ght the
interior, and rather add to than dispel the gloom that has been
gathering there for ages. The high altar is, of course, in striking
contrast with all that dark interior: it is over-decorated in the
Mexican manner--flowers, feathers, tinsel ornaments, tall candlesticks
elaborately gilded; all the statues examples of the primitive art that
appealed strongly to the uncultivated eye; and all the adornments gay,
gaudy, if not garish. Do you wonder at this? When you enter the old
church at the Mission Dolores you should recall its history, and picture
in your imagination the people for whom the mission was established.

The Franciscans founded their first mission in California at San Diego
in 1769. The Mission Dolores was founded on St. Francis' Day, 1776. To
found a mission was a serious matter; yet one and twenty missions were
in the full tide of success before the good work was abandoned. The
friars were the first fathers of the land: they did whatever was done
for it and for the people who originally inhabited it. They explored the
country lying between the coast range and the sea. They set apart large
tracts of land for cultivation and for the pasturing of flocks and
herds. For a long time Old and New Spain contributed liberally to what
was known as the Pious Fund of California. The fund was managed by the
Convent of San Fernando and certain trustees in Mexico, and the proceeds
transmitted from the city of Mexico to the friars in California.

The mission church was situated, as a rule, in the centre of the mission
lands, or reservations. The latter comprised several thousand acres of
land. With the money furnished by the Pious Fund of California the
church was erected, and surrounded by the various buildings occupied by
the Fathers, the retainers, and the employees who had been trained to
agriculture and the simple branches of mechanics. The presbytery, or the
rectory, was the chief guest-house in the land. There were no hotels in
the California of that day, but the traveller, the prospector, the
speculator, was ever welcome at the mission board; and it was a
bountiful board until the rapacity of the Federal Government laid it
waste. Alexander Forbes, in his "History of Upper and Lower California"
(London, 1839), states that the population of Upper California in 1831
was a little over 23,000; of these 18,683 were Indians. It was for the
conversion of these Indians that the missions were first established;
for th