>
>> I'm no expert, but I'd agree with you. I came across one mention of a
>> law in early Va.- I don't know the date- that said a person had to go
>> to church once every 4 months, and the sermon was not to exceed 20
>> minutes.

<snip>

>> Virginia was not Mass!! Arrgghhhh! I just finished reading William
>> Kelso's newest book on the recent James Fort discoveries, and he said
>> that with one exception, every religious relic they there found was
>> Catholic. So while these first colonists may have been Anglican, they
>> plainly still harbored Catholic feelings as well. They were not
>> Puritanical religious zealots. Obviously, their religion was rather
>> ambiguous. Or flexible.

Not so according to the early written records. Here's what William Strachey
wrote about Jamestown in his *A true reportory of the wracke, and redemption
of Sir Thomas Gates, knigh . . .* dated July 15, 1610:

" . . .euery Sonday wee haue Sermons twice a day, and euery Thursday a
Sermon, hauing true preachers, which take their weekely turnes, and euery
morning, at the ringing of a Bell, about ten of the clocke, each man
addresseth himselfe to prayers, and so at foure of the clocke before
Supper."

Strachey also compiled  *For The Colony in Virginea Britannia. Lawes Divine,
Morall and Martiall, &c.,* setting out the early laws enacted by Sir Thomas
Gates and Lord De-La-Warre, which can be read at
http://www.virtualjamestown.org/.

Tom Reedy

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