warthy foes whose war-whoop he was likely to hear at any moment, and
never had long chance to forget. He came poor, and that niggard land
never made him rich. Even in the beginning of this century, when some
began to have large flocks of sheep, they were often left penniless by
one night's raid of Apaches or Navajos.

Such was New Mexico when the missionaries came, and very nearly such it
remained for more than three hundred years. If the most enlightened and
hopeful mind in the Old World could have looked across to that arid
land, it would never have dreamed that soon the desert was to be dotted
with churches,--and not little log or mud chapels, but massive stone
masonries whose ruins stand to-day, the noblest in our North America.
But so it was; neither wilderness nor savage could balk that great zeal.

The first church in what is now the United States was founded in St.
Augustine, Fla., by Fray Francisco de Pareja in 1560,--but there were
many Spanish churches in America a half century earlier yet. The several
priests whom Coronado brought to New Mexico in 1540 did brave missionary
work, but were soon killed by the Indians. The first church in New
Mexico and the second in the United States was founded in September,
1598, by the ten missionaries who accompanied Juan de Onate, the
colonizer. It was a small chapel at San Gabriel de los Espanoles (now
Chamita). San Gabriel was deserted in 1605, when Onate founded Santa Fe,
though it is probable that the chapel was still occasionally used. In
time, however, it fell into decay. As late as 1680 the ruins of this
honorable old church were still visible; but now they are quite
indistinguishable. One of the first things after establishing the new
town of Santa Fe was of course to build a church,--and here, by about
1606, was reared the third church in the United States. It did not long
meet the growing requirements of the colony; and in 1622 Fray Alonzo de
Benavides, the historian, laid the foundations of the parish church of
Santa Fe, which was finished in 1627. The church of San Miguel in the
same old city was built after 1636. Its original walls are still
standing, and form part of a church which is used to-day. It was partly
destroyed in the Pueblo rebellion of 1680, and was restored in 1710. The
new cathedral of Santa Fe is built over the remnants of the still more
ancient parish church.

In 1617--three years before Plymouth Rock--there were already _eleven_
churches in