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Show BY PATH AND TRAIL. 179 or Gila. He was growing old, and his strong constitu tion was beginning to give way under the ' weight of years, and the wear and tear of missionary travel and missionary labor. His last, and, in a sense, his most extended journey, was made toward the north, during the autumn of 1706. He left his mission late in October, and swinging around by way of Remedies, made his wonderful tour to the Santa Clara mountains, preach ing to and evangelizing the tribes on his way. From the summit of Santa Clara he looked out for the last time on the waters of the Gulf of California, noting the continuity of Lower Camornia from Pimeria, the main land, and fixing for all time its peninsular character. This was the last, long, eartnly pilgrimage of the great Jesuit and typical missionary, whose explorations and fearless endurance on behalf of perishing souls, lift him unto a plane of canonization and a pedestal of fame. He returned to his mission in Sonora, where he passed his few remaining years, training his swarthy converts in decency and clean living, making short visits to neigh boring pueblos, and adding by his heroism and saintly life another name to the catalogue of brilliant and won derful men for whom the world and the church are in debted to the Society of Jesus. He died in 1711, aged 70, having surrendered thirty of these seventy years to the saving and civilizing of the Sonora and Arizona members of that strange and mysterious race, the Amer ican Indian. Let us hope that some day a Catholic Parkman will appear, gifted with his marvelous fascination of style, his tireless industry, his command of language, with an appreciation of the supernatural, and an admiration of saintly asceticism, which the Harvard master had not, |
