Such prosperity in time was fatal to the Missions. The spiritual life was deadened, and in time it might be said that Ichabod was written on them. The glory has departed. The early Franciscans were men of deep, religious fervour, self-denying and godly. They did a splendid work among the Indians in California. Father Junipero was a saintly man, full of labour, enduring hardships for Christ's sake, and he is worthy of being ranked with the saints of old. Padre Palott was a man of like character, and there were others who caught the inspiration of his life. When Junipero knew that his pilgrimage was about ended he wrote a farewell letter to his Franciscans; and then, on the 28th of August, 1784, having bade good-bye to his fellow-labourer, Padre Palou, he closed his eyes in the last sleep, and was laid to rest at San Carlos. The lives of such men make a bright spot in the early history of California; and as most of its towns and cities have San or Santa as a part of their names it is well to recall the fact that the word Saint was not unmeaning on the lips of those Franciscan Missionaries who laboured on these shores and taught the ignorant savage the way of life. On the day when Doctor Ashton and I visited the Mission Dolores we were deeply impressed with what we saw. There stood the old building, partly overshadowed by the new edifice erected recently just north of it. Yonder were the hills, north and south and west, which from the first had looked down upon it; but the old gardens and olive trees which had surrounded it for many years were gone, and instead the eye fell on blocks of comfortable houses and streets suggestive of the new life which had taken place of the old. The bull-fights which used to take place near this spot on Sunday afternoons are things of the past happily, and the gay, moving throngs, with picturesque costume of Spanish make and Mexican hue, have forever vanished. The old graveyard with its high walls on the south side of the Church remains. Tall grass bends over the prostrate tombstones, a willow tree serves as a mourning sentinel here and there, while the odours of flowers, emblems of undying hopes, are wafted to us on the balmy air as we stand, with memories of the past rushing on the mind, and gaze silently on the scene. The building looks very quaint in the midst of the modern life which surrounds it. It is a monument of by-gone days with its adobe walls and tiled roof. Its front has in it a suggestion of an Egyptian temple. Its architecture is Spanish and Mexican and old Californian combined. You can not fail to carry away its picture in your memory, for without any effort on your part it is photographed on your mind for the remainder of your days. These old Mission buildings of California and of Mexico too are all very similar in their construction. Some have the tower which reminds you of the Minaret of a mosque. I fancy, as the idea of the Mission building with its