hadows of
the past, and we stood facing it. Silently we gazed at the ancient
pile, the most impressive ruin of English colonization. A hollow shaft
of brick, with two high arched openings, a crumbling top, and a hold on
the heart of every American.

How fitting that the four little broken walls alone remaining of all
that the colonists built, should be not the walls of house or tavern or
fort, but of the tower of the village church! Almost with the solemn
significance of a tomb above the ashes of the dead, stands the sacred
pile over the buried remains of old James Towne.

The ruin is about thirty-six feet high, though doubtless originally
several feet higher. Near the top are loopholes that perhaps suggest
the reason why the tower is of such massive build; in those days the
red man influenced even church architecture.

Excavations to the east of the tower have disclosed the foundation
walls of the remainder of the church, and have helped to fix the date
of erection as about 1639. Within these foundations, the ruins of a yet
older building have been unearthed. They are doubtless the remains of a
wooden church with brick foundations that was built about 1617. So, in
the contemplation of these little ruins within ruins, the mind is
carried back to the very beginnings of our country, to within ten years
perhaps of the day when those first settlers landed.

What this old wooden church looked like probably nobody can tell; but
much has been determined as to the general appearance of the brick
church, that to which the venerable tower belonged.

The visitor will not be far wrong if, as he stands in the presence of
these ruins, he sees in fancy a picture like this: the old tower with
several feet of lost height regained, and with a roof sloping up from
each of the four sides to a peak in the middle surmounted by a cross;
behind the tower, those crumbling church foundations built up into
strong walls, bearing a high-pitched roof; each side of the church with
four flying buttresses and three lancet windows; the entrance, a pair
of arched doorways, one in the front and one in the back of the tower;
above the doorway in the front, a large arched window; and, yet higher,
the six ominous loopholes; all the walls of the structure composed of
brick in mingled red and black, and the roofs of slate.

Now, if the visitor will enter the quaint old church that his fancy has
thus restored--moving softly, for truly he is on holy ground