Virginia—Her Past, Present, and Future []

VIRGINIA-HER PAST, PRESENT, ETC.
apprentices are almost literal copies of the early English poor laws,
inclining, however, to the side of mnercy; for whilst the English
laborer was whipped for the first offence of quitting his parish,
branded for the second, and hung for the third, the extremest punish mnent for the Virgini: apprentice, for the grave offence of running
away from his master was branding with the letter "R," which one
would have supposed stood for "Runaway," did not the statutes
declare it meant "Rogue." Thorough conservatives as we are, we
do not thoroughly approve (probably because we do not thoroughly
understand the necessities of the times) the Spanish " Auto-da -fe"
and the Virginia branding of white runaways. Yet it is more than
we can do to solve the moral problems of our own times, and we
seldom undertake to censure the legislation of past times, believing
that each age and each people understands its own affairs, and always
legislates more wisely for the necessities of the occasion than we or
any other outsider could possibly do.
In Colonial times, the Governor and Council of Virginia were
appointed by the King. The persons selected were always wealthy,
well-bred, well-educated and intelligent. They kept up much of the
ceremonial, and something of the display of royalty, first at Jamestown and afterwards at Williamsburg. From these social centres
all society received its form and purpose, became courtly, dignified
and reserved, and has to this day sustained somewhat of that character. Washington and the Lee's were brought up in this social
school. Washington, General Robert E. Lee, and the late Bishop
Mleade, we should select as the best exponents and highest types of
Virginian character. Will that character be changed and suffer
from the industrial revolution to which we have been subjected?
We think not. Our reasons we reserve for another part of this
essay.
The vestry of each parishl church was a conservative institution.
Looking into the records of the ol1l Colonial churches, we find that
the vestrymen were men of influence, note and substance, selected
and appointed, not because of their piety, but because they deemed
the church a niost useful institution in restraining crime and preservinig order. The Church in America, like the Mother Church in
England, was then quite as much of a political as religious institution,
Looking to it chiefly as a police or political institution, the vestry
cared very little ats to the purity or even morality of the Church
incumbents. Like Thomipson's doctor " of tremendous paunch,"
the parsons drank harder than their parishioners, and were, besides,
profane sorcerers, gamblers, and horse-racers. This state of things,
arisiing from excess of conservatism, gradu-tly brought about a general demoralization of society. From about the revolution of 1776
until about 1820, Virginia gentlemen were much given to dissipation
of all kinds, neglected their farms, became involved in debt, and
many were avowed infidels. This state of things has been gradually
and entirely corrected by the efforts of the Baptist, Presbyterian, and
Methodist churches, aided most efficiently of late years by the Episco
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