SETTLEMENT AT JAMESTOWN.

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VERY Northern historian, characterizes New England as "the land of conscience," and describes the first-settlers of Massachusetts "as the chosen emissaries of God; out-casts from England, yet favorites with Heaven: destitute of security, of convenient food and shelter, and yet blessed beyond all mankind, for they were the depositaries of the purest truth, and the selected instruments to kindle in the wilderness the beacon of pure religion, of which the undying light should not only penetrate the wigwams of the heathen, but spread it's benignant beams across the darkness of the whole civilized world."-1 Bancroft, page 348.

Every historian of the Valley of Virginia, represents so much of it's first settlers as were Scotch-Irish, as being "a profoundly religious people, bringing the Bible with them, whatever they had to leave behind;" Waddell's Annals of Augusta County, p. 14. It is usual to represent them, as travelling with a Bible in one hand, and a rifle, for the Indian, in the other.

And it is gravely asserted "that the colonial government encouraged the settlement of the valley as a means of protecting the lower country from Indian incursions." Id. p. 13.

It will be very difficult, if not impossible, to find any historian, of either, or of any class, who will be charitable enough to admit, that Religion had anything to do with the settlement of Jamestown. The reverse of the picture has been, so often, presented with such doleful shades, and eloquence of assertion, that the Episcopalians have been alarmed at the dreadful noise that has been made, and have shut their eyes to the patent facts, of, at least, equal piety that lie upon every page of our early colonial history. The fact, that the Church went down, down, down, under the savage, and multitudinous, attacks, that so rudely assailed her, by friend and foe, from 1760 to 1802, disheartened and dispirited her; and she has not yet gained the courage to assert her pristine virtues, to answer her defamers with the sober facts of history, and to reclaim the

honors, to which she is, so justly, entitled. This, I, cannot do. I can only drop a hint, or two, and leave to others who may follow me to write that history, which every consideration of justice and necessity demands, should be written. As a feeble contribution to that subject, let us, briefly, consider, the Religious Element in the Settlement at Jamestown.

There is no name connected with the settlement of Virginia, that deserves higher honor, than that of Sir Walter Raleigh; and there was no friend of Sir Walter Raleigh, who was such an enthusiast for colonial venture, as the Rev. Richard Hackluyt, the author of Hackluyt's voyages and discoveries, who, when a youth, became deeply interested in the discovery of new countries, and in the carrying the Gospel to the heathen.

"I do remember," says he, "that being a youth, and one of her Majesty's scholars at Westminster, that fruitful nurserie, it was my happe to visit the chamber of M. Richard Hackluyt, my cousin, a gentleman of the Middle Temple, well known to you, at a time when I found lying open upon his board, certeine books of Cosmographie, with an universal mappe. He, seeing me somewhat curious in the view thereof, began to instruct my ignorance by showing me the division of the Earth, into three parts, after the olde account; and, then, alluding to this latter, and better, distribution into more: he pointed with his wand to all the known Seas, Gulfs, Bayes, Straights, Capes, Rivers, Empires, Kingdomes, Dukedomes, and Territories, of each part, with declaration also of their special commodities, and particular wants, which, by the benefit of traffike and intercourse of merchants, are plentifully supplied. From the mappe he brought me to the Bible, and turning to the 107 Psalm, directed me to the 23 and 24 verses, where I read that they which go downe to the sea in ships, and occupy by the great waters, they see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep, &c. Which words of the Prophet, together with my cousin's discourse, (things of high and rare delight to my nature) tooke in me so deepe an impression, that I constantly resolved, if ever I were preferred to the University, where better time and more convenient place might be ministered for these studies, I would, by God's assistance, prosecute that

knowledge, and kind of literature, the doores whereof (after a Anderson's History

sort) were so happily opened before me. of the Colonial Church, Vol. 1, pp. 157-8.

He was preferred to the University, and by God's assistance, he did prosecute that knowledge and kind of literature, and gave to the world "The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation" in 3 Volumes, which have been styled, the "prose epic of the modern English Nation." (London 1598-1600).

As early as 1587, he wrote to Raleigh, and "expressly declares that the glory of God is the great end to which the extension of the borders of a Christian state should be subservient; and that each step made in that extension should be regarded as a fresh summons to promote it. Upon this ground, and with reference to this lofty aim, he urges Raleigh to persevere in the work which the acquisition of Virginia had placed before him, no grander monument, he assures him, could be raised, no brighter name could he leave to future generations, than the evidence that he had therein sought to restrain the fierceness of the barbarian, and enlighten his darkened mind by the knowledge of the true God." Id. page

159.

These views he never failed to urge, and impress, upon all with whom he came in contact; and, he so impressed them upon Sir Walter Raleigh, that when in 1589, he assigned his patent, he gave £100 to the planting of the Christian Religion in Virginia. Brown's Genesis p. 20. To further, and to promote them, Hackluyt gave to the world in 1606, his three Volumes of Voyages, &c. He was then the Prebendary of St. Augustine in the Cathedral Church of Bristol. Id. p. 156. In 1605 he was a Prebendary of Westminister.

On the 10th of April, 1606, he was one of the four parties to whom King James granted the first Charter of the Virginia Colony.

The third article of that Charter, says, "We greatly commending, and graciously accepting of their desires for the furtherance of so noble a work, which may, by the providence of Almighty God, hereafter tend to the glory of his divine