and turned back from the mouth of the river by the approaching ships of Lord de la Warr with emigrants and supplies. Such were the first three unhappy and unhonored years of the first Christian colony on the soil of the United States. One almost shrinks from being assured that this worthless crew, through all these years of suicidal crime and folly, had been assiduous in religious duties. First under an awning made of an old sail, seated upon logs, with a rail nailed to two trees for a pulpit, afterward in a poor shanty of a church, "that could neither well defend wind nor rain," they "had daily common prayer morning and evening, every Sunday two sermons, and every three months the holy communion, till their minister died"; and after that "prayers daily, with an homily on Sundays, two or three years, till more preachers came." The sturdy and terrible resolution of Captain Smith, who in his marches through the wilderness was wont to begin the day with prayer and psalm, and was not unequal to the duty, when it was laid on him, of giving Christian exhortation as well as righteous punishment, and the gentle Christian influence of the Rev. Robert Hunt, were the salt that saved the colony from utterly perishing of its vices. It was not many months before the frail body of the chaplain sank under the hardships of pioneer life; he is commemorated by his comrade, the captain, as "an honest, religious, and courageous divine, during whose life our factions were oft qualified, our wants and greatest extremities so comforted that they seemed easy in comparison of what we endured after his memorable death." When, in 1609, in a nobler spirit than that of mere commercial enterprise, the reorganized Company, under the new charter, was preparing the great reinforcement of five hundred to go out under Lord de la Warr as governor of the colony, counsel was taken with Abbot, the Puritan Bishop of London, himself a member of the Virginia Company, and Richard Buck was selected as a worthy successor to Robert Hunt in the office of chaplain. Such he proved himself. Sailing in advance of the governor, in the ship with Sir Thomas Gates and Sir George Somers, and wrecked with them off the Bermudas, he did not forget his duty in the "plenty, peace, and ease" of that paradise. The ship's bell was rescued from the wreck to ring for morning and evening prayer, and for the two sermons every Sunday. There were births and funerals and a marriage in the shipwrecked company, and at length, when their makeshift vessel was ready, they embarked for their desired haven, there to find only the starving threescore survivors of the colony. They gathered together, a pitiable remnant, in the church, where Master Buck "made a zealous and sorrowful prayer"; and at once, without losing a day, they embarked for a last departure from Virginia, but were met at the mouth of the river by the tardy ships of Lord de la Warr. The next morning, Sunday, June 10, 1610, Lord de la