Feeling the approach of death, Junipero Serra confessed himself to Fray Palou; went through the Church offices for the dying; joined in the hymn Tantum Ergo “with elevated and sonorous tones,” saith the chronicle,—­the congregation, hearing him intone his death chaunt, were awed into silence, so that the dying man’s voice alone finished the hymn; then he repaired to his cell, where he passed the night in prayer.  The following morning he received the captain and chaplain of a Spanish vessel lying in the harbor, and said, cheerfully, he thanked God that these visitors, who had traversed so much of sea and land, had come to throw a little earth upon his body.  Anon he asked for a cup of broth, which he drank at the table in the refectory; was then assisted to his bed, where he had scarcely touched the pillow when, without a murmur, he expired.

In anticipation of his death, he had ordered his own coffin to be made by the mission carpenter; and his remains were at once deposited in it.  So precious was the memory of this man in his own day that it was with the utmost difficulty his coffin was preserved from destruction; for the populace, venerating even the wooden case that held the remains of their spiritual Father, clamored for the smallest fragment; and, though a strong body-guard watched over it until the interment, a portion of his vestment was abstracted during the night.  One thinks of this and of the overwhelming sorrow that swept through the land when this saintly pioneer fell at the head of his legion.

The California mission reached the height of its prosperity forty years later, when it owned 87,600 head of cattle, 60,000 sheep, 2,300 calves, 1,800 horses, 365 yoke of oxen, much merchandise, and $40,000 in specie.  Tradition hints that this money was buried when a certain piratical-looking craft was seen hovering about the coast.

This wealth is all gone now—­scattered among the people who have allowed the dear old mission to fall into sad decay.  What a beautiful church it must have been, with its quaint carvings, its star-window that seems to have been blown out of shape in some wintry wind, and all its lines hardened again in the sunshine of the long, long summer; with its Saracenic door!—­what memories the Padres must have brought with them of Spain and the Moorish seal that is set upon it!  Here we have evidence of it painfully wrought out by the hands of rude Indian artisans.  The ancient bells have been carried away into unknown parts; the owl hoots in the belfry; the hills are shown of their conventual tenements; while the wind and the rain and a whole heartless company of iconoclasts have it all their own way.

Once in the year, on San Carlos’ Day, Mass is sung in the only habitable corner of the ruin; the Indians and the natives gather from all quarters, and light candles among the graves, and mourn and mourn and make a strange picture of the place; then they go their way, and the owl returns, and the weeds grow ranker, and every hour there is a straining among the weakened joists, and a creaking and a crumbling in many a nook and corner; and so the finest historical relic in the land is suffered to fall into decay.  Or, perhaps I should say, that was the sorry state of Carmelo in my day.  I am assured that every effort is now being made to restore and preserve beautiful Carmelo.