Chimes of Mission Bells; an historical sketch of California and her missionsField, Maria Antonia
Religion
Chimes of Mission Bells; an historical sketch of California and her missions
Field, Maria Antonia
Missions -- California; Spanish mission buildings -- California
In compliance with our promise not to forget the friends of the
missionaries and of their compatriots, of today, we will first speak of
California's wonderful enthusiasm in the celebration of the Bi-centenary
of Junipero Serra's birth. Of the privileged thousands who visited
Monterey on November 23, 1913 and made a pilgrimage to Serra's tomb at
San Carlos Mission, how many will efface that sight from their minds in
years to come? But this awe-inspiring sight to which Reverend Raymond
Mestres and the Franciscan Fathers of San Francisco, contributed so
much, and in which the Third Order of Saint Francis so prominently
participated will be yearly renewed. Ecclesiastical and civil
authorities, towns and cities, individuals, all had the "right
spirit." The accounts of the press were glowing. Mr. Frank Powers of
Carmel-by-the-Sea was California's representative at the celebration
which Spain did not fail to hold in honor of her illustrious son;
and Mr. Powers indeed proved a worthy representative, returning to
California with renewed enthusiasm for the saintly Serra, and his
lectures have been listened to with keen delight. And can any praise
seem superfluous for California's apostles in particular for the saintly
Serra? At the civil exercises, held in Monterey on the occasion of the
celebration we are speaking of, Senator Reginaldo del Valle, of Los
Angeles, Mr. Michael Williams and Mr. Charles Phillips of San Francisco
each paid exquisite tributes to our hero whom the opening lines of Mr.
Phillips' beautiful ode described as:
"A young boy dreaming by the Spanish main:
Knee-high in waving grain
He halts at eve and dreams,
Where green Majorca fronts the cycling sea,
And far worlds ceaselessly
Beckon with passing sail and swinging tide,
And plunging galleons ride
Home from adventure, or away, away
To silken bright Cathay,
Or where dark India her golden treasure yields;
A young boy dreaming in his father's fields,
Who plucks a lily from the bending wheat
And stands with veiled gaze and searching eyes
Pale with some great emprise,
Beyond the homing waters of his isle,
Beyond Majorca's skies;--
And dreams and dreams the while!"
"And they who love him wonderingly ask:
"What lad is this of ours
Who dreams away the hours,
And when the windy night-tide running sings,
So strangely seems
Converse to hold with far compelling things?
Or what these spirit-smiling ecstasies,"
They reverent cry,
"That halt him at his task
And hold him tranced in bright reveries?
Is this our lad, indeed,
Who with such Heaven-given grace--
Ay, with the light of Heaven on his face!--
Makes question of the very world about?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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