The New World had hardly begun to fire the imagination of the Old before the Sons of Saint Francis, filled with a burning desire to spread the faith in the unknown lands in fulfillment of the biblical injunction “Go ye into the whole world and teach all nations” began their ceaseless peregrinations across two continents, from distant Canada and the forbidding Northwest to Tierra del Fuego and Patagonia in South America. In our own United States, dotting the land from Georgia to San Francisco, we find today the imposing ruins of Spanish missions built by their loving hands, their fervent faith, and their unequaled zeal.