of Jesus, and with them a little group of followers. A tumult is
heard, and, in the midst of a great throng of people, we see three
crosses borne by prisoners. Jesus beholds his mother. Suddenly he
faints, under the weight of the cross. The rough soldiers urge him on.
Simon of Cyrene, a sturdy passer-by, who is carrying home provisions
from the market, is seized by the soldiers and forced to give aid. At
first he refuses. "I will not do it," he says; "I am a free man, and
no criminal." But his indignant protests turn to pity, when he beholds
the Holy Man of Nazareth. "For the love of thee," he says, "will I
bear thy cross. Oh, could I make myself thus worthy in thy sight!"
The closing scenes of the Passion Play, associated as they are with all
that has been held sacred by our race for nearly two thousand years,
are thrilling beyond comparison. No one can witness them unmoved. No
one can forget the impression made by the living pictures. In
simplicity and reverence, the work is undertaken, and it awakens in the
beholder only corresponding feelings. Every heart, for the time at
least, is stirred to its depths.
When the curtain rises, two crosses are seen, each in its place. The
central cross is not yet raised. The Roman soldiers take their time
for it. "Come, now," says one of them, "we must put this Jewish king
upon his throne." So the heavy cross, with its burden, is raised in
its place. We see the bloody nails in his hands and feet; and so
realistic is the representation, that the nearest spectator cannot see
that he is not actually nailed to the cross. There is no haste shown
in the presentation. The Crucifixion is not a tableau, displayed for
an instant and then withdrawn. The scene lasts so long that one feels
a strange sense of surprise when Christus Mayr appears alive again.
Twenty minutes is the time actually taken for the representation. "It
is hard," said our landlady, the good Frau Wiedermann, "to be on the
cross so long, even if one is not actually nailed to it. It is hard
for the thieves, too," she said, "as well as for Josef Mayr."
The thieves themselves deserve a moment's notice. The one on the right
is a bald old man, who meets his death in patience and humility. The
one on the left is a robust young fellow, who defies his associates and
tormentors alike, and joins his voice to that of the rabble in scoffing
at the power of Jesus. "If thou be a god," he says, "save thyself and
us." There is at first a struggle over the inscription at the head of
the cross. "Let it read, 'He called himself the King of the Jews,'"
say the priests. But the Roman soldier is obdurate. "What I have
written I have written," and the centurion grimly nails it on the cross
above his head, regardless alike of their rage and protestations.
Meanwhile, in the foreground the four Roman guards part the purple robe
of Christ, each one taking his share. But the seamless coat they will
not divide. So they cast the dice on the ground to see to whom this
prize shall fall. They are in no hurry. Traitors and thieves have all
night to die in, and they can wait for them. The first soldier throws
a low number, and gives up the contest. The second does better. The
third calls up to the cross, "If thou be a god, help me to throw a
lucky number." One cast of the dice is disputed. It has to be tried
again.
Meanwhile we hear the poor dying body on the cross, in a voice broken
with agony, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."
Again, amid the railings of the Jews, "My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me?" Then again, after a sharp cry of pain, "It is finished!"
The captain drives the scoffing mob away, bidding the women come
nearer. Then a Roman soldier, sent by Pilate, comes and breaks the
legs of the thieves. We hear their bones crack under the club. Their
heads fall, their muscles shrink, as the breath leaves the body. But
finding that Jesus is already dead, the soldier breaks not his legs,
but thrusts a spear into his side. We can see the spear pierce the
flesh, but we cannot see that the blood flows from the spear-point
itself, and not from the Master's body. The soldiers fall back with a
feeling of awe. Then, one by one, as the darkness falls, we see them
file away on the road to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man is left in
silence.
Then follows the descent from the cross, which suggests comparison with
Rubens' famous painting in the Cathedral at Antwerp, but here shown
with a fineness of touch and delicacy of feeling which that great
painter of muscles and mantles could never attain. We see Nicodemus
climb the ladder leaned against the back of the cross. He takes off
first the crown of thorns. It is laid silently at Mary's feet. He
pulls out the nails one by one. We hear them fall upon the ground.
With the last one falls the wrench with which he has drawn it. Passing
a long roll of white cloth over each arm of the cross, he lets the
Saviour down into the strong arms of Joseph of Arimathea, and, at last,
into the loving embrace of John and Mary. No description can give an
idea of the all-compelling force of this scene. A treatment less
reverent than is given by these peasants would make it an intolerable
blasphemy. As it is, its justification is its perfection.
And this is the justification of the Passion Play itself. It can never
become a show. It can never be carried to other countries. It never
can be given under other circumstances. So long as its players are
pure in heart and humble in spirit, so long can they keep their
well-earned right to show to the world the Tragedy of the Cross.
[1] The word "passion," as used in the term "Passionspiel," signifies
anguish or sorrow. The Passion Play is the story of the great anguish.
THE CALIFORNIA OF THE PADRE.[1]
There is something in the name of Spain which calls up impressions
rich, warm, and romantic. The "color of romance," which must be
something between the hue of a purple grape and the red haze of the
Indian summer, hangs over everything Spanish. Castles in Spain have
ever been the fairest castles, and the banks of the Xenil and the
Guadalquivir still bound the dreamland of the poet.
"There was never a castle seen
So fair as mine in Spain;
It stands embowered in green,
Overlooking a gentle slope,
On a hill by the Xenil's shore."
It has been said of Spanish rule in California, that its history was
written upon sand, only to be washed away by the advancing tide of
Saxon civilization. So far as the economic or political development of
our State is concerned, this is true; the Mission period had no part in
it, and its heroes have left no imperishable monuments.
But in one respect our Spanish predecessors have had a lasting
influence, and the debt we owe to them, as yet scarcely appreciated, is
one which will grow with the ages. It is said that Father Crespi, in
1770, gave Spanish names to every place where he encamped at night, and
these names, rich and melodious, make the map of California unique
among the States of the Union. It is fitting that the most varied,
picturesque, and lovable of all the States should be the one thus
favored. We feel everywhere the charm of the Spanish language--Latin
cut loose from scholastic bonds, with a dash of firmness from the
Visigoth and a touch of warmth from the sun-loving Moor. The names of
Mariposa, San Buenaventura, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, and Monterey can
never grow mean or common. In the counties along the coast, there is
scarcely a hill, or stream, or village that does not bear some
melodious trace of Spanish occupation.
To see what California might have been, we have only to turn away from
the mission counties to the foothills of the Sierras, where the
mining-camps of the Anglo-Saxon bear such names as Fiddletown, Red Dog,
Dutch Flat, Murder Gulch, Ace of Spades, or Murderer's Bar; these
changing later, by euphemistic vulgarity, into Ruby City, Magnolia
Vale, Largentville, Idlewild, and the like. Or, if not these, our
Anglo-Saxon practically gives us, not Our Lady of the Solitude, nor the
City of the Holy Cross, not Fresno, the ash, nor Mariposa, the
butterfly, but the momentous repetition of Smithvilles, Jonesboroughs,
and Brownstowns, which makes the map of the Mississippi Valley a waste
of unpoetical mediocrity.
So the Spanish names constitute our legacy from the Mission Fathers.
It is now nearly three hundred and fifty years since Alta California
was discovered, one hundred and twenty years since it was colonized by
white people, and a little over forty years since it became a part of
our republic. In 1542, Cabrillo had sailed up the coast as far as Cape
Mendocino. In 1577, Sir Francis Drake came as far north as Point
Reyes, where, seeing the white cliffs of Marin County, he called the
country New Albion. Better known than these to Spanish-speaking people
was the voyage of Sebastian Vizcaino, who, in 1602, had coasted along
as far as Point Reyes, and had left a full account of his discoveries.
The landlocked harbor which Cabrillo had named San Miguel, Vizcaino
re-christened in honor of his flag-ship, San Diego de Alcalá. Farther
north, Vizcaino found a glorious deep and sheltered bay, "large enough
to float all the navies of the world," he said; and this, in honor of
the Viceroy of Mexico, he called the Bay of Monterey. To a broad curve
of the coast to the north, between Point San Pedro and Point Reyes, he
gave the name of the Bay of San Francisco,[2] dedicating it to the
memory of St. Francis of Assisi. A rough chart of the coast was made
by his pilot, Cabrera Bueno, who left also an account of its leading
features.
For a hundred and sixty years after Vizcaino's expedition, no use was
made of his discoveries. In Professor Blackmar's words: "During all
this time, not a European boat cut the surf of the northwest coast; not
a foreigner trod the shore of Alta California. The white-winged
galleon, plying its trade between Acapulco and the Philippines,
occasionally passed near enough so that those on board might catch
glimpses of the dark timber-line of the mountains of the coast or of
the curling smoke of the forest fires; but the land was unknown to
them, and the natives pursued their wandering life unmolested."
Toward the end of the seventeenth century, Father Salvatierra, head of
the Jesuit missions in Lower California, fixed his eye on this region,
and made plans for its occupation. In this the good Father Kühn--a
German from Bavaria, whom the Spaniards knew as "Quino,"--seconded him.
But these plans came to naught. The power of the Jesuit order was
broken; the charge of the missions in Lower California was given to the
Dominicans, that of Upper California to the Franciscans, and to these
and their associates the colonization of California is due. The
Franciscans, it is said, "were the first white men who came to live and
die in Alta California."
And this is how it came about. One hundred and thirty years ago, the
port of La Paz, in Baja California, lay baking in the sun. La Paz was
then, as now, a little old town, with narrow, stony streets and adobe
houses, standing amidst palms, and chaparral, and cactus. To this port
of La Paz came, one eventful day, Don José de Galvez, envoy of the King
of Spain. He brought orders to the Governor of California, Don Gaspar
de Portolá, that he should send a vessel in search of the ports of San
Diego and of Monterey, on the supposed island, or peninsula, of Upper
California, once found by Vizcaino, but lost for a century and a half.
There they were to establish colonies and missions of the Holy Catholic
Church. They were "to spread the Catholic religion," said the letter,
"among a numerous heathen people, submerged in the obscure darkness of
paganism, thereby to extend the dominion of the king, our lord, and to
protect this peninsula of California from the ambitious designs of the
foreign nations."
"The land must be fertile for everything," says Galvez, "for it lies in
the same latitude as Spain." So they carried all sorts of household
and field utensils, and seeds of every useful plant that grew in Spain
and Mexico--the olive and the pomegranate, the grape and the orange,
not forgetting the garlic and the pepper. All these were placed in two
small ships, the San Carlos, under the gallant Captain Vila, and the
San Antonio, under Captain Perez.
Padre Junípero Serra, chief apostle of these Spanish missions, blessed
the vessels and the flags, commending the whole enterprise to the Most
Holy Patriarch San José, who was supposed to feel a special interest in
this class of expeditions. His early flight into Egypt gave him a
peculiar fondness for schemes involving foreign travel. Galvez
exhorted the soldiers and sailors to respect the priests, and not to
quarrel with each other. And thus they sailed away for San Diego in
the winter of 1769.
At the same time there was organized a land expedition, which should
cross the sandy deserts and cactus-covered hills and join the vessels
at San Diego. That there should be no risk of failure, Don Gaspar de
Portolá divided the land forces into two divisions, one led by himself,
the other by Captain Rivera. These two parties were to take different
routes, so that if one were destroyed the other might accomplish the
work. In front of each band were driven a hundred head of cattle,
which were to colonize the new territories with their kind.
Padre Serra went with the land expedition under the command of Portolá.
A barefooted friar, clad in a rough cloak confined by a rope at the
waist, looks comfortable enough in the cool shade of an Italian
cathedral; but the garb of the Franciscan order is ill-fitted to the
peculiarities of the California mesa. For the vegetation of Lower
California makes up in bristliness what it lacks in luxuriance. Bush
cactuses, so prickly that it makes one's eyes smart to look at them,
and bunch cactuses, in wads of thorns as large as a bushel-basket,
swarm everywhere. Before the barefooted Padre had traveled far, so
Miss Graham tells us in her charming little paper on the Spanish
missions, he had made the acquaintance of many species of cactus.
Horses in that country become lame sometimes, and people say that they
are "cactus-legged." And soon Father Serra became "cactus-legged,"
too, so that he could neither walk nor ride a mule. The Indians were
therefore obliged to carry him in a litter, for he would not go back to
La Paz.
But the Father felt great compassion for the Indians, who had enough to
do to carry themselves. He prayed fervently for a time, and then,
according to the chronicler of the expedition, "He called a mule-driver
and said to him: 'Son, do you know some remedy for my foot and leg?'
But the mule-driver answered, 'Father, what remedy can I know? Am I a
surgeon? I am a mule-driver, and have cured only the sore backs of
beasts.' 'Then consider me a beast,' said the Father, 'and this sore
leg to be a sore back, and treat me as you would a mule.' Then said
the muleteer, 'I will, Father, to please you,' and taking a small piece
of tallow, he mashed it between two stones, mixing with it herbs that
grew close by. Then heating it over the fire, he anointed the foot and
leg, and left the plaster upon the sore. 'God wrought in such a
manner,' wrote the Padre Serra afterwards, 'that I slept all that
night, and awoke so much relieved that I got up and said matins and
prime, and afterwards mass, as if nothing had happened.'"
But Father Serra did not show his faith by such simple miracles as
these alone. In one of his revival meetings in Mexico, Bancroft tells
us, he was beating himself with a chain in punishment for his imaginary
offenses, when a man seized the chain and beat himself to death as a
miserable sinner, in the presence of the people. At another time,
sixty persons who neglected to attend his meetings were killed by an
epidemic, and the disease went on, killing one after another, until the
people had been scared into attention to their religious duties. Then,
at a sign from Padre Serra, the plague abated.
At one time the good Padre was well lodged and entertained in a very
neat wayside cottage on a desolate and solitary road. Later he learned
that there was no such cottage in that region, and, we are told, he
concluded that his entertainers were Joseph, Mary, and Jesus.
Suffering greatly from thirst on one of his journeys, he said to his
companions, who were complaining: "The best way to prevent thirst is to
eat little and talk less." In a violent storm he was perfectly calm,
and the storm ceased instantly when a saint chosen by lot had been
addressed in prayer. And so on; for miracles like these are constant
accompaniments of a mind wholly given over to religious enthusiasm.
In due season, Padre Serra and his party arrived at San Diego, having
followed the barren and dreary coast of Lower California for three
hundred and sixty miles, often carrying water for great distances, and
as often impeded by winter rains. The boats and the other party were
already there, and in the valley to the north of the _mesa_, on the
banks of the little San Diego River, they founded the first mission in
California.
Within a fortnight of Serra's arrival at San Diego, a special land
expedition set out in search of Vizcaino's lost port of Monterey. The
expedition, under Don Gaspar de Portolá, was unhappy in some respects,
though fortunate in others--unhappy, for after wandering about in the
Coast Range for six months, the soldiers returned to San Diego, weary,
half-starved, and disgusted, failing altogether, as they supposed, to
find Monterey; fortunate, for it was their luck to discover the far
more important Bay of San Francisco. It seems evident, from the
researches of John T. Doyle and others, that the company of Portolá,
from the hills above what is now Redwood City, were the first white men
to behold the present Bay of San Francisco. The journal of Miguel
Costanzo, a civil engineer with Portolá's command, is still preserved
in the Sutro Library in San Francisco, and Costanzo's map of the coast
has been published. The diary of Father Crespi, who accompanied
Portolá, has also been printed.
The little company went along the coast from San Diego northward,
meeting many Indians on the way, and having various adventures with
them. In the pretty valley which they named San Juan Capistrano, they
found the Indian men dressed in suits of paint, the women in bearskins.
On the site of the present town of Santa Ana, which they called Jesus
de los Temblores, they met terrific earthquakes day and night. At Los
Angeles, they celebrated the feast of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels
(Nuestra Señora, Reina de Los Angeles), from which the valley took the
name it still bears. They passed up the broad valley of San Fernando
Rey, and crossed the mountains to the present village of Saugus.
Thence they went down the Santa Clara River to San Buenaventura and
Santa Barbara, their route coinciding with that of the present
railroad. Above San Buenaventura they found Indians living in huts of
sagebrush. At Santa Barbara, the Indians fed on excellent fish, but
played the flute at night so persistently that Portolá and his soldiers
could not sleep for the music. They next passed Point Concepcion, and
crossed the picturesque Santa Ynez and the fertile Arroyo Grande to the
basin-shaped valley of San Luis Obispo, with its row of four conical
mountains. At the last of these, Moro Rock, they reached the sea
again. Above Piedras Blancas, where the rugged cliffs of the Santa
Lucia crowd down to the ocean, they were blocked, and could go no
farther. Crossing the mountains to the east, they followed Nacimiento
Creek to below Paso Robles, then went down the dusty valley of the
Salinas, past the pastures on which the missions of San Miguel and
Soledad were later planted. Below Soledad, they came again to the sea.
They then went along the shore to the westward, past the present site
of Monterey and Pacific Grove, and on to the Point of Pines itself, the
southern border of the Bay of Monterey. Yet not one of them recognized
the bay or any of the landmarks described by Vizcaino. At the Point of
Pines, they were greatly disheartened, because they could nowhere find
a trace of the Bay of Monterey, or of any other bay which was
sheltered, or on which "the navies of the world could ride." Father
Crespi celebrated here "the Feast of Our Father in the New World";
"or," he adds, "perhaps in a corner of the Old World, without any other
church or choir than a desert." Portolá offered to return, but Crespi
said: "Let us continue our journey until we find the harbor of
Monterey; if it be God's will, we will die fulfilling our duty to God
and our country." So they crossed the Salinas again, and went
northward along the shore of the very bay they had sought so long.
Then they came to another river, where they killed a great eagle, whose
wings spread nine feet and three inches. They called this river
Pajaro, which means "bird," and devoutly added to it the name of Saint
Anne, "Rio del Pajaro de Santa Ana." To the memory of this bird, the
Pájaro River still remains dedicated. Farther on, they came to forests
of redwood--"_Palo Colorado_," they called it. Crespi describes the
trees "as very high, resembling cedars of Lebanon, but not of the same
color; the leaves different, and the wood very brittle."
[Illustration: A Record of Junípero Serra.]
At Santa Cruz, on the San Lorenzo River, they encamped, still bewailing
their inability to find Monterey Bay. Going northward, along the coast
past Pescadero and Halfmoon Bay, they saw the great headland of Point
San Pedro. They called it Point Guardian Angel (Angel Custodio), and
from its heights they could clearly see Point Reyes and the chalk-white
islands of the Farallones. These landmarks they recognized from the
charts of Cabrera Bueno. Crespi says: "Scarce had we ascended the
hill, when we perceived a vast bay formed by a great projection of land
extending out to sea. We see six or seven islands, white, and
differing in size. Following the coast toward the north, we can
perceive a wide, deep cut, and northwest we see the opening of a bay
which seems to go inside the land. At these signs, we come to
recognize this harbor. It is that of our Father St. Francis, and that
of Monterey we have left behind." "But some," he adds, "cannot believe
yet that we have left behind us the harbor of Monterey, and that we are
in that of San Francisco."
But the "Harbor of San Francisco," as indicated by Cabrera Bueno, lay
quite outside the Golden Gate, in the curve between Point San Pedro on
the south, and Point Reyes on the north. The existence of the Golden
Gate, and the landlocked waters within, forming what is now known as
San Francisco Bay, was not suspected by any of the early explorers.
The high coast line, the rolling breakers, and, perhaps, the banks of
fog, had hidden the Golden Gate and the bay from Cabrillo, Drake, and
Vizcaino alike. By chance a few members of Portolá's otherwise
unfortunate expedition discovered the glorious harbor. Some of the
soldiers, led by an officer named Ortega, wandered out on the Sierra
Morena, east of Point San Pedro. When they reached the summit and
looked eastward, an entirely new prospect was spread out before them.
From the foothills of these mountains, they saw a great arm of the
ocean--"a mediterranean sea," they termed it, according to Mr. Doyle's
account, "with a fair and extensive valley bordering it, rich and
fertile--a paradise compared with the country they had been passing
over." They rushed back to the seashore, waving their hats and
shouting. Then the whole party crossed over from Halfmoon Bay into the
valley of San Mateo Creek. Thence they turned to the south to go
around the head of the bay, passing first over into the Cañada del
Raymundo, which skirts the foot of the mountain. Soon they came down
the "Bear Gulch" to San Francisquito Creek, at the point where
Searsville once stood, before the great Potolá Reservoir covered its
traces and destroyed its old landmark, the Portolá Tavern. They
entered what is now the University Campus, on which columns of
ascending smoke showed the presence of many camps of Indians. These
Indians were not friendly. The expedition was out of provisions, and
many of its members were sick from eating acorns. There seemed to be
no limit to the extension of the Estero de San Francisco. At last, in
despair, but against the wishes of Portolá, they decided to return to
San Diego. They encamped on San Francisquito Creek, and crossed the
hills again to Halfmoon Bay. Then they went down the coast by Point
Año Nuevo, to Santa Cruz. At the Point of Pines they spent two weeks,
searching again everywhere for the Bay of Monterey.