AN VOED COLON A Le GAL iEAdas

thought along the same great lines, although political differences sometimes
separated them in the old country as well as in the new.

‘Visions of the days departed, shadowy phantoms filled my brain;
They who live in history only seemed to walk the earth again.”

Our country has few localities of which this may be as truly said as of Wil-
liamsburg, where nothing reminds of the present, and everything recalls the past.
In this quaint rural city the typical life of old Virginia flourished. Here the
country squires, who loved the soil with all the strength of their English blood,
gathered in the winter for the round of social amusements that they loved
almost equally well. Here great men were trained to play great parts in state
and nation. Here democracy and aristocracy flour-
ished side by side, the one growing out of the Anglo-
Saxon love of freedom and fair play, the other
lineally descended from the proud
old Cavalier spirit, that through

 
 
 
 
 
 
  
  

many years of strife shouted and a

. v age
fought — cane | g

4 VAN as “7?
“For God, for the cause, for the church and AAA

For Charles, King of England, and Rupert of
the Rhine.”

the laws; N\

For they were loyal
king’s men and church-
men, these old Virginians,
and as proud of their race
as any Spanish hidalgo;
but above all they were
Anglo-Saxon freemen,
whose liberty was their
dearest heritage. Like
their Puritan kinsfolk in OLD BRUTON PARISH CHURCH, WILLIAMSBURG.
New England, whose pride
was fully equal to their own, they proposed to have liberty to do as they
pleased, in spite of king or church, and to hold the power to make others do as
they would have them. Our liberty-loving English ancestors were not a tolerant
people, whether they settled in the North or South; but, North or South, in
spite of their bigotry, they were the finest race the world has seen, and they
held the destiny of nations in their hands, whether the hands were those of fox-
hunting Virginia squires or severe Massachusetts Puritans.

We give our allegiance to them both, holding both in the honor they deserve