them destroyed, as so many careless visitors are constantly chipping off fragments. The sentry-boxes are much defaced, their foundation being a cement, the art of making it now being lost.
North of the fort, about one-quarter of a mile, on a slightly elevated plat of ground, there stood over three hundred years ago an Indian village, called Tapoquoi. Upon this spot now remains the foundation of a church, known as “Nuestra Señora de la Leche.” Two hundred and seventy-five years since a most inhuman act was committed here by the Indians. Father Blas de Rodriguez, a Franciscan friar, having administered reproof to a young chieftain for indulging in practices which did not belong to his profession, was warned in a menacing manner to prepare for death. He remonstrated with the Indians, trying to dissuade them from their wicked designs. However, all his tears and entreaties were unavailing. Finally, as a last request, he asked the privilege of celebrating mass before being forced to try the realities of another world. His fiendish, blood-thirsty persecutors crouched during the service like beasts of prey, waiting for an opportune moment to seize their innocent victim. Hardly had the words of supplication ceased for his enemies, before his murderers, as if impatient for the sacrifice, rushed upon him with their war-clubs, crashing him in a most shocking manner, bespattering the altar with his blood, while streams of his life’s-gore covered his snowy vestments. They threw his mutilated remains into the field, but nothing disturbed them until a Christian Indian gave them sepulture. An emotion of sadness is produced in the mind of the sensitive visitor while surveying the ruins of this chapel—“fragments of stone, reared by hands of clay”—isolated from human habitation, where no sounds now break the silence but sighing winds and surging waves from a restless sea.
The fact has long since been demonstrated beyond a doubt that St. Augustine is the home of the rose as well as the orange, which can be seen from the following description of one called “La Sylphide,” which grew in the yard of Señor Oliveros, on St. George’s Street: “This remarkable rose-tree before its death attained to the height of about twenty feet, the main stalk being fifteen inches in circumference and five inches in diameter, the whole covering an area of seventeen feet, yielding annually between four and five thousand beautiful buds. But its glory has now departed. While crowds gathered to admire it, a worm was eating at the heart, thus withering its creamy petals, blighting the tender buds, which never opened their velvet coverings to greet the sunlight, or kiss the morning breeze, as it came from its home in the sea.”
Many who have never spent a winter in Florida think there is no religion, or churches either, which is quite the reverse, as the finest pulpit-talent in the North visit St. Augustine during the winter to rest and prepare for the arduous and responsible duties which await them on their return. The change of scenery and surroundings give these clergymen inspiration, when visitors often listen to some heavenly sermons. Imagine a Sabbath here in January, pleasant as a June holiday, North, among the roses, with a soft air floating through the house, which much resembles a new-born spring.
The Presbyterian church is a good, old-fashioned, well-preserved specimen of coquina walls. Many pleasant faces, whose homes are far away in icy regions, worship here every Sabbath. The table in front of the pulpit has a tall vase filled with the most beautiful flowers that ever bloomed in any clime—rose-buds, tinted like the sunset sky, orange-blooms, pomegranates, and snowy jasmines, all fresh from their bath in the morning dew, exhaling their sweet odors, mingled with the pæans of God’s people—thus giving a holy peace to this blessed hour. The flowers are from the gardens of Messrs. Atwood and Alexander, who both have a cultivated taste for the beautiful. Two young men have just walked in, who are obliged to talk, whether they say any thing of importance or not. One of them remarked, “I think flowers in a church look too gushing!” This house, which is capable of containing over four hundred people, is filled nearly every Sabbath.
Dr. Daniel F. March, the author of “Night Scenes in the Bible,” preached to-day. He always tells us something sweet to think of during the week, to lighten life of half its burden, that we can take along and travel its rough, rugged paths, singing instead of sighing. While associated with so much that is pleasant, the earth appears like a purified pedestal to a higher life, rather than a vale of wickedness. Dr. March has given a dissertation to-day upon small matters, which make up the great sum of life. He says: “Thousands of homes in our land might be made heaven by kind words. One little pleasant sentence spoken in the morning will ring all day in a sensitive heart like the song of a seraphim.”
The Episcopal church, situated on the plaza, is a neat Gothic structure, with stained glass windows of exquisite design, which resemble the inner furnishing of an elegant city church more than a little chapel down by the sea. It was commenced in 1827, and consecrated in 1833, by Bishop Bowen, of South Carolina. This church owns beautiful grounds, filled with a tropical growth, adjoining it, on the south-west side of the plaza. The land formerly belonged to the Spanish Government, whose claim ceased when the province was ceded to the United States. This property, then, by a special act of Congress, was given to the Church, to be under the control and management of the wardens and vestry, the act being confirmed February 8, 1827, when, in 1857, it was leased to a private party for the term of twenty-five years. It is a piece of property that involves a curious question—the Spanish or English measurement of a few feet of ground, which takes in or leaves out the veranda from the front of the most desirable residence in the city, formerly owned by Dr. Bronson. The question has never been decided who owns the veranda, but the Church, having no use for it, has never issued a possessory warrant. Dr. Root, a venerable and most exemplary clergyman, is their pastor now, who ministers to them in holy things.
At no place in the world can a greater variety of peculiar people be seen during the winter, with their idiosyncrasies and eccentricities cropping out, for the amusement of some, and the annoyance of others, than at St. Augustine. One of these peculiar folks, of the masculine gender, can be seen every Sabbath morning in one of the churches. His devotions during the service are profound—his spiritual nature appears absorbed in humble confessions. At his side, on the cushion, reclines his constant companion—a little, black, shaggy dog, fastened to the seat. His master, having an aversion to strangers sitting by him, places his dog there as a protection against intruders. At the close of the service, the dog and master both leave the church with a regularity that has been remarked by all those who attend this place of worship. It was one Sabbath morning in March of 1878, while the orange-blossoms were exhaling their fragrance, the birds singing their songs of joy, combined with the perfection of a day which increased the desire for a stroll to the woods, and far away, that this dog and his master were seen approaching. The dog turned into the church, when the master stopped, beckoned, and tried to call him out, but all in vain—no effort could dissuade the dog from his regular custom of church-going, and the master had to attend church also, but against his own inclination on this occasion. This man is one of those harmless eccentrics whose freaks no one would think of interfering with, or trying to deprive him of, more than the crutch of the aged, or the spar from a drowning man. The most remarkable part of this story is yet to be told. His acquaintances in the North, who, seven years since, knew that he was an inmate of a lunatic asylum in New York, and supposing him there now, could scarcely credit the statement that he had been spending seven delightful winters in St. Augustine, chaperoning the ladies, with whom he is a great favorite, although the current of his matrimonial felicity has been stirred to the foundation, and never yet settled.
From the above facts, it can be seen that St. Augustine was not only supposed to contain the fountain of youth, but has, in reality, by its equable atmospheric influences, deprived the lunatic of his madness.
Among other attractions, St. Augustine contains a Public Reading-room and Circulating Library, both being the enterprise of kind-hearted, benevolent citizens and visitors, among the most prominent of whom we find the name of J. L. Wilson, Esq. The Reading-room is furnished with daily and weekly papers, together with periodicals from all parts of the United States, where time can be passed very pleasantly in obtaining a knowledge of the events taking place in the outside world. The Library contains about two thousand judiciously-selected volumes—most of them being late and standard works, from the best authors, in both Europe and America. Library-books are lent to responsible persons, who will return them within a prescribed time without injury. All contributions, either in books or money, will be thankfully received and properly used.