This passage shews the attachment of the Virginian colonists to the Established Church of the mother country; and as they were chiefly persons of the higher class--being noblemen, gentlemen, and merchants of London--they were in sympathy with the ruling powers; and, as might be expected, were zealous for the forms and orders of the English Episcopal communion. The pious Governor, Lord De la Warr, who, in 1610, revived the drooping colony, carefully procured "true preachers;" and his secretary reports, how he placed the church under the care of a sexton, causing it to be kept passing sweet, "and trimmed up with divers flowers;" how, as the chimes rang at ten o'clock in the morning, each man addressed himself to prayers, and how, every Sunday, the Governor--accompanied by all the gentlemen, and by a guard of halberdiers, dressed in his lordship's livery of "fair red cloaks"--sat in the quire, in a green velvet chair, with a velvet cushion spread on the table before him, at which he knelt. The type of piety cherished by the Virginian settlers may be inferred from the secretary's picture; and unhappily the governor was entrusted with a code called "Laws Martial," which were to be exercised whenever it should be necessary. These laws provided, that speaking against the Articles of the Christian faith should be capitally punished; that irreverent behaviour to a Christian minister should subject the offender to three public whippings; that absence from Divine service on week days and on the Sabbath should be accounted a State crime, deserving, if thrice repeated, of labour in the galleys for six months. Every one coming to the colony who refused to give an account of his faith to some minister of religion was to be whipt.[475] The absurdity of these laws soon appeared, from the impossibility of executing them. The articles of instruction given by the Home Government to Sir Francis Wyatt, who was appointed Governor in the year 1621, were of a different character. Nothing was said of penalties, and factions; but needless novelties tending to the disturbance of peace and unity were discouraged. These expressions, however, must have been intended solely for the purpose of conciliating such members of the Episcopal Church as might be jealous of Popish innovations; for to suppose they meant a liberal policy towards Nonconformists in general, would be an idea utterly inconsistent with all we know of the Stuart rule.[476] Puritans could not go to Virginia except by royal licence, and when they had reached their new home, the letter of the law--valid there, as well as in England--left them still liable to the scourge of persecution. Prudence for a while might induce the Virginian authorities to wink at Puritanism within their borders; but their history affords no signs of their righteously legislating upon that important subject. Indeed, on reaching the year 1629, we discover the sternest intolerance in the acts and orders of the Colonial Assembly.