It will probably be impossible for one to understand the helpful leadership of this church in the ecclesiastical life of Virginia without an appreciation of the great difficulty experienced in securing high-grade, or even fairly respectable, clergy in the country districts. In all church affairs Virginia was directly under the control of the Bishop of London. It is evident from the records that great pressure must have been exerted on him to send to Virginia the ne’er-do-well younger sons of British aristocrats or any other low-grade men who had been trained for the church as for any other occupation and who had at all costs to be got out of England. Governor Gooch, one of the best Royal Governors Virginia ever had, was active throughout his long and happy administration in raising the ministerial standards; it is impossible to read his letters to the Bishop of London without having the greatest sympathy for him in his Augean labors. Through all this sad experience, with the exception of the reported indictment of Dr. Dawson for drunkenness in 1760, Bruton Parish seems to have been blessed with such leadership as helped much to raise the whole colonial standard. [Illustration: THE TRAVIS HOUSE] It is somewhat difficult in this generation to realize the unity of church with state in Colonial Virginia when the legislature might order sermons on special subjects. A most notable case was the setting apart by the Assembly of June 1, 1774, the day when the British were forcibly to close the Port of Boston, as a day of fasting and prayer. The enactment closed with these words: “Ordered, that the members of this house do attend in their Places, at the Hour of ten in the Forenoon, on the said first Day of June next, in order to proceed with the Speaker, and the Mace, to the Church in this City, for the Purposes aforesaid; and that the Reverend Mr. Price be appointed to read Prayers, and the Reverend Mr. Gwatkin, to preach a Sermon, suitable to the Occasion.” [Illustration: GALT HOUSE] THE RESTORATION. During the first tenure of Rev. W. A. R. Goodwin as Rector of Bruton Parish, in 1905, the restoration of the church building to its early condition was begun. While no great alteration had ever been made to its exterior, the interior arrangements had been modified to such an extent as to make it scarcely recognizable. The entire arrangement, both within and without, was now returned, as nearly as available information permitted, to its condition after an enlargement that had been made in 1751.