nerable building could not have come down
to our day. But, as it is, this ancient square block of brick forms our
one pre-eminent American ruin. Nothing could be a more solemn monument
of the past than the lonely tower, surrounded by thick branches and
underbrush and looking down upon the few crumbling gravestones still
left at its base. Jamestown, long abandoned as a village, has now become
an island, the action of the waters having at last denied it the
remaining solace of connection with the mainland of the Old Dominion,
of whose broad acres it was once the chief town and the seat of
government--the forerunner of all that came to America at the hands of
English settlers.

In the slumberous old city of Williamsburg, three miles from Jamestown,
stands the Bruton parish church, two hundred and two years old, and
still the home of a parish of sixty communicants. Built of brick, with
small-paned windows and wooden tower, its walls have listened to the
eloquence of the learned presidents of the neighboring William and Mary
College, and its floor has been honored by the stately tread of many a
colonial governor, member of the legislature or Revolutionary patriot;
for Williamsburg was the capital and centre of Virginia until the end of
the eighteenth century, and shared whatever Virginia possessed of
political or personal renown. Washington, of course, was more than once
an attendant at Bruton Church, and so were Jefferson and Patrick Henry
and an honorable host. In the church and in the chapel of William and
Mary College--which the ambitious colonists used to think a little
Westminster Abbey--was the religious home of a good share of what was
stateliest or most honorable in the early colonial life of the South.

Other old churches still dot the Virginia soil--St. John's, Richmond;
Pohick Church, Westmoreland county; Christ Church, Lancaster county; St.
Anne's, Isle of Wight county. Their antiquities, and those of other
ancient sanctuaries of the Old Dominion, have been painstakingly set
forth by Bishop Meade and other zealous chroniclers, and their
attractiveness is increased, in most cases--as at Jamestown--by the
loneliness of their surroundings. Another old church, left in the midst
of sweet country sights and gentle country sounds, is St. James's, Goose
Creek, South Carolina. St. Michael's and St. Philip's at Charleston in
the same State have heard the roar of hostile cannon, but have come
forth unscathed. The demolish