Fathers from the Mission at Carmelo, attended the Royal Chapel of San Carlos in Monterey and continued to do so until long after the last Act of Secularization in 1835 had been passed by the Mexican Government, and San Carlos of Carmelo was left desolate with no priest to guard her own altar light. But of this we shall, alas, have but too much reason to speak later. Junipero Serra did not stop his arduous work by founding beautiful San Carlos of Carmelo and consecrating the Royal Chapel of Monterey; he was to christianize all California, for all California had now been added to the Crown of Castile and Leon. Spain followed in California the same policy which has distinguished her in her other possessions such as Cuba, the Philippines and other colonies, steeped in idolatry until the Spanish Missionary, whose zeal is proverbial, wrested their countless inhabitants from the cymmerian gloom of paganism. Thus as soon as San Carlos Mission was founded, the glorious march of El Camino Real continued.
Mission San Antonio de Padua, the third mission, was established in July 1, 1771. The beauty of the spot and wonderful eagerness of the Indians to receive baptism greatly touched Junipero Serra and the other two Franciscan Fathers who accompanied him as well as some of the soldiers who were in the party. To-day Mission San Antonio is almost in ruins, but its very ruins are piles which speak of mystic beauty, and in the days of mission glory San Antonio was one of the fairest of the missions.
On returning to Carmelo, Junipero Serra filled the other missionaries with joy over this latest conquest of souls, and sent messengers to Fathers Soméra and Cambón whom he had left in charge of the Mission at San Diego, to establish a mission in southern California, which they would name San Gabriel. The two Fathers, with ten soldiers as guards, started a march northward until they came to the present sight of San Gabriel, which they saw immediately was a good location for a mission, particularly as a beautiful stream flowed through the Valley, and wherever possible the Fathers chose a spot where there was water for the mission orchards and gardens.
Here we may add that the Fathers had a system of irrigation by means of ditches, traces of which may be seen to this day in the sites where stood many of the old mission orchards. The fruits from these good Fathers gardens were the fairest and most luscious that California has ever seen, none of our lovely grapes compare with theirs, and their olives were larger and better than any of which California boasts to-day.