- Committee.
The March of Portola and the Discovery of the Bay of San Francisco
by
Zoeth S. Eldredge.
The popular mind accepts the oft-repeated statement that the settlement
of California was due to the pious zeal of a devoted priest, eager to
save the souls of the heathen, supplemented by the paternal care of a
monarch solicitous for the welfare of his subjects. The political
exigencies of the day are forgotten; military commanders and civil
governors sink into insignificance and become mere executives of the
priestly will, while the heroic efforts of Junipero Serra to convert the
natives, his courage in the face of danger, his sublime zeal, and his
unwearied devotion, make him the impelling factor in the colonization of
California.
Nor is the popular conception that the church led the way into
California strange, when we understand that it is to the writings of
Fray Francisco Palou, friend, disciple, and successor of Junipero, that
all historians turn for the account of the occupation. Fray Palou
details the glorious life of the leader with whom he toiled; he
eulogizes the worthy priest, the ardent missionary, as he passed up and
down the length of the land, founding missions, planting the vine, the
olive, and the fruit tree in a land whose inhabitants had often suffered
from hunger; giving aid and comfort to the sick and weary and
consolation to the dying.
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