tue of St. Francis Xavier stands below the Virgin between figures of
St. Peter and St. Paul and God, the Creator. On the groined arches of
the dome are figures of the Wise Men, the Flight to Egypt, the
Shepherds, the Annunciation. Gilded arabesques colored in Moorish shell
tints adorn the main altar. Statues of the saints stand in the alcoves
and niches of the pillars and vaults. Two small doors lead up to the
towers from the main door. Look well at these doors and stairways. Not a
nail has been driven. The doors are mortised of solid pieces. The first
flight of stairs leads to the choir. Around the choir are more mural
paintings. Two more twists of the winding stair; and you are in the
belfry. Twenty-two more steps bring you to the summit of the tower--a
galleried cupola, seventy-five feet above the ground, where you may look
out on the whole world.

Pause for a moment, and look out. The mountains shimmer in their pink
mists. The sunlight sleeps against the adobe walls of the scattered
Indian house. You can hear the drone of the children from the
schoolrooms behind the Mission. You can see the mortuary chapel down to
the right and the lions supporting the arches of the Mission roof.
Father Kino was a famous European scholar and gentleman. He threw aside
scholarship. He threw aside comfort. He threw aside fame; and he came to
found a Mission amid arabs of the American Desert. The hands that
wrought these paintings on the walls were not the hands of bunglers.
They were the hands of artists, who wrought in love and devotion. Three
times, San Xavier was dyed in martyr blood by Indian revolt.

Priests, whose names even have been lost in the chronicles, were
murdered on the altars here, thrown down the stairs, cut to pieces in
their own Mission yard. Before a death which they coveted as glory, what
a life they must have led. To Tucson Mission was nine miles; but to
Tumacacori was eighty; to Old Mexico, 900. Occasionally, they had escort
of twelve soldiers for these long trips; but the soldiers' vices made so
much trouble for the holy fathers that the missionaries preferred to
travel alone, or with only a lay brother. Sandaled missionaries tramped
the cactus desert in June, when the heat was at its height; and they
traversed the mountains when winter snows filled all the passes. They
have not even left annals of their hardships. You know that in such a
year, Father Kino tramped from the Gulf of California to the Gila, and
fr