rms. They might drive or walk three or five miles to Church
on Sundays, but could not give the time for that on work-days. The same
objection worked against having two services on Sunday. So the custom
became general of having a single service in every church and chapel
every Sunday. The statement made by Rev. Alexander Whitaker, that he
"catechized" every Sabbath afternoon, is illustrative of the usual
method of instructing young people of the parish in the Church
Catechism as preparation for admission to the Holy Communion. Such
"catechetical classes" might be held as frequently on Sunday afternoons
as the needs of the parish children, both white and Negro, might
require: or perhaps sometimes, as frequently as the zeal, or lack of
zeal of the incumbent minister might determine. When in 1724 the Bishop
of London sent a questionary to every Anglican clergyman incumbent of a
parish in America, one of the questions was, "At what times do you
Catechize the Youth of your Parish?"

* * * * *

They have builded many pretty villages, faire houses and
chapels which are growne good benefices of 120 pounds a
yeare besides their own mundall [mundane] industry.

So wrote Captain John Smith a number of years after his return to
England. There may have been an excess of imagination in describing new
and raw settlements as "faire villages," but the salary which was to be
paid to the ministers was a provable fact. Tithes from the culture of
the land by the parishioners amounted to as much as L120, and the
minister had a glebe of 100 acres from the cultivation of which his
tenants and servants through "mundall industry" might greatly increase
his income.

The London Company had carried to Virginia and fixed for the whole
duration of the colonial period the parish system of the Church of
England. Under that system each community became a parish and the
people of the parish, as the land-owners of the community, supported
the church and paid the salary of the minister by tithes from the
produce of the land. There was, however, one change from the custom in
England. There the tithes of a parish might produce a salary for the
incumbent in any amount from ten pounds to hundreds of pounds per
annum. In Virginia the amount of the salary was fixed by the General
Assembly as a definite quantity of tobacco. There was also a glebe farm
and a residence. Those who came to Virginia brought with them th