We had seen the spire of the Episcopal Church, which forms so pleasing a feature in the bosom of the valley, pale and fade from sight; the lofty walls of the old Mission of San Gabriel were no longer visible Suddenly from out the silence and gathering shades fell upon our ears a chime so musical and sweet, so spiritually clear and delicate, that had honest John Bunyan heard it he might well have deemed himself arrived at the land of Beulah. ∗ ∗ ∗ It was the hour of vespers at the Old Mission.
BEN C. TRUMAN,
in Semi-Tropical California.
JUNE 3.
The Mission San Gabriel and its quadrangle of buildings made a beautiful picture. It nestled against distant hills, and neither stood out from the dim background nor entirely melted within it. It attracted the eye—this pink, yellow-gray of the little stone church crowned with dull-reddish tile, and supported by a bulwark of quaint buttresses. The picture was perfect—but since then the chill hands of both temblor and tempest have touched rudely the charm and blighted the pride of all of the California Missions—San Gabriel Archangel.
MRS. A.S.C. FORBES,
in Mission Tales in the Days of the Dons.
JUNE 4.
Obey my word, O Ten-ie-ya, and your people shall be many as the blades of grass, and none shall dare to bring war unto Ah-wah-nee. But look you ever, my son, against the white horsemen of the great plains beyond, for once they have crossed the western mountains, your tribe will scatter as the dust before the desert wind, and never come together again.
BERTHA H. SMITH,
in Yosemite Legends.