Three Hundred Years of Church Life and Influence in Virginia
By Rev. Wm. A. R. Goodwin, A. M.[1] (Rector Bruton Parish Church, Williamsburg) "In all times, in all countries," says M. Guizot, "religion has civilized the people among whom it dwelt." Under the limitations necessarily imposed, it is impossible to do more than call attention to the salient points where the Church in Virginia has exerted its influence by contributing forces which have been fundamental and constructive in upbuilding our civilization. The Church in the Genesis of the Republic—1607-1700
No statement could be more untrue to the facts of history than that the Virginia Colony was an enterprise conceived and executed for material and commercial ends alone. It is true that it was not, like the New England Colony, the outgrowth of religious contention and persecution, and the men who composed it did not have religious grievances to proclaim to the world. Their religion was normal and their faith the faith of their forefathers; and it expressed itself in Virginia, as it had in England, without ostentation, in a way that was perfectly normal and natural. The ancient royal Charter under which these Virginia settlers sailed, commended and accepted "their desires for a furtherance of so noble a work, which may, by the providence
- ↑ This chapter was written for the Diocesan Journal of the Diocese of Southern Virginia
