e never imposed unnecessary penance on anyone, he was hard
only on himself, he was gentle and affectionate to a marked degree, his
faith, trust in Providence, humility and charity, were heroic. Of his
seventy-four years of life, fifty-four he had been a Franciscan Priest
and thirty-five he had devoted to missionary work, of which nine were
spent in Mexico and fourteen in California. His wonderful eloquence and
magnetic power for preaching which had won him honors in the Old
World even as a newly ordained priest, he had used and adapted for the
instruction of thousands of heathens of the New World; and now that
christianity and civilization were beginning to bud with springtime
loveliness like the Castilian roses he had planted in some of the
mission gardens, while the sun of Spanish glory was still in the
ascendency and no threatening omens of the fall of Spanish or Franciscan
power, or nightmares of the Acts of Secularization disturbed the
cloudless skies, while the Presidio Real of Monterey bore the arms of
the Spanish King and the Capilla Real do San Carlos was thronged with
gallant officers and brave men of the Royal Army and Navy of Castile and
Leon, and Our Lady seemed to smile blessings on her Valley of Carmelo,
before the beauteous dream, nay, realization of noble ambitions, had
vanished like a fair sun, God called His faithful Servant unto Himself,
in his cell at his beloved San Carlos Mission about 2:30 P. M. on August
28, 1784, according to the entry of Father Francisco Palou, in the
archives of San Carlos Mission, preserved in San Carlos Church of
Monterey. And what a day this was! The archives here are full of
touching detail. Solemn salutes were fired from the ships stationed in
the Harbor of Monterey, and the grief of the people was inexpressible.
The Indians were inconsolable. The officers of the Royal Navy claimed
his sandals as a precious keepsake, and the Fathers could not restrain
the people from cutting pieces of his habit to carry away as souvenirs;
the Indians claimed his Franciscan cord and many cut locks of his
silver hair; his corpse had to be dressed twice on account of this pious
proceeding. In a plain redwood coffin his precious remains were laid
in a vault "on the gospel side of the altar within the sanctuary of San
Carlos Mission." O! holy grave, how many changes thou hast seen! O happy
Serra, from the dazzling splendors of God's light how often thou
must have prayed for thy work, thy people