code.

But Virginia had an advantage which the far west of the gold-rush days
lacked. Virginia had an Established Church which in spite of its own
problems and difficulties created a parish in every section, and
provided clergymen as far as they could be obtained. It is granted that
some at least of the clergymen were unworthy. The vestries themselves
ejected men of that kind and services could be maintained by readers.
And so the Word of God was read and prayer was offered regularly; and
every man who could read had the Ten Commandments staring him in the
face from the tablets on the wall behind the Holy Table. The individual
might scorn and sneer but in the end the Law of God became the law of
the community.

Men came to church in those early days. For one reason, the law of the
colony required it and there was the threat of punishment if absence
from church was reported to the grand jury. But there was another
reason also, even though men and women were compelled to walk five or
six miles to attend. That other reason was the loneliness of farm life
in the early days of colonial Virginia. The churchyard on a Sunday
morning was then the meeting-place of the whole community, and the only
place where all could meet on the same level. The only other meetings
were when elections were held at the Court House, every three or four
years. And men might attend the meetings of the county court; but women
could not vote, and they did not go to elections; nor were they apt to
attend meetings of the county court except in rare instances when they
were engaged in litigation. And the amount of hard liquor consumed on
election days and county court days was also a deterrent.

Before the day of parish aid societies and women's guilds, the church
service of a Sunday morning was moreover the only meeting to which
everybody might come as of right; and while at church the women
discussed affairs and neighbors within the church building the men
outside walked about or sat on stumps or logs and held their
discussions before and after the service hour.

The church with its churchyard was the public forum at which matters of
public policy and public interest were discussed. It was here also
that business was transacted; and it was here that community spirit of
fellowship, of sympathy and of understanding was developed. The
colonial government recognized all this by directing that every public
communication which had to be brought to the a