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 The Church at Jamestown

When I went first to Virginia, I well remember wee did hang an awning (which is an old saile) to three or foure trees, to shadow us from the Sunne, our walles were railes of wood, our seates unhewed trees, till we cut plankes; our Pulpit a bar of wood nailed to two neighbouring trees; in foule weather we shifted into an old rotten tent; for we had few better, and this came by way of advanture for new. * * * wee had daily Common Prayer morning and evening, every Sunday two Sermons, and every three months the holy communion, till our minister died (the Rev. Mr. Hunt): but our prayers daily, with an homily on Sundaies, we continued two or three years after, till more Preachers came."

Thus John Smith describes the beginning at Jamestown of the permanent establishment of the English Church in America. It was no commercial spirit, no wild impulse of godless adventurers, which almost impatiently improvised this temple in the midst of the primæval forests, where good Master Hunt read each day the Morning and Evening Prayer of the English Church liturgy, and where, having first healed the dissensions which threatened to overthrow the whole enterprise, he administered to his people the Holy Communion "as an outward and visible token and pledge of reconciliation." The American Church has sought to recall that scene and to present it as a witness and memorial, through the bas-relief erected at Jamestown to the memory of Rev. Robert Hunt. It is a witness of a fact which lies firm and strong as a corner-stone in the foundation of the republic, namely, that religion was present as a powerful, regulative and constructive force in the establishment of the Virginia Colony, and