The Famous Missions of California | Page 2

recently appointed President of the California
Missions, to visit him in his camp. Loreto was a hundred leagues
distant; but this was no obstacle to the religious enthusiast, whose
lifelong dream it had been to bear the faith far and wide among the
barbarian peoples of the Spanish world. He hastened to La Paz, and in
the course of a long interview with Galvez not only promised his hearty
co-operation, but also gave great help in the arrangement of the
preliminary details of the expedition.
In the opportunity thus offered him for the missionary labour in
hitherto unbroken fields, Father Junipero saw a special manifestation
both of the will and of the favour of God. He threw himself into the
work with characteristic ardour and determination, and Galvez quickly
realized that his own efforts were now to be ably seconded by a man
who, by reason of his devotion, courage, and personal magnetism,

might well seem to have been providentially designated for the task
which had been put into his hands.
Miguel Joseph Serra, now known only by his adopted name of Junipero,
which he took out of reverence for the chosen companion of St. Francis,
was a native of the Island of Majorca, where he was born, of humble
folk, in 1713. According to the testimony of his intimate friend and
biographer, Father Francesco Palou, his desires, even during boyhood,
were turned towards the religious life. Before he was seventeen he
entered the Franciscan Order, a regular member of which he became a
year or so later. His favorite reading during his novitiate, Palou tells us,
was in the Lives of the Saints, over which he would pore day after day
with passionate and ever-growing enthusiasm; and from these devout
studies sprang an intense ambition to "imitate the holy and venerable
men" who had given themselves up to the grand work of carrying the
Gospel among gentiles and savages. The missionary idea thus
implanted became the dominant purpose of his life, and neither the
astonishing success of his sermons, nor the applause with which his
lectures were received when he was made professor of theology,
sufficed to dampen his apostolic zeal. Whatever work was given him to
do, he did with all his heart, and with all his might, for such was the
man's nature; but everywhere and always he looked forward to the
mission field as his ultimate career. He was destined, however, to wait
many years before his chance came. At length, in 1749, after making
many vain petitions to be set apart for foreign service, he and Palou
were offered places in a body of priests who, at the urgent request of
the College of San Fernando, in Mexico, were then being sent out as
recruits to various parts of the New World. The hour had come; and in
a spirit of gratitude and joy too deep for words, Junipero Serra set his
face towards the far lands which were henceforth to be his home.
The voyage out was long and trying. In the first stage of it - from
Majorca to Malaga - the dangers and difficulties of seafaring were
varied, if not relieved by strange experiences, of which Palou has left
us a quaint and graphic account. Their vessel was a small English
coaster, in command of a stubborn cross-patch of a captain, who
combined navigation with theology, and whose violent protestations

and fondness for doctrinal dispute allowed his Catholic passengers,
during the fifteen days of their passage, scarcely a minute's peace. His
habit was to declaim chosen texts out of his "greasy old" English Bible,
putting his own interpretation upon them; then, if when challenged by
Father Junipero, who "was well trained in dogmatic theology," he could
find no verse to fit his argument, he would roundly declare that the leaf
he wanted happened to be torn. Such methods are hardly praiseworthy.
But this was not the worst. Sometimes the heat of argument would
prove too much for him, and then, I grieve to say, he would even
threaten to pitch his antagonists overboard, and shape his course for
London. However, despite this unlooked-for danger, Junipero and his
companions finally reached Malaga, whence they proceeded first to
Cadiz, and then, after some delay, to Vera Cruz. The voyage across
from Cadiz alone occupied ninety-nine days, though of these, fifteen
were spent at Porto Rico, where Father Junipero improved the time by
establishing a mission. Hardships were not lacking; for water and food
ran short, and the vessel encountered terrific storms. But "remembering
the end for which they had come," the father "felt no fear, and his own
buoyancy did much to keep up the flagging spirits of those about him.
Even when Vera Cruz was reached, the terrible journey was by no
means over, for