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Show 150 BY PATH AND TRAIL. orange and olive groves, and made of their swarthy con verts a peaceful and industrious people. Left alone and in undisturbed pursuit of their apostolic work, the fathers would in time have converted and civilized all the tribes of the Pacific coast and the Southwest. From the day they opened the first mission to the Indians, until the confiscation of their property, in 1834, the fathers met with opposition and discouragement. They succeed ed in conquering the hostility of the savages, eradicating their foul superstitions and winning them to a Christian and a clean life, but their virtues, self- denial and heroic charity failed to subdue the cupidity and avarice of the founders of an illegitimate republic. From his death bed in his little monastery in Mon terey, the saintly priest Junipero Serra asked his breth ren to beg from God for more help in the desolate wil derness. On the night of August 28, 1784, he was dying, and his last words were: " Pray ye, therefore, the Lord of the harvest that He send laborers into His vineyard. ' ' |