The San Francisco call., 1898-04-10

of ten decades past rise from
 their sleen this Easter morn and
 look upon the scene of their
 former labors by the Golden
 NGate, what would they find fla niliar in the area from Hunters Point to the Presidio, from Bernal Heights and Lone Mountain cross to the seawau?
 Little, indeed, save sky and bay and the warm Californi- sunshine, for these are the only things that man cannot harness to the van Of progress.
 The astonished gaze of the fathers would rest with loving remembrance upon an adobe roof here and there-un- less commerce had sent these, too, into eclipse by hideous and desecrating painted signs-and then, turning to the old Mission Dolores, I fancy tears Of gratitude might come that time had not ruthlesssly swept from sight this monument of their labor. Within it's quaint and cOnsecrated structure their troubled souls. disembodied or reincar- hated, would be certain to gain peace as of old.
 To-day the voices of trained and sal aried singers will thrill the souls of listeners with their melody or fall upon ears too dulled by indifference to heed the spiritual significance of words and music Yesterday, as it were, since time swings the cycles so sWiftly-the people sang for he very love of the Eastertide and it's gentle lesson to man kind; and with the notes of"Te Deum,'' "Laudamus" and Gloria in Excelsis'' were mingled feelings of joy that they could thus worship God in the wilder ness Yesterday the silver -throated bells of Dolores broke the stiffness of the morning air. To-day service will be proclaimed from the steeples of mag nificent churches whose presence but serves to accentuate the simple beauty of their white walled predecessor.
 A hundred years ago the site of this cOmmonwealth-to-b was sandy eX- panse of hill and vale, tangled with malva and wildfowerS, grown with scrub oak, manzanita, mesquite and madrone to the waters edge. Yerba Buena Cove reached to Montgomery street. Quail were plentiful and un- afraid. Upon the hills that were not to be eternal, because of the dwellers of the future who should come to rage them, shee~ cattle, horses and mules of the pueblo roamed and fed, and at night were the prey of bears, for in the year 1798 the stock was greatly depict ed by wild beasts. Saint Francis de Assist, builded on the Laguna de los Dolores, had been completed nearly tWenty-one years and was perfect in it's picturesoueness, it's interior being as richly decorated as was possible with the facilities at hand. The huts of the Indians had been replaced by adobe dwellings with tiled roofs in sufficient number to accommodate the families of the married neophytes. Sol dierS were garriSOned at the PFeSidio as now. About $500 bushels of crops. mainly wheat, were stored in an adobe building nearly 200 feet long, the keys to the community granary being held b7- three persons, the alcalde, comision- ado and senior regidor. 4 trail led it's winding irregular way from Presidio to Mission. Around Potrero and fields a ditch was dug, some nine feet wide The settlement was prosperous, and the hearts of Fathers Palou and Cambon and the indefatigable Serra were thankful, for, as Serra had said upon completion of this, the sixth of the California missions, Our Father. St. Francis, with the holy cross of the pro- oession of missions, has reached the last limits of the Western continent. To go farther he must have boats."
 And what of the people whom the bells summoned to worship on that Easter day of long ago, with heads bowed reverently before the image at the altar of St. Francis, patron saint of Port, Presidio and Mission?
 There were not many hundreds of souls. and they numbered friars and la~men, soldiers and civilians, ranch eros and Indians-a strangely assorted congregation, among whom none spoke an English word. The Latin of the ser vice, the soft, musical Spanish tongue, fba Mavi0ar1 lanplap were their SDeeCh As a class, they were an intelligent, law abiding community, for when Anza brought his colonists hither more than twenty years previously, he had been instructed to select only men and women of highest character to found the new settlement.
 Padre Landaeta was Tn charge of the mission, having replaced Padre Cam bon when the latter became too i'll for duty. He was assisted by Friars Fer nadez and Abella. Ramon Abella was a Spaniard of much ability and zeal, then but 35 years of age, and for many years sole survivor of those who came here previous to 1900. When the present century was fourteen years old Padre Abella performed burial rites over Biridiana, the last of the Indians who had witnessed the founding of the Mission in '76 Pedro Alberni, a Span ish lieutenant-colonel, was by reason of his rank in command of San Fran cisco port Diego Borica was Governor. a genial, wealthy and progressive man, his wife the beautiful Donna Magdalena de Urquides.
 Among those who received the ben ediction of the snowy-stoled priesthood on that far-off Sabbath were many whose dust has lain through undis- turbed generations in the messy. ivy garlanded burying ground of Dolores. There were names that now mark the highways and byways of a great city, whose hills are traversed in few moments' space. where once the foot