At the head of this great work was gentle Padre Junipero Serra, the most interesting character in the history of the missions. He was frail and slender and much worn by constant labor of head and hands, but his every thought and action seemed to be for others. Back and forth from Monterey to San Diego, from mission to mission, he traveled almost constantly, teaching, baptizing, confirming thousands of his dusky charges. He was president of all the missions, and besides this was bishop, doctor, judge, and architect, as well as steward of the mission products and money. Associated with him in his work were a group of noble men whose lives were spent in caring for the native people with whom they worked and among whom they finally died. The inhabitants of California may well honor the mission padres for their earnest, unselfish lives, and in no way can this be done so fully as in the preservation of the grand old buildings they left behind, which are indeed fitting monuments to their devotion, energy, and skill. Beginning with San Diego, let us, in fancy, visit the missions in the early part of the nineteenth century. It is a winter day in the year 1813 when we ride up the broad, wind-swept road which leads to the newly dedicated mission building of San Diego. The wide plain that surrounds it is green with native grass and the blades of young wheat. Of the two hundred cattle, one hundred sheep, one hundred horses, and twenty asses brought up by Padre Junipero in 1769 to be divided among the earlier missions, San Diego had only its due share; yet under the wise management of the padres, they have now at this mission, feeding on the green plains, thousands of cattle, horses, and sheep, which are tended by comfortably clothed Indian herders. Near the mission are the green and gold of orange orchards, the gray of the olive, and the bare branches of extensive vineyards. At one side we see a large kitchen garden where young Indians are at work planting and hoeing. As we draw up in front of the church, Indian servants come out to take our horses. We dismount, and a padre who is superintending work in the orchard comes and welcomes us with gentle courtesy. He sends us a servant to show us to our room, a small square apartment with a hard earthen floor and bare, whitewashed walls with no ornament but a cross. The beds are of rawhide stretched over a frame. The covering consists of sheets of coarse cotton grown and woven at the southern missions, and blankets, coarse but warm, made by the Indians from the wool of the mission sheep.