d to see his last mission thrive mightily, and died at
the age of seventy--long before the fall of the crowning work of his
life.

Feeling the approach of death, Junipero Serra confessed himself to Fray
Palou; went through the Church offices for the dying; joined in the hymn
_Tantum Ergo_ "with elevated and sonorous tones," saith the
chronicle,--the congregation, hearing him intone his death chaunt, were
awed into silence, so that the dying man's voice alone finished the
hymn; then he repaired to his cell, where he passed the night in prayer.
The following morning he received the captain and chaplain of a Spanish
vessel lying in the harbor, and said, cheerfully, he thanked God that
these visitors, who had traversed so much of sea and land, had come to
throw a little earth upon his body. Anon he asked for a cup of broth,
which he drank at the table in the refectory; was then assisted to his
bed, where he had scarcely touched the pillow when, without a murmur, he
expired.

In anticipation of his death, he had ordered his own coffin to be made
by the mission carpenter; and his remains were at once deposited in it.
So precious was the memory of this man in his own day that it was with
the utmost difficulty his coffin was preserved from destruction; for the
populace, venerating even the wooden case that held the remains of their
spiritual Father, clamored for the smallest fragment; and, though a
strong body-guard watched over it until the interment, a portion of his
vestment was abstracted during the night. One thinks of this and of the
overwhelming sorrow that swept through the land when this saintly
pioneer fell at the head of his legion.

The California mission reached the height of its prosperity forty years
later, when it owned 87,600 head of cattle, 60,000 sheep, 2,300 calves,
1,800 horses, 365 yoke of oxen, much merchandise, and $40,000 in specie.
Tradition hints that this money was buried when a certain
piratical-looking craft was seen hovering about the coast.

This wealth is all gone now--scattered among the people who have allowed
the dear old mission to fall into sad decay. What a beautiful church it
must have been, with its quaint carvings, its star-window that seems to
have been blown out of shape in some wintry wind, and all its lines
hardened again in the sunshine of the long, long summer; with its
Saracenic door!--what memories the _Padres_ must have brought with them
of Spain and the Moorish seal that i