h the
fine old aristocratic air of the unspoken question: what are you of the
Twenty Century doing wandering back into the mystery and mysticism and
quietude of the religious sixteen hundred? But if you keep on going, you
will find the gentle-voiced sisterhood teaching the little Pimas and
Papagoes in the schoolrooms.

San Xavier, architecturally, is sheer delight to the eye. The style is
almost pure Moorish. The yard walls are arched in harmony with the
arched outline of the roof; and in the inner courtyard you will notice
the Spanish lion at the intersection of all the roof arches. In front of
the Mission buildings is a walled space of some sixty by forty feet,
where the Indians used to assemble for discussion of secular matters
before worship. On the front wall in high relief are placed the arms of
St. Francis of Assisi, and in the sacristry to the right of the altar
you will find mural drawings and a painting of Saint Ignatius. Thus San
Xavier claims as her founders and patrons both Franciscan and Jesuit.
This is easily explained. The Franciscans came up overland across the
Desert from the City of Mexico. The Jesuits came up inland from their
Mission on the Gulf of California. Father Kino, the Jesuit, from a
Bavarian university, was the first missionary to hold services among the
Pimas and Papagoes, and if he did not lay the foundations of San
Xavier, then they were laid by his immediate successors. The escutcheon
of the Franciscans on the wall is a twisted cord and a cross on which
are nailed the arms of the Christ and the arm of St. Francis. The Christ
arm is bare. The Franciscan's arm is covered.

Unlike other Missions built of adobe, San Xavier is of stone and brick.
It is 100 by thirty feet. The transept on each side of the nave runs out
twenty-one feet square. The roof above the nave is supported by groined
arches from door to altar. The cupola above the altar is fifty feet to
the dome. The other vaults are only thirty feet high. The windows are
high in the clearstory and set so deeply in the casement that the light
falling on the mural paintings and fresco work is sifted and softened.
Practically all the walls, cupola, dome, transept, nave, are covered
with mural paintings. There is the coming of the Spirit to the
Disciples. There is the Last Supper. There is the Conception. There is
the Rosary. There is the Hidden Life of the Lord.

The main altar has evidently been constructed by the Jesuits; for the
sta