THE CHURCH BEYOND THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.
The States and territories of the Pacific coast are, in many respects, "a land apart" from the rest of the Union. Separated from the other States by an immense tract of unsettled territory, no inconsiderable part of which must ever continue a desert, as well as by the great barrier of the Rocky Mountains, the western slope of that chain presents to the new-comer an aspect not less different from the shores of the Atlantic than the latter differ from the countries of Europe. The climate, with its semi-tropical division of wet and dry seasons, the evidently volcanic formation of its surface, the huge mountain chains, with all their accessories of valleys, precipices, torrents, and cataracts, which occupy most of its area, and the peculiar vegetation that covers its soil, all wear a foreign appearance to an Eastern visitor; and the people themselves, though forming an integral part of his own nation, are scarcely less strange to his eyes. Men of races hardly known on the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains meet him at every step; and not only do the different European and Asiatic races retain their national customs and characters much more tenaciously than the immigrant population of the Eastern States, but they have very considerably modified the character of their American fellow-settlers. The way in which California, and, to a considerable degree, Oregon, were settled was altogether different from the usual system of colonization which has added so many States to the Union, from Ohio to Nebraska, and from Mississippi and Texas to Minnesota. The journey to the Pacific coast before the completion of the Pacific Railroad involved as complete a separation from home associations, and as great a change from early habits, to an American, as does the voyage across the Atlantic to the European immigrant; and at its end he found himself in a country entirely different, both physically and socially, from all that he had been previously accustomed to. The influence of the old Spanish settlements, in which for years was to be found the only established society of the country, the mixture of men of all the European races on a footing of perfect equality in the pursuit of wealth, and the peculiarly adventurous and uncertain nature of mining life, which long formed the chief employment of the whole population, all tended to rub off the new-comers' national peculiarities and prejudices; and the result has been the growth of a well-marked national character among the few hundred thousand inhabitants of the Pacific coast.
Amid this cosmopolitan population the Catholic Church has taken firm root, and in no other part of the country does she reckon as large a proportion of the people within her fold, or exercise more influence over the public mind. She had preceded the march of American enterprise and the rush of gold-seekers on the shores of the Pacific; and when the pioneers of the new population pushed their way across the continent and descended the slope of the Sierra Nevada, they found her missions already established in California. While the American Republic was yet a thing of the future, and the west of the Alleghanies was still an almost untrodden wilderness, Catholic priests had already begun to gather into the fold of Peter the tribes beyond the Rocky Mountains. In the early half of the eighteenth century, the Jesuit Reductions of Lower California were only less famous than those of Paraguay; and to the zeal of the Franciscans who succeeded the Jesuits in 1767, Upper California owes the introduction of Christianity and civilization. In 1769, or a few months more than one hundred years ago, Father Junipero Lerra, with a company of his Franciscan brethren and a few Mexican settlers, founded the mission of San Diego, the first settlement made by civilized men within what is now the State of California. Before that year, indeed, although the ports of Monterey and San Diego were well known to the Spanish navigators, no European had ever penetrated into the interior of California, and even the existence of the noble bay of San Francisco was unknown to the civilized world until it was discovered and named by the humble friars. The salvation of souls, the hope of making known to the Indians the doctrines of Catholicity, were the motives which inspired the Franciscans to undertake a task which had long been deemed impracticable by the Spanish court in spite of its anxiety to extend its dominions to the north of Mexico. To raise up the despised aborigines to the dignity of Christian men, to show them the road to eternal happiness in another life, and, as a means to that end, to promote their well-being in this world, such were the objects for whose attainment the devoted missionaries separated themselves from their native land and the society of civilized men, to spend their lives among savages, who often rewarded their devotion only by shedding their blood. The Indians of California are in every respect a much inferior race to the tribes on the east of the Rocky Mountains. Many of them went wholly naked, they had no towns or villages, and although the country abounded in game, they were indifferent hunters, and depended mainly for subsistence on wild berries, roots, and grasshoppers. In tribal organization they were little if at all superior to the Australian savages, and of religious worship or morality they had scarcely an idea. Many of the southern tribes, especially, were fierce and warlike, and belonged to a kindred race to the Apaches, who still set at defiance all the attempts of the United States government to dislodge them from Arizona. Such were the men from whom the Franciscans undertook to form a Christian community; and of their success in so doing, the history of California for over sixty years is an irrefragable witness.
In spite of occasional outbreaks of hostility on the part of the Indians, and the destruction by them of a mission, the whole of the region between the coast range and the ocean, as far north as the Bay of San Francisco, was studded with such establishments before the close of the century. Fifteen thousand converted Indians enjoyed under the mild sway of the Franciscans a degree of prosperity almost unparalleled in the history of their race. The missions, which were eighteen in number, differed in size and importance, but were all conducted on the same general plan. The church and the community buildings, including the residence of the fathers, the store-houses and workshops, formed the centre of a village of Indian huts, the inhabitants of which were daily summoned by the church bells to mass, as a prelude to their labors, and again in the evening called back to rest by the notes of the Angelus. Religious instruction was given to all on Sundays and holidays, and to the newly converted and the children also. At other times during the day, the men worked at agricultural labor, or looked after the cattle belonging to the mission, and the unmarried women were employed at spinning, or some other labor suited to their strength, in a building specially provided for the purpose. The fathers, two or more of whom resided in each Reduction, were the rulers, the judges, the instructors, and the directors of work of their neophytes, who held all property in common. The white population was few in number, consisting mainly of small garrisons at different posts, intended to hold the wild Indians in awe, and some families of settlers who were chiefly engaged in stock-raising. The military commandant, who resided at Monterey, might be regarded as the governor of the country; but the fathers and their converts were entirely exempt from his jurisdiction, and were independent of all authority subordinate to the Spanish crown. The mission farms usually sufficed for the support of their inhabitants, but the external expenses of the communities were defrayed by a subsidy from the Spanish government and the "pious fund" of Spain, an association very similar to the Society for the Propagation of the Faith.
Such was the condition of California down to the end of the Spanish rule; and during the whole of that period, and for several years afterward, the missions continued to grow in numbers and prosperity. The payments of the government subsidy and the remittances from the pious fund became indeed very uncertain and irregular during the struggle of Mexico for independence; but the industrial condition of the missions was then such that they stood no longer in need of external aid, and indeed they were able to contribute largely to the support of the administration of the territory. The establishment of the Mexican Republic made for some years little change in the condition of the missions of California, and the services rendered by the fathers to civilization were more than once acknowledged by the Mexican Congress. But the mission property was too tempting a bait to the needy revolutionists who disputed for supreme power in that ill-starred country. In 1833, a decree of Congress deprived the Franciscans of all authority over the missions, and placed their property in the hands of lay administrators. The Indians were to receive certain portions of land, and some stock individually, and the rest was to be applied to the use of the state. The results were such as might be expected from the history of similar confiscation in foreign lands. The fruits of sixty years' patient toil were wasted during a few years of riotous plundering, in the name of state administration; the cattle belonging to the missions were stolen or killed; the churches and public works allowed to fall into ruin; the cultivation of the soil neglected; and the unfortunate Indians, deprived of their protectors, and handed over to the tender mercies of "liberal" officials, wandered away in thousands from their abodes, and either perished or relapsed into barbarism. The population of the missions in nine years dwindled from upward of thirty to little over four thousand Indians; and when their property was sold at auction in 1845, its value had fallen from several millions to a mere nothing. The native Spanish Californians, who clearly saw the fatal results of the overthrow of the missions to the prosperity of the country, made several attempts to restore them to their former condition, but in vain. The constant revolutions of which Mexico was the theatre effectually prevented such a restoration, and the fate of the Indians was sealed by the political changes which shortly afterward threw the country into the hands of another race and another government. Under the American régime they have dwindled to less than one tenth of their former numbers, and, with the exception of a certain number of the converts of the Franciscans, who have adopted partially the usages of civilized life, and become amalgamated with the Spanish population, the whole race seems doomed to disappear from the land.
Serious, however, as was the blow which the church received from the overthrow of the Franciscan missions, she did not abandon her hold upon California. From the date of Father Lerra's arrival in the country, a small stream of Spanish or Mexican immigration had been flowing into it, and building up its "pueblos" near, but altogether distinct from, the mission establishments. The separation of the races was one of the points jealously attended to by the Franciscans, as essential to the success of their civilizing efforts among the Indians; and the Indian churches and Indian cemeteries, which still remain in several of the missions, at a short distance from the Spanish churches and Spanish burying-grounds, show how far this policy was carried out. The experience of centuries of mission work had taught the Franciscans that free intercourse between a civilized and an uncivilized race invariably leads to the demoralization of both, and much of their success must be ascribed to the care with which they kept their neophytes apart from the white settlements. The latter, at the time of the secularization, contained a population of some five or six thousand, and, including the half-civilized Indians who still remained around the missions, the whole Catholic population probably amounted to fifteen thousand at the epoch of the American conquest. For the benefit of this population, after the overthrow of the missions, the holy see established in 1840 the diocese of California, including the peninsula of Lower California within its boundaries.
Had Upper California continued a portion of the Mexican republic, there would have probably been little difference between its ecclesiastical history and that of Sonora or Chihuahua; but the American conquest, and still more the subsequent discovery of gold in the Sacramento River, entirely changed the face of affairs. The crowd of immigrants that flocked into the country was so great as to reduce the original population to comparative insignificance in a few months. A single year sufficed to quadruple the number of inhabitants, and two to increase it tenfold. The new population was indeed a strange one. American it was in its dominant political elements, but fully one half of it was made up of natives of other countries than the United States. Frenchmen, Spaniards, Italians, Germans, Scandinavians, Irish, English, Mexicans, South Americans, Indians, Kanakas, and Chinese all poured by thousands into the New Eldorado, which might with equal justice be styled the modern Babel. Seldom has so radical a change taken place in the population of a country in so short a time, and the church, if she did not wish to lose the territory she had conquered with so much toil, had to commence her mission work over again, and under entirely different circumstances from those under which the Franciscans had begun the work. A very large number of the new-comers were Catholics; but in the excitement of gold-seeking, the hold of religion on their minds had been seriously loosened, and a reckless disregard of all social and moral restraint pervaded the whole population. To restore the sway of religion over minds that had forgotten it, to provide priests, churches, schools, and all the various institutions of Catholic charity, for thousands of her own children, and to make known her doctrines to a still larger number of those who did not belong to her fold, such was the task before the church in California, and to its accomplishment she addressed herself almost as soon as the first immigrants landed in San Francisco.
A frame church, the first in California, was erected in that city for the use of the Catholic miners in 1849, and, as the different "camps" sprang up through the State, other churches were rapidly built up in the more important centres of population. The following year, a new diocese was formed of the territory lately acquired by the United States, and its government intrusted to the Right Reverend Bishop (now Archbishop) Allemany, who was called to that office from his Dominican convent in Kentucky. The new bishop lost no time in hastening to his post, and began his arduous task with rare wisdom and energy. The ranks of the secular clergy were largely recruited from various countries; the Jesuits, who had long been engaged in evangelizing the Indians of Oregon, were installed in the old mission of Santa Clara; a branch of the Sisters of Notre Dame was established in the neighboring town of San José; and the Sisters of Charity took charge of an orphan asylum and hospital in San Francisco.
All this had been done before the close of 1853, or in the height of the excitement of the early colonization, an excitement such as it is hard for the sober dwellers of more settled communities to form any idea of. The population of California resembled an ill-disciplined army rather than a well-ordered community; the immense majority of its members had neither families, fixed abodes, nor permanent occupations, and were ready to rush anywhere at the slightest rumor of rich "diggings." The mines were the great centre of attraction to all, and, as the old ones were worked out or new ones discovered, the entire population moved from one part of the country to another. Towns were built up only to be abandoned in a few months, and even San Francisco itself, in spite of its unrivalled commercial position, more than once was nearly deserted by its inhabitants. Fortunes were made or lost in a few hours, not merely by a few bold speculators, but by every class of the people; and the wild excitements which now and then cause such commotion in Wall street, were constantly paralleled in every mining camp of California. The sudden acquisition of fortune was the hope of every man; and while men were thus uncertain about what position they might occupy on the morrow, few cared to settle down to the routine of domestic life. Except among the Spanish Californians, scarcely any families were to be found in the country, and the standard of morality was such as might be expected under the circumstances. Laws there were, indeed, but the authorities were utterly unable to enforce them, and bullies and duellists settled their quarrels with arms, even on the streets of San Francisco, unchecked by police interference. Murderers and robbers promenaded the towns unmolested, and the idea of official honesty, or of seeking redress for wrongs at the hands of the law, was deemed too absurd to be entertained by a sensible man. Vigilance committees, the last refuge of society seeking to save itself from destruction, offered almost the only protection to persons and property that could be had in many districts. Bands of desperadoes, such as the "hounds" in San Francisco, and Joaquin's gang in the southern counties, openly set the law at defiance, and, in the fever of gold-seeking that pervaded the whole community, no force could be obtained to make it respected.
Such was the population of California when Bishop Allemany commenced his episcopal career; and the prospect of making religion flourish on such a soil was indeed such as might well dismay a fainter heart. Nevertheless he addressed himself to the task, and his toils were not unrewarded. Gradually but decidedly, the moral character of California began to improve, and the more glaring offences against public decency to grow rare. The rush of immigrants slackened in 1852, and something like settled society began to form among the older residents. Of the agents which helped to bring order out of the social chaos of "'49," none was more powerful than the influence of the Catholic Church. Most of the Protestant population had thrown off all allegiance to any sect, and this fact, while it contributed to make them to a great extent regardless of the rules of morality, had at least the good effect of banishing anti-Catholic prejudices from their minds. The church and her institutions were regarded with much respect by all classes in California, even at the time when the Know-Nothing movement was exciting such a storm of fanaticism in the Eastern States. Many Americans had married Catholic wives, or been long settled among the Spanish Californians; the history of the Franciscan missionaries was well known to all, and their devotedness appreciated by Catholics and Protestants alike. All these causes combined to give Catholicity considerable importance in the public opinion, and lent immense strength to her efforts in behalf of morality and religion. Catholic charities stood high in the public favor; the public hospital of San Francisco, after an experience of official management which swept away no small portion of the city property, was intrusted to the charge of the Sisters of Charity; Catholic schools for a long time shared in the public school funds; and Catholic asylums and orphanages were liberally aided by the public. Bishop Allemany was not slow in taking advantage of this favorable state of public feeling to provide his diocese with Catholic institutions. New churches were erected all over the State; schools established wherever it was practicable; and so great progress made generally that, in less than three years after his arrival in San Francisco, it became necessary to divide his diocese. The southern counties of the State, comprising most of the Spanish Californians among its inhabitants, were formed into the diocese of Monterey and Los Angeles in 1853. At the same time San Francisco was raised to the archiepiscopal rank. The membership of the Protestant churches of all denominations in the State was then almost nominal, scarcely amounting to two per cent of the population, while the Catholics formed at least thirty per cent. The public, as a general rule, regarded the Catholic Church as the church, and this feeling to a great extent still prevails.
For some years after the erection of the diocese of Monterey, there was little increase in the population of California; indeed, owing to the falling off in the yield of the precious metals, and the discovery of new mines in the neighboring territories, there was at times a considerable decrease in its numbers; nevertheless, the number of Catholics continued to increase, owing partly to the large proportion of Irish among the later immigrants, and partly to the natural growth of the Catholic population, which was more settled than the rest of the community. A further division of the archdiocese of San Francisco was found necessary in 1861. The northern portion of the State, with the adjoining territories of Nevada and Utah, was formed into the Vicariate of Marysville, which was subsequently raised to the rank of a bishopric, with its see at Grass Valley.
Since that period no changes have been made in the episcopal divisions of California; but the second order of the clergy, the Catholic population, Catholic institutions, and Catholic churches have continued to grow in numbers. At present, the proportion of priests to the whole population is nearly three times greater in California than the average for the whole of the Union, being about one priest to every three thousand five hundred inhabitants; while throughout the United States the average does not exceed one to ten thousand. Nevertheless, owing to the extent of the country over which the population is scattered, and the very large proportion of Catholics in it, there is still a great want of more priests and churches, and it will doubtless be some years before it can be adequately supplied.
In no State of the Union have the religious orders taken deeper root or thriven better than in California. The Franciscans, the Dominicans, the Jesuits, the Vincentians, the Christian Brothers, the Sisters of Charity, of Mercy, of Notre Dame, of the Presentation, of the Sacred Heart, and of the order of St. Dominic, all have establishments within its boundaries.
The Franciscans, as we have seen, were the pioneers of Christianity in California, and, in spite of the oppression of the Mexican government, they have never abandoned the land. A number of them continued to attend to the spiritual wants of the population, both Spanish and Indian, after the control of the latter had been taken from them, and the order has shared in the growth of the church since the American conquest. Two of their former mission establishments are still in their hands, in the diocese of Monterey, in which they have also two schools.
The Vincentians have the only establishment they possess in California in the same diocese, where they opened a college some two and a half years ago, and have since conducted it with considerable success. Los Angeles City also possesses an orphan asylum and a hospital, under the management of the Sisters of Charity, and there are several convents of nuns in different parts of the diocese.
The Jesuits were the first missionaries of California, though the tyrannical suppression of their order, and the barbarous exile of its members from the dominions of the king of Spain, prevented them from extending their spiritual conquests beyond the peninsula of Lower California. It was not until after the American conquest that they were permitted to enter Upper California; but as soon as that event opened the country to them, their entry was not long delayed. In 1851, several fathers of the society, who had been previously engaged in the Indian missions of Oregon, arrived in California, and were put in possession of the old Franciscan Mission at Santa Clara, about fifty miles south of San Francisco. There they founded a college, which at present ranks perhaps first among the institutions of learning on the Pacific coast, and is one of the largest houses of the order on the American continent. The crusade against the monastic orders, which had been inaugurated in Italy shortly before, proved highly profitable to California, as a large number of Italian Jesuits were thus obtained for Santa Clara. A second college was subsequently opened in San Francisco, which has attained an equal degree of prosperity with the older academy, and, in addition, the parishes of Santa Clara and San José are administered by the priests of the order. Altogether, the Jesuits number about thirty priests, and as many, or rather more, lay brothers in California. In the internal administration of the order, California is dependent on the provincial of Turin in Italy, whence most of its missionaries came, and has no connection with the provinces established in the Eastern States. It possesses a novitiate of its own at Santa Clara, and only requires a house of studies to have all the organization of a province complete in itself.
The Dominicans are also established in the archdiocese of San Francisco, where they have a convent at Benicia on the Sacramento River, besides furnishing pastors to several other parishes. The archbishop himself is a member of the order, which well maintains in California its reputation for learning and strictness of discipline. Several of the Californian Dominicans, including the archbishop, are natives of Spain, but the majority are Irish or Irish-Americans. The Dominican nuns also have a convent and academy at Benicia, which ranks deservedly high among the educational institutions of the State; and a free school in San Francisco, which affords instruction to several hundred children.
The Christian Brothers are, in point of time, the newest of the religious orders in California, having only come to the State some two years ago, at the invitation of Archbishop Allemany. Their system of education is eminently adapted to the requirements of her people, as is shown by the rapid success of their first college, which already numbers more than two hundred and twenty resident students. The marked success which has so far attended the efforts of the brothers gives every reason to believe that they (and it may be added, they alone) can solve the great problem of Catholic education in California, which is, how to provide Catholic common schools for the children of the working-classes. Those classes there, as everywhere else throughout the Union, form the bulk of the Catholic population, and desire to procure for their little ones the advantage of schooling. If possible, they wish to obtain it from Catholic sources; but if this cannot be, they will, there is ground to fear, avail themselves of the educational facilities offered by the State schools, even at the risk of their children's faith. As the number of these children must be reckoned by tens of thousands, the task of providing them with suitable education is no easy one; but the object and spirit of the order instituted by the venerable De La Salle, and the success which has attended its system of parochial schools in Missouri and other States, give good grounds to hope that it will prove equal to the work that lies before it in California, where the circumstances of the country are peculiarly favorable to the growth of Catholic institutions. Nowhere else has anti-Catholic bigotry less power in the government, or is public opinion more favorable to the church; and though the infidel common-school system finds strong support in a numerous class, yet we believe that in no part of the Union can the battle for religious education be fought out under more favorable auspices. The urgent need that exists for Catholic schools at present, may be judged of from the fact that while the different colleges and boarding-schools under the management of the Jesuits, Franciscans, Christian Brothers, and Vincentians, provide education for about a thousand boys, the Catholic common schools throughout the State contain a number scarcely greater, or less than a tenth of their due proportion. Female education is better provided for in this respect. The Presentation and Dominican Sisters, and the Sisters of Charity and Mercy, have about four thousand pupils in their free schools in San Francisco, and there are also several similar establishments in different parts of the State; but even these are inadequate to the wants of the Catholic population, and in California, as in the Eastern States, the problem of how to provide schooling for the children of the poor is the most serious and difficult one that the church has to solve.
California, in proportion to its population, is rich in institutions for the relief of suffering and distress. The male and female orphan asylums in the dioceses of San Francisco, Grass Valley, and Monterey maintain about six hundred of these bereaved little ones. The Sisters of Mercy and Charity have each a general hospital under their charge in San Francisco, where the latter have also a foundling hospital. They have also a hospital in Los Angeles, and the Sisters of Mercy have a Magdalen asylum in San Francisco. Altogether, the number of religious, of both sexes, engaged in works of instruction or charity in California, approaches three hundred, and this in a population of little over half a million.
Reference has already been made to the variety of races that forms so peculiar a feature in the Californian population. It may not be amiss to devote a few words to each separately, especially with regard to their relations with the church.
As the original settlers of the country, the Spanish element deserves to be mentioned first, although no longer occupying the chief place in political or numerical importance. The Spanish Californians are mostly descended from a few families, chiefly Europeans, who settled in the country in the palmy days of the missions, and whose posterity have increased in the course of a century to a population of several thousand. The prevalence of a few family names among them is quite as remarkable as in certain districts of Ireland and Scotland, where a single sept name is borne by almost all the inhabitants of a parish or barony; and nearly all the more wealthy families are connected with one another by the ties of blood or marriage. As a general rule, they have less intermixture of Indian blood than the southern Mexicans, though such of the mission Indians as have survived the overthrow of their protectors regard themselves as Spaniards, and are so styled by the rest of the population. Some of these Indians occupy respectable positions in society, and one at least, Señor Dominguez, was a member of the convention which drew up the State constitution of California. The Spanish Californians are generally hospitable and generous, and, though imperfectly acquainted with the refinements of civilization, they display much of the old Spanish politeness in their dealings with each other and with strangers. They retain the Spanish taste for music and dancing, and, we are sorry to say, for bull-fights and games of chance; in Los Angeles and the other southern counties, all the scenes of the life of Leon or Castile may still be witnessed. Cattle-raising forms their chief occupation, and in the management of stock they display a good deal of skill and energy; but their inexperience in the ways of modern life, and their ignorance of American law, have gradually deprived them of the ownership of most of the lands they held at the discovery of the gold "placers." Many of them sold their property at ridiculously low prices, others were deprived of them by the operation of the land tax, which was entirely new to their ideas; while the distaste for settled industry and the improvident habits engendered by their former mode of life unfitted them for competing in other pursuits with the enterprise of the new-comers. The generation which has grown up since the American conquest, however, displays a much greater spirit of enterprise than its fathers have shown, and promises to play a more important part in the country. Politically and socially, the Spanish Californians enjoy a good deal of consideration; some of them usually occupy seats in the State Legislature, and on the judicial bench; the Spanish language is used as well as the English in legal documents, and the acts of the Legislature; and one of the higher State offices is generally filled by a Spaniard.
There is also a considerable Spanish-American population, chiefly Mexicans and Chilenos, in the Pacific States. Most of them are engaged in mining or stock-raising; but a considerable number are engaged in business, in which several of them occupy prominent positions. The Chilenos are generally possessed of at least the rudiments of schooling, and are tolerably well organized for mutual aid; but the Mexicans, owing to the political condition of their country, are much behind them in both these respects. Altogether, the population of California of Spanish origin must number from forty to fifty thousand.
Closely connected with the Spanish population are the Portuguese, who, of late years, have begun to immigrate to California in considerable numbers, and now number several thousands there. The majority of them are engaged in farming or gardening. They are, as a class, sober, industrious, and peaceable. They are settled principally in the counties around the Bay of San Francisco, and very few of them are to be found in the city itself.
The American population, as it is customary in California to style the natives of the other States of the Union, has been drawn in not very unequal proportions from the North and South, and its character partakes of the peculiarities of both sections, with a general spirit of recklessness and profusion that is peculiarly its own. The public opinion of California is much more liberal and tolerant than that of the Eastern States, and it is rarely indeed that Catholics have to complain of any open display of offensive bigotry on the part of any influential portion of their fellow-citizens. On one occasion, about a year ago, a leading evening paper of San Francisco attempted to raise an anti-Catholic cry during the excitement of a political campaign; but the attempt met with such reprobation from all parties, that the proprietors found it expedient to apologize for it in the course of a day or two as best they could. The great foe of the church in California is not Protestantism, but unbelief; and although the latter is in its nature as full of bitterness against her as the former, yet its champions find it necessary to assume liberality, even if they do not feel it, in obedience to public sentiment. Some of the Protestant sects are indeed outspoken in their bigotry, but their power is very trifling, as the entire Protestant church membership does not amount to five per cent of the population, and not one sixth of the whole people comes under the influence of any Protestant denomination whatsoever. The number of converts in California and Oregon is considerable, including several individuals of high political and literary eminence, and there are also many American Catholics, chiefly from Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri, scattered through the State.
The Irish are the most numerous of the European nationalities represented in the Californian population, and enjoy a much greater degree of prosperity than their countrymen in any other State of the Union. A much larger proportion of their numbers are engaged in farming than is the case in the Eastern States, and the advantages arising from such an employment of their labor are evident to the dullest eye. Much of the cultivated land of the State is in their possession, and some of them are among its largest land-owners. The city population also enjoys a greater degree of comfort than the same class in New York or Boston. Three of the savings-banks of San Francisco, representing nearly half the capital of the entire number of such institutions in that city, are under Irish control, and Irishmen are also among the most successful merchants, bankers, and manufacturers of California. The late mayor of San Francisco, and an ex-governor of the State are Irishmen and Catholics, and three Irish-Americans in succession have filled the office of United States senator, one of whom still represents the State in Washington. We are not able to give the precise amount of the Irish population in California; but, including the children of Irish parents, it cannot be less than a fourth of the whole. It is needless to state that the immense majority of the Irish in California are Catholics, and that their zeal for every thing pertaining to religion forms a marked contrast to the indifference of their non-Catholic fellow-citizens.
The Germans come next to the Irish in importance, probably amounting to two thirds of their number. They are more blended with the rest of the population than in the Eastern States, and there is only one distinctively German settlement in California, namely, the town of Anaheim on the southern coast. About one fourth of them are Catholics, but they only possess one German church in the state, forming, in this respect, a strong contrast to their countrymen in the Mississippi Valley and on the Atlantic seaboard. Of the non-Catholic Germans, the Jews form a considerable and very wealthy portion, and preserve their distinctive national habits much more tenaciously than the rest of their countrymen. The synagogue Emmanuel in San Francisco is the most costly and elegant place of worship on the Pacific coast, while the German Protestants have scarcely a church in California, and indeed, few of them can be regarded as Christians in any sense.
The French population of California is very considerable, amounting to probably from ten to fifteen thousand, though, as comparatively few of its members become naturalized, it is not so easy to estimate its numbers. In itself it is more completely organized than any other class of the population, having its own benevolent societies, hospitals, military companies, savings-banks, press, and other institutions, all distinctively French in their management. The Italians, who are nearly as numerous as the French, resemble them in the number of their national organizations; but they are not as well managed as those of the former. The Italians are engaged chiefly in trade, fishing, and gardening, in which pursuits they are industrious and usually prosperous. The French are engaged in almost every avocation. The Italians have a national church in San Francisco, and the French have a special pastor attached to one of the parochial churches of the city for their benefit.
The Sclavonians from Austria are also a numerous body; they usually are classed with the Italians, though possessing several associations of their own nationality. Nearly one half of them are schismatics; and the Russian government has lately established a schismatic church in San Francisco for their use and that of the few Russians residing there. It is even in contemplation to make that city the residence of the Bishop of Sitka, who has recently been transferred along with his flock to the allegiance of the United States, but who, nevertheless, still receives his orders from the Russian synod. It is a curious example of the way religious affairs are managed among the subjects of the czar, that the president of the Sclavonian Church Society is a German Lutheran, who fills the office of Russian consul, and on that account alone is considered sufficiently qualified to direct the spiritual concerns of his fellow-subjects.
The Chinese form a very large, and, in many respects, the strangest element in the population of the Pacific coast. They are spread through all its States and territories, and, according to the most reliable accounts, number at least a hundred thousand. Few of them have families, or ever intend to settle permanently in the country, but after a few years' toil as servants or laborers they almost invariably return to China. The immense majority of them are pagans or atheists, and they have several temples or joss-houses in different cities of California. A few Catholics, however, are to be found among them, and a small chapel has lately been opened in San Francisco for their special use. The morals of the pagan Chinese are of the most licentious kind, and slavery in its worst form exists among them in spite of the laws, their ignorance of the language acting as an effectual bar to their availing themselves of its safeguards to personal freedom. As in all other Chinese settlements, so in California, they have practically a government of their own, under the name of companies, the chief men of which exercise almost absolute authority over their countrymen, extending, it is believed, occasionally to the infliction of capital punishment. The white laboring classes are bitterly opposed to the Chinese, on account of the low rate of wages for which they work, and the belief that they are slaves of the companies; but nevertheless their numbers are steadily on the increase, and it is not impossible but they may eventually become the majority of the population of the entire Pacific slope.
The greater part of the preceding remarks are applicable mainly to California and the adjoining mining territories of Nevada, Montana, Idaho, and Arizona, which have been chiefly settled from it, and whose inhabitants partake of the character of its people. The State of Oregon and the adjoining territory of Washington number a population of nearly two hundred thousand, of an entirely different character from that of California.
While Catholic missionaries were the first settlers in California, the colonization of Oregon was mainly effected under the direction of Methodist ministers and the auspices of the Methodist Church. Catholic priests, it is true, had preceded Methodism on its soil, and the present Archbishop of Portland and the Vicar-Apostolic of Vancouver had visited its Indian tribes in 1838; but the Methodist colonies, which arrived in the country a few years later, were deeply imbued with hatred to Catholicity, and a good deal of their intolerant spirit still remains among the people. The Jesuits have been, indeed, very successful in converting and civilizing the Indians; but the white population, with the exception of a few Canadian colonies and a not very large number of Catholics in the city of Portland and the mining districts of southern Oregon, is mainly under Methodist influence. Indeed, so high did anti-Catholic prejudice run among the first settlers of Oregon, that a Methodist conference seriously proposed to Mr. Lane, the first governor of the territory, to expel all Catholics from his jurisdiction by force, a proposition which it is scarcely needful to say he indignantly rejected. Of late years, however, the number of Catholics is on the increase, and with the greater facilities for settlement offered by the lines of railroads now in course of construction, their numbers will no doubt grow still faster in the future. Portland in Oregon is an archiepiscopal see, and Washington territory is a separate diocese, so that Catholic immigrants need not fear the want of religious aids in spite of the limited number of their fellow-worshippers in these northern districts of the Pacific coast.
Such, in brief, is the past history and the present state of the church beyond the Rocky Mountains; and a Catholic can hardly fail to find in them the brightest hopes for its future. Obstacles will have to be encountered, no doubt; fights be fought and sacrifices made; but the successes which Catholicity has already achieved, and the vantage-ground she now occupies in California, leave little reason to doubt of her final triumph. The soil, fertilized by the sweat and blood of the Franciscan missionaries, cannot prove a barren one; and no part of the Union gives promise of a richer harvest than that California which a few years ago was regarded throughout the world as the chosen abode of lawlessness and crime.