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