followed its teachings were as reverent and pious, if not so full of the
fear of judgment, as their sisters to the North. The earliest settlers
of Virginia dutifully observed the customs and ceremonies of the
established church, and it was the dominant form of religion in Virginia
and the Carolinas throughout the colonial era. John Smith has left the
record of the first place and manner of divine worship in Virginia: "Wee
did hang an awning, which is an old saile, to three or four trees to
shadow us from the Sunne; our walls were railes of Wood; our seats
unhewed trees till we cut plankes; our Pulpit a bar of wood nailed to
two neighbouring trees. In foul weather we shifted into an old rotten
tent; this came by way of adventure for new. This was our Church till we
built a homely thing like a barne set upon Cratchets, covered with
rafts, sedge, and earth; so also was the walls; the best of our houses
were of like curiosity.... Yet we had daily Common Prayer morning and
evening; every Sunday two sermons; and every three months a holy
Communion till our Minister died: but our Prayers daily with an Homily
on Sundays wee continued two or three years after, till more Preachers
came."

According to Bruce's _Institutional History of Virginia in the
Seventeenth Century_[35] it would seem that the early Virginians were as
strict as the New Englanders about the matter of church attendance and
Sabbath observance. When we come across the notation that "Sarah Purdy
was indicted 1682 for shelling corn on Sunday," we may feel rather sure
that during at least the first eighty years of life about Jamestown
Sunday must have been indeed a day of rest. Says Bruce: "The first
General Assembly to meet in Virginia passed a law requiring of every
citizen attendance at divine services on Sunday. The penalty imposed was
a fine, if one failed to be present. If the delinquent was a freeman he
was to be compelled to pay three shillings for each offense, to be