SANTA ROSA
Santa Rosa (St. Rose), the county-seat of Sonoma County, is fifty-seven miles northwest of San Francisco.
An interesting story is told of Santa Rosa de Lima, said to be the only canonized female saint of the New World. She was born at Lima, in Peru, and was distinguished for her hatred of vanity, and her great austerity, carrying these characteristics to such an extreme that she destroyed her beautiful complexion with a compound of pepper and quicklime. When her mother commanded her to wear a wreath of roses, she so arranged it that it was in truth a crown of thorns. Her food consisted principally of bitter herbs, and she maintained her parents by her labor, working all day in her garden and all night with her needle. The legend relates that when Pope Clement X was asked to canonize her, he refused, exclaiming: “India y Santa! Asi como llueven rosas!” (An Indian woman a saint! That may happen when it rains roses!) Instantly a shower of roses began to fall in the Vatican, and did not cease until the Pope was convinced of his error. This saint is the patroness of America, and is represented as wearing a thorny crown, and holding in her hand the figure of the infant Jesus, which rests on full-blown roses.—(Stories of the Saints.)