| 158 One cheering evidence was vouchsafed to us, in a report from Sacramento, to the effect that Bro. James Sloan, at one time recorder at Nauvoo, in the days of the Martyrs, had cast his lot with us of the Reorganization. Also, Sr. Maria Zimmerman, of Placerville, [who] was baptized by Elder Shurtliff in 1840, in Indiana. These things point to the fact that the Spirit that accompanied the elders and bore witness to the work, when they preached the truth, now bears a like testimony respecting the work of the Reorganization. We hail these faithful ones with pleasure.
On the 13th we left the city and on the 15th we spoke at Washington Corners, morning and evening. Quite a fair attendance and good attention on both occasions.
A trip over the Santa Cruz mountains by wagon is a pleasure that is not enjoyed by sojourners on the fertile plains of Illinois; but if now and then one should wander out to California, we recommend to them that they just pocket business and business affairs for the time being and do themselves the pleasure of passing over one of the most picturesque and pleasing drives in the State.
On the morning of the 24th of October, 1876, Brn. D. S. Mills and S. Stivers, of Old Mission San Jose, and the writer, accompanied by a son of Bro. Stivers and one of Bro. D. J. Phillips, of Watsonville, left the Mission, "armed and equipped as the law directs" for a trip to Santa Cruz, forty-five miles distant, and over the mountains.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
It was dusk when we began to descend the grade on the yonder side, and quite dark when we turned out of the ravines at Sequel to cross the benches to Santa Cruz. The lights were blazing in the streets and the houses when we reached Bro. M. A. Meeder's, where we were made welcome.
The city of Santa Cruz is the modern overshadowing the ancient. The old town is partly left in some old buildings, and the older regime of the Catholic power, visible in the new church, built close by the old one; on which we read, "Deo Optima Mexicana, Dedicate 1868." This church is surrounded by the school, parsonage, convent, and the usual accessories of a local rule as careful and relentless as fate.
Nearby and higher up the hill, toward the setting sun, two excellent reservoirs, fed from the Santa Cruz River, by the tireless thews of the steam engine, a half mile away, give the city its water.
Right under the Catholic church and grounds runs the Felton Narrow Gauge Railway, through a tunnel a thousand feet long; thence away to the powder mills, a few miles off, at Felton, and then to the "red woods," where thousands of busy hands are fast destroying for the uses of man, what God has been centuries preparing for him. A few years only and the redwood forests of the Santa Cruz range will have passed away, as forests, but will live in villa, mart, cottage, and hall, things of use and
(page 158) |
