Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 23, 2025
In the meantime, contrary to the advice and experience of the padres, the new Viceroy, Croix, determined to establish two Missions on the Colorado River, near the site of the present city of Yuma, and conduct them not as Missions with the Fathers exercising control over the Indians, but as towns in which the Indians would be under no temporal restraint. The attempt was unfortunate.
José, here is Señor Hunter and his friend whom he stole away from the Vigilantes yesterday! Did you have the invisible cap, Señor? It was truly a miracle such as the padres tell of, that the blessed saints performed in the books. José told us what he heard but when I have called my mother, you yourself must tell us every little bit of it."
Billy could not feel the pathos of the place desolate, yet impressive in its simplicity; but as he sauntered about, his hands in his pockets, whistling beneath his breath, "I can't marry you!" his smart little modern mind began to work. The strategic value of the position appealed to him, and he saw why "those old Johnnies," as he irreverently styled the Padres, had planted the Mission here.
Rapidly they sank from worse to worse, until now only a few scattered settlements remain of the once vast number, thirty thousand or more, that were reasonably happy and prosperous under the rule of the padres. The story of the founding of San Diego by Serra has already been given. It was the beginning of the realization of his fondest hopes.
There he waited, turning the leaves of an illustrated Journal, wherein Society beauties; starving Servians, actresses with pretty legs, prize dogs, sinking ships, Royalties, shells bursting, and padres reading funeral services, testified to the catholicity of the public taste, but did not assuage his nerves. What if their address were not known here?
And the tragedy lies in the fact that the very men who think and speak thus about religion have in them something very like the spirit of Christ. The padres themselves, the best and most earnest of them, are painfully aware that the ordinary pulpit sermon is remote, utterly and hopelessly, from the lives of the men, is in fact a so many times repeated essay on tithes.
The statistical method of arriving at knowledge is chiefly useful for purposes of controversy. Any one with access to official records might set out for admiration the hierarchy of padres, ranging from the Chaplain-General to the humble C.F. Fourth Class, might enumerate the confirmations held, the candidates presented, the buildings erected, perhaps the sermons preached.
Few attempted to do this; hence the results that were foreseen by the padres followed. July 7, 1846, saw the Mexican flag in California hauled down, and the Stars and Stripes raised in its place; but as far as the Indian was concerned, the change was for the worse instead of the better.
They gave me to understand that the missions would, if necessary for my success, assist me with 15, 20, nay, 30,000 dollars. I had a pleasant time with these Padres, for they were all bon vivants. Their cellars were well filled with Constantia wine, their gardens highly cultivated, their poultry fat and tender, and their game always had a particular flavour.
The padres protested at the time that it was too near the Mission of Santa Clara, and for the next decade there was constant irritation, owing to the encroachments of the white settlers upon the lands of the Indians.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking