g of American
ingenuity we have just described.

Fire-arms are the great pioneers which have opened a way for the
progress of civilized man, and given him victory over the savage beasts
and still more savage men who have opposed his course. Civilization has
in its turn reacted upon fire-arms, and brought them to their present
state of wonderful efficiency.

The heavy match-lock of three centuries ago was almost as dangerous to
him who used it as to the enemy against whom it was directed. It would
be almost impossible for a person to injure himself by the repeating
rifle except by deliberate intention. Skilful military men advised the
abandonment of the match-lock for the bow. A good marksman with the
repeating rifle would kill a score of bowmen, before they could approach
near enough to reach him with their arrows. The practised musketeer, in
the reign of Elizabeth, could hardly fire his piece once in twenty
minutes; the merest novice can fire the repeating rifle twenty times in
one minute.

CLOVER'S COLONIAL CHURCHES IN VIRGINIA.

ST. JOHN'S CHURCH, HAMPTON.

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE,

BY REV. JOHN C. M'CABE,

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM ORIGINAL DRAWINGS BY REV. LEWIS P. CLOVER

"Regarded as a building what is there to engage our attention!
What is it which in this building inspires the veneration and
affection it commands? We have mused upon it when its gray
walls dully reflected the glory of the noontide sun. We have
looked upon it from a neighboring hill when bathed in the pure
light of a summer's moon, its lowly walls and tiny towers
seemed to stand only as the shell of a larger and wider
monument, amidst the memorials of the dead. Look upon it when
and where we will, we find our affections yearn towards it; and
we contemplate the little parish church with a delight and
reverence, that palaces cannot command. Whence then arises
this? It arises not from the beauties and ornaments of the
building, but _from the thoughts and recollections associated
with it_."--Molesworth.

[Illustration: ST. JOHN'S CHURCH.]

The region of country in lower Virginia, bordering, or near the James
River, from the head of tide water to the sea-board, is rich in the
possession of memorials of gone-by days, now turned up from the
bosom of the earth, in the shape of arrow-heads, and broken
war-hatchets--monuments, fragmentary monume