And to this College, Father Junipero Serra and his companions came after
a perilous voyage of nearly one year; for the date of their arrival was
January 1, 1760; and here they began their labor! Of the nine years
which Junipero Serra toiled in Mexico, six were spent in Sierra Gorda,
some distance north of San Fernando, and one of the wildest and roughest
of those half explored regions. And what marvels attended the labors of
Serra and the other self-sacrificing sons of Saint Francis here! With
Junipero Serra at the helm, the good priests learned some of the Aztec
dialects in order to convert the savages. Then what followed? With the
greatest patience the missionaries acquitted themselves to the task of
teaching the classic, cultured language of Spain to these poor
aborigines, whose languages like those of the still cruder California
Indians, did not contain expressions for even the simplest words of
scripture or of the liturgy of the Church. And can we wonder at this?
But what were the astonishing results of the good priests' labors? They
were truly God-wonders! Daily were recorded numerous conversions, and at
the close of six years many Indian congregations of those regions could
be heard singing the ancient Latin hymns of the Church, and in poor but
intelligible Spanish supplying in their prayers and conversations what
was wanting in their dialects.
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