Austin's Hawaiian weekly. [volume] (Honolulu [Hawaii]) 1899-190?, 1899-06-24
AUSTIN'S HAWAIIAN WEEKLY.

STATES were century ana nall OlQ when the
first European sat down in California for good;
but in all that time they had not erected an ed-
flee so nasterful as he began at once. The East
erner who knows anything about his own his
tory stands astounded before such enormous
structures as the monastery at San Fernando, the
temple of San Luis Rey, and other buildings of
the Franciscan missionaries.
The Puritan came to hunt room for his own
faith; he sat down on the first shore he reached;
he hanged, whipped, and boycotted every other
fellow that had another faith. And while he
believed in God as hard as ever man did (and
castiron God at that, he built his temples of the
nearest logs.
The Franciscan after sailing farther from the
Old World, trarnped on his feet as far again, to
give someone else a faith. He hung no Quakers;
but he built, in place of little log Westinghouse"
for himself, enormous stone churches for the In
dians. Instead of the sfrewd, earnest labor of
the Puritan's co-workers, he had no masons nor
carpenters except absolutely raw savages. And
by moral suasion not by blue-laws and force. he
got nonlads who had never built house for them
selves to help him build imposing structures for
his alien but aniable God.
This is not California guess. 1t is proved
historic truth, which no scholar would any more
deny than he would deny gravtation And it is
food for thought. Take for instance, the stone
church at San Juan Capistrano. 1t could not be
rebuilt, even Ill tIllS easy udy WIFI ldlllodu d.
it's door and skilled nlasons hunting job" for
less than one hundred thousand dollars. Yet it
was built in what was then deeper wilderness
than Daniel Boone trod, country more distant
from the civilization of its time than central
Africa is to-day, and with stupid savages for
workmen--l,ed to their task not by an army but
by the magnetism and diplomacy of couple of
brown-robed missionaries.
TO those who know something of history, the
California missions are, as physical achievement
and Cuisines success" among the most wonder
full things in Our country. To those who know
anything about architecture, they are, collectively
the noblest monuments in the United States. To
those who have some insight of beauty and pic
turesqueness, they are precious beyond speech.
The brutal and thievish "dsestablishment' -
for the early Mexican republic" was as bitter a
, jest as the Mexican republic of to-day is honor
able and substantial fact-broke the backs of the
missions and gave their disnembered properties
over to be looted. Since the American occupation
and the coming of security, carelessness has con-
tinued the destruction that greed began. Their
proselytes scattered or dead their revenue stolen
their temples robbed to make one mans house
and another mans pig-pen, the missions have
fallen into irrenediable decay. Not one keeps, or
will ever have again, the splendor of the good old
days when each mission was a little common
wealth, sef-sustaining and selfsufficing; produc-
ing everything within its own walls; business
management" which no American trust surpasses
in efficiency, a work of love and conscience that
Americans night profitably pattern by in their
dealings with minor peoples.
few missions are still occupied by the meager
piers of the patriarcha pioneers; many are gone
to swift decay-pillaged by man and the elements
And some are safeguarded and loved by devot