History of the Catholic church in California . dvanced he supports withoutmurmur the humiliation and privation which pov-erty brings. More remarkable than the foregoing as showingthe heartlessness and rapacity of the civil adminis-trators on the the one hand, and the heroic zealand devotion to duty of the missionaries on theother, is the case of the Rev. Father Sarria, whodied of starvation at the mission of Soledad in theyear 1838. The circumstances connected with thevenerable mans death are these: The mission ofSoledad, of which Father Sarria w^as pastor, wasfounded in the year 1791. It was
History of the Catholic church in California . dvanced he supports withoutmurmur the humiliation and privation which pov-erty brings. More remarkable than the foregoing as showingthe heartlessness and rapacity of the civil adminis-trators on the the one hand, and the heroic zealand devotion to duty of the missionaries on theother, is the case of the Rev. Father Sarria, whodied of starvation at the mission of Soledad in theyear 1838. The circumstances connected with thevenerable mans death are these: The mission ofSoledad, of which Father Sarria w^as pastor, wasfounded in the year 1791. It was once a flourish-ing Christian settlement, possessing its hundredsof converts and thousands of cattle. Want hadnever been known there from the time of itsfoundation up to the moment of confiscation. Im-mediately upon the change, however, so great wasthe plunder and devastation of everything belong-ing to the mission that the Father, who remainedat his post with a few of the Indians, was unableto obtain the ordinary necessaries of life, yet re-. CATHOLIC CHURCH IN CALIFORNIA. 135 duced as he was to the greatest extremity, he wouldnot abandon the remnant of his flock. For thirtyyears he had labored among them, and now, if ne-cessary, he was ready to die in their behalf. Brokendown by years and exhausted by hunger, one Sun-day morning in the month of August of the abovementioned year, the holy old man assembled in hislittle church the few converts that remained tohim. It was the last time he was to appear be-fore them. Hardly had he commenced the holysacrifice of the Mass when his strength completelyfailed him; he fell before the altar and expired inthe arms of his people, for whom he so zealouslyand earnestly labored. J^oble and worthy deathof a Spanish missionary priest. 136 HISTORY OF THE CHAPTEE YI. The Mexican Goveenment confiscates the chuech peopeety, oe PiousFund, or Califoenia.—Its histoet. — Effects of confiscation.— Anaecht. — Eevolution in 1836,—Alvaeado as le
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