for many years in Mexico, where he had preached the gospel with great success among the heathen Indian population. A man of singular faith and piety, he lived the severest life, considering, with his Father St. Francis, that poverty and suffering are keys wherewith the zealous missioner is certain to be able to unlock the floodgates of grace which divide heaven from earth. He used to carry a stone with him, with which, like St. Jerome, he would beat his breast for his sins, and he endeavored to bring home to the mind of his uncivilized hearers the malice of sin, by scourging his innocent body till streams of blood flowed forth in their presence, by severe fasts, long prayers, and night watchings. He seldom rode on mule or horseback, but preferred to journey humbly on foot. Shortly after his arrival in Mexico, his leg was attacked with a grievous sore; still he gave himself no rest, but was constant in journeying and preaching. While he was laboring like an apostle among the Mexicans, the Spanish monarch ordered D. Jose de Galvez (who became later minister-general for all the Indies) to form an expedition from La Paz into Upper California. [Footnote 145] Whatever may be said of the rapacious cruelty of many of the Spanish governors and colonizers in America, the government at home was animated, on the whole, with the most Catholic and loyal intentions. Its instructions and public doc.u.ments were conceived in the most Christian sense; and if they were not always carried out in the same spirit, this arose from its inability to control subjects at an immense distance from the seat of government, and surrounded by exciting temptations and pressing dangers. The following words were addressed by one of the Spanish monarchs to the Indies: ”The kings our progenitors, from the discovery of the West Indies, its islands and continents, commanded our captains, officers, discoverers, colonizers, and all other persons, that on arriving at these provinces they should, by means of interpreters, cause to be made known to the Indians that they were sent to teach them good customs, to lead them from vicious habits, and from the eating of human flesh, to instruct them in our holy Catholic faith, to preach to them salvation, and to attract them to our dominion.” The same Catholic and religious spirit animates every part of the great codex {791} of Indian laws which were promulgated by successive kings in that most Catholic country.
[Footnote 145: As far back as 1697 the Jesuits had, with apostolic seal, founded many missions in Lower California; they never, however, had pushed up into California Alta.]
Though it often did happen that local governors were not ministers of this Catholic spirit, but rather of their own rapacity and cruelty, this was not always the case, and we have before us an instance. When Galvez set forth on his expedition to conquer California, the first article of the instructions which he drew up, for the guidance of all who were with him, ran in these terms: ”The first object of the expedition is to establish the Catholic religion among a numerous heathen people, submerged in the obscure darkness of paganism, and to extend the dominion of our lord the king, and to protect this peninsula from the ambitious views of foreign nations.” Nor were these mere words, written to salve a conscience or blind a critical public, as we shall now see: for he took Father Junipero, who was zealous for the salvation of souls, into his counsels; and the priest and the layman worked jointly together. Two small vessels, the _San Carlos_ and _San Antonio_, were freighted to go by sea. Senor Galvez details with a charming simplicity how he a.s.sisted Father Junipero to pack the sacred vestments and other church furniture, and declared that he was a better sacristan than the father, for he had packed his share of the ornaments first, and had to go and help the father. Moreover, in order that the new missions might be established with the same success as those which had been already founded by F. Junipero in Sierra Gorda, Galvez ordered to be packed up and embarked all kinds of household and field utensils, iron implements for agricultural labor, all kinds of seeds from Old and New Spain, garden herbs for food, and flowers for the decoration of the altars. Then he sent on by land two hundred head of cattle to stock the country, so that there might be food to eat and beasts to labor on the land.
F. Junipero placed the whole enterprise under the patronage of the Most Holy Patriarch St. Joseph, to whom he dedicated the country. He blessed the vessels and sent on board of them three fathers, who should accompany Galvez and his men. Two other parties were formed by land, which were to meet the s.h.i.+ps on the coast far up the country; and all started, except Father Junipero, who was delayed some time by the season of Lent and by his spiritual duties. When he overtook the convoy, his leg and foot were so inflamed that he was hardly able to get on or off his mule. The fathers and their companions wished to send him back; they thought he was not equal to the undertaking. But he had faith that our Lord would carry him through. He called a muleteer and said to him: ”My son, don't you know some remedy for the sore on my foot and leg?” But the muleteer answered: ”Father, what remedy can I know? Am I a surgeon? I am a muleteer, and have only cured the sore backs of beasts.” ”Then consider me a beast,” said the father, ”and this sore, which has produced the swelling on my legs and prevents me by its pain from standing or sleeping, to be a sore on a beast, and give me the treatment you would apply to a beast.” The muleteer replied, smiling, ”I will, father, to please you;” and taking a small piece of tallow, mashed it between two stones with some herbs, heated it over the fire, and then anointed the foot and leg, and left a plaster on the sore. The father slept that night, awoke in health and spirits, and astonished the whole party by rising early to say matins and lauds and then ma.s.s, and proceeded on the journey quite restored. After forty-six days' travelling by land, they reached the port of San Diego; and F. Junipero now established his first mission.
He then went on to the place since called San Francisco, and established there another mission. They fell short of provisions and supplies, the {792} _San Antonio_, which had long been due, did not arrive, and Portala, the governor of the expedition, determined to abandon the mission, if they were not relieved by the 20th of March; but on the feast of St. Joseph the s.h.i.+p hove into view, bringing an abundance of provisions, and the mission was then firmly established.
The usual way of erecting a mission was as follows: the locality was taken possession of in the name of Spain by the lay authority; a tent or an adobe building was erected as the temporary chapel; the fathers, in procession, proceeded to bless the place and the chapel, on whose front a crucifix, or a simple wooden cross, was raised; the holy sacrifice was then offered up, and a sermon was preached on the coming and power of the Holy Ghost. The _Veni Creator_ was sung, and a father was charged with the direction and responsibility of the mission.
The Indians were attracted by little presents. To the men and women were given pieces of cloth, or food, and to the children bits of sugar. They would soon gather round the missioners when they found how good and kind they were, and the missioners were not slow in picking up the language. They became the fathers and instructors of the poor ignorant Indians, catechized them in the mysteries of the faith, collected them into villages round the mission church, and taught them to plough and cultivate the land, to sow wheat, to grind corn, to bake; they introduced the use of the olive, the vine, and the apple; they showed them how to yoke the oxen for work, how to weave and spin cloth for clothing, to prepare leather from the hides, and taught them the rudiments of commerce.
There was another feature in the mode followed by the Spaniards in preaching the gospel which is worthy of mention, and which shows how Spain recognized the independent action of the Church and her own duty to lend her every a.s.sistance and protection she might need. A presidio was established, in which the secular governor, with a small number of officers, soldiers, and officials, resided. These represented the majesty of the King of Spain, and served, in case of need, for protection and order. At some distance from the presidio and independent of it, was formed the mission, a large convent for the friars and for hospitality, and a church, built of ”adobe,” or mud walls, sometimes seven or eight feet in thickness. The land in the surrounding neighborhood was a.s.signed to the missions for the support of the Indians. In fact, the whole economy and arrangements, both of presidios and missions, were made subservient to the wants of civilization and religion, which were introduced among the native population. This system remained in full force, consulting simply the benefit of the poor Indian, till the liberal Cortes, in 1813, overturned the design of the Spanish monarchs, and began to introduce the idea of colonization and usurpation. Up to this time the Church had had full action upon the people, and what she wrought in the span of forty years was little less than miraculous. The Indians felt that they had been lifted out of their state of abject misery and ignorance, and that the strangers who had come among them had come simply from disinterested charity, for their temporal and eternal welfare. They felt that life was made to them less a burthen, and that a way was opened out for them to endless happiness beyond the grave, De Courcy, in his ”Catholic Church in the United States,” a.s.sures us that the fathers converted, within the few years they had control of the Californian missions, no less than 75,000 Indians, for whom they also provided food, clothing, and instruction. The system of colonization brought in by the Spanish liberals in 1813 was an evil, but it was a mere prelude to the confiscation of the Indian property which was perpetrated by the liberal {793} Mexican government in 1833.
It was pretended that the friars were unequal to the management of the missions, and the natives' property was therefore transferred to the hands of laymen. Mr. Marshall, in his interesting work on ”Christian Missions,” quotes the following statistics, comparing the two conditions:
Under the Under Administration the Civil of the Friars. Administration.
Christian Indians 80,650 4,450 Horned Cattle 494,000 28,220 Horses and Mules 62,000 3,800 Sheep 321,500 31,600 Cereal crop 70,000 4,000
And then he sums up in these words:
”It appears, then, that in the brief s.p.a.ce of eight years the secular administration, which affected to be a protest against the inefficiency of the ecclesiastical, had not only destroyed innumerable lives, replunged a whole province into barbarism, and almost annihilated religion and civilization, but had so utterly failed even in that special aim which it professed to have most at heart--the development of material prosperity--that it had already reduced the wealth of a single district in the following notable proportions: Of homed cattle there remained about _one-fifteenth_ of the number possessed under the religious administration; of horses and mules less than _one-sixteenth_; of sheep about _one-tenth_; and of cultivated land producing cereal crops less than _one-seventeenth_. It is not to the Christian, who will mourn rather over the moral ruin which accompanied the change, that such facts chiefly appeal; but the merchant and the civil magistrate, however indifferent to the interests of religion and morality, will keenly appreciate the cruel and blundering policy of which these are the admitted results, and will perhaps be inclined to explain with Mr.
Mollhausen, 'It is impossible not to wish that the missions were flouris.h.i.+ng once more!'”
How beautiful was the old Spanish system under which Father Junipero and his companions set forth to reclaim and convert the wandering Indian! Is it not the greatest glory of Spain that she can still cheer our dark horizon by the light of her past history, and shed a fragrance which remains for ever over lands which have been broken down by the hoof of the invader, and desolated by his diabolical pride and insatiable rapacity? What was the Spanish system as exhibited in California? It was simply this: a recognition, without question or jealousy, that our Lord, the great high priest, continues in his priesthood to be the shepherd, teacher, and minister of his people.
”To go and teach all nations,” ”to minister to the least of the little ones,” to be the ”shepherd of the flock,” ”to lay down life for the flock.” This is distinctly the operation of Christ through his priests. That this was the real character of the Christian priesthood was a clear and elementary principle, which admitted of no doubt in the mind of the Spanish people.
Conscious of their power, and with a light burning within them which shone over the vast prospects that lay before them, of extending the faith and saving innumerable souls, for whom the most precious blood had been shed, the Spanish missioners went forth to extend their conquests over the heathen world. Rapine and plunder were not their aim; they were introduced among colonizers by the snare of the devil.
To maintain the Indian on his territory, to raise, instruct, and Christianize him, giving him rights and equality before the law, this was the policy of Catholic Spain. The priest, therefore, was regarded as the chief pioneer, his plans were recognized and acted upon, and he was considered to be not a mere creature of the crown, who should extend its influence, but a minister and agent of his majesty the Great King of Heaven, who had deigned in his infinite love to look upon Spain with a peculiar predilection, and to choose her as an {794} instrument to save the souls for whom he once had died.
A hundred years ago no European had ever fixed his abode in California Alta. Father Junipero and his devoted companions, led on by zeal ”to establish the Catholic religion among a numerous heathen people, submerged in the obscure darkness of paganism,” were, then, the real pioneers of California. Three Protestant writers, quoted by Mr.