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William Henry Hudson - The Famous Missions of California
bias of mind and preconceived ideals, as upon the bare facts presented, concerning which, one would
imagine, there can hardly be much difference of opinion. To decide upon the value of a given social
experiment, we must, to begin with, wake up our minds as to what we should wish to see achieved; and
where there is no unanimity concerning the object to be reached, there will scarcely be any in respect of
the means employed. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that critical judgment upon the Franciscan
missionaries and their work has been given here in terms of unqualified laudation, and there in the form
of severest disapproval, and that everyone who touches the topic afresh is expected to take sides. In their
favor it must, I think, be universally admitted that they wrought always with the highest motives and the
noblest intentions, and that their labours were really fruitful of much good among the native tribes. On
the other hand, when regarded from the standpoint of secular progress, it seems equally certain that their
work was sadly hampered by narrowness of outlook and understanding, and an utter want of appreciation
of the demands and conditions of the modern world. Thus while we give them the fullest credit for all
that they accomplished by their teachings and example, we have still frankly to acknowledge their failure
in the most important and most difficult part of their undertaking - in the task of transforming many
thousands of ignorant and degraded savages into self-respecting men and women, fit for the duties and
responsibilities of civilization. Yet to put it in this way is to show sharply enough that such failure is not
hastily to be set down to their discredit. It is often said, indeed, that they went altogether the wrong way
to work for the achievement of the much-desired result; and it is unquestionably true, as La Pérouse long
ago pointed out, that they made the fundamental, but with them inevitable mistake, of sacrificing the
temporal and material welfare of the natives to the consideration of so-called "heavenly interests." Yet in
common fairness we must remember the stuff with which they had to deal. The Indian was by nature a
child and a slave; and if, out of children and slaves they did not at once manufacture independent and
law-abiding citizens, is it for us, who have not yet exhibited triumphant success in handling the same
problem under far more favorable conditions, to cover them with our contempt, or dismiss them with our
blame? Civilization is at best a slow and painful affair, as we half-civilized people ought surely to
understand by this time - a matter not of individuals and years, but of generations and centuries; and
nothing permanent has ever yet been gained by any attempt, how promising soever it may have seemed,
to force the natural processes of social evolution. The mission padres bore the cross from point to point
along the far-off Pacific coast; they built churches, they founded settlements, they gave their strength to
the uplifting of the heathen. Little that was enduring came out of all this toil. Perhaps this was partly
because their methods were shortsighted, their means inadequate to the ends proposed. But when we
remember that they had set their hands to an almost impossible task, we shall perhaps be inclined rather
to acknowledge their partial success, than to deal harshly with them on the score of their manifest failure.
Be all this as it may, however, the missions of California passed away, leaving practically nothing behind
them but a memory. Yet this is surely a memory to be cherished by all who feel a pious reverence for the
past, and whose hearts are responsive to the sense of tears that there is in mortal things. And alike for
those who live beneath the blue skies of California, and for those who wander awhile as visitors among
her scenes of wonder and enchantment, the old mission buildings will ever be objects of curious and
unique interest. Survivals from a by-gone era, embodiments not only of the purposes of their founders,
but of the faith which built the great cathedrals of Europe, they stand pathetic figures in a world to which
they do not seem to belong. In the noise and bustle of the civilization which is taking possession of what
was once their territory, they have no share. The life about them looks towards the future. They point
mutely to the past. A tender sentiment clings about them; in their hushed enclosures we breathe a drowsy
old-world atmosphere of peace; to linger within their walls, to muse in their graveyards, is to step out of
the noisy present into the silence of departed years. In a land where everything is of yesterday, and whose
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