Then began the Gospel to flourish, civil, honourable, and men of great estates flocked in; famous buildings went forward, orchards innumerable were planted and preserved; tradesmen set on work and encouraged, staple commodities, as silk, flax, pot-ashes, etc., of which I shall speak further hereafter, attempted on, and with good success brought to perfection; so that this country which had a mean beginning, many back friends, two ruinous and bloody massacres, hath by God's grace out-grown all, and is become a place of pleasure and plenty. It may possibly be worthwhile to compare the life of Virginia during its first two generations with the far west of the United States from the gold-rush days of 1849 to the end of the nineteenth century. There again, as in the Virginia of 1607, bona fide settlers of moral ideals and stability of life prevailed in the long run and developed self-governing states which maintained the moral code. But Virginia had an advantage which the far west of the gold-rush days lacked. Virginia had an Established Church which in spite of its own problems and difficulties created a parish in every section, and provided clergymen as far as they could be obtained. It is granted that some at least of the clergymen were unworthy. The vestries themselves ejected men of that kind and services could be maintained by readers. And so the Word of God was read and prayer was offered regularly; and every man who could read had the Ten Commandments staring him in the face from the tablets on the wall behind the Holy Table. The individual might scorn and sneer but in the end the Law of God became the law of the community. Men came to church in those early days. For one reason, the law of the colony required it and there was the threat of punishment if absence from church was reported to the grand jury. But there was another reason also, even though men and women were compelled to walk five or six miles to attend. That other reason was the loneliness of farm life in the early days of colonial Virginia. The churchyard on a Sunday morning was then the meeting-place of the whole community, and the only place where all could meet on the same level. The only other meetings were when elections were held at the Court House, every three or four years. And men might attend the meetings of the county court; but women could not vote, and they did not go to elections; nor were they apt to attend meetings of the county court except in rare instances when they were engaged in litigation. And the amount of hard liquor consumed on election days and county court days was also a deterrent.