For the sake of contrast, both historical and architectural, it will not be amiss to quote Captain John Smith’s account of the first Virginia place of worship so that we may fully realise the strides of progress made from the feeble Jamestown beginning in 1607. He says: “This was our church till we built a homely thing like a barne, set upon cratchets, covered with rafts, sedge and earth; so was the walls. The best of our houses [were] of like curiosity; but the most part far much worse workmanship, that neither could well defend [from] wind nor raine. Yet we had daily Common Prayer, morning and evening; every Sunday two sermons; and every three months the Holy Communion, till our minister died; but our prayers daily with an Homily on Sundaies we continued two or three years after till our preachers came.” The words “till our preachers came” mean, of course, the successors of the Rev. Mr. Hunt who had accompanied the expedition. In tracing the history of the older parishes and congregations, it is the rule rather than the exception to find two or three successive houses of worship erected, as the means and growing numbers of the people made it possible or expedient, to replace former structures of meaner fabric which seem to have been regarded from the outset as merely temporary gathering places, meant to serve only until worthy edifices could be undertaken. Some of the earliest churches were merely block houses or forts, occasionally surrounded by stockades, proclaiming the ready physical as well as spiritual militancy of the worshippers within their walls, but these were abandoned so soon as the increasing prosperity and a greater sense of security from attacks by hostile savages warranted a more peaceful and comfortable type of building for religious purposes. Of course, in the several parts of the Colonies, the character of the buildings erected for religious uses indicated the prevailing local ecclesiastical organisation. In the South, especially in Virginia and Maryland, where the Church of England was the recognised dominant body and Church and State were closely allied, we find the churches conforming to English ecclesiastical traditions. In the Middle Colonies, where religious liberty was freely permitted, we find a greater variety including the structures peculiarly adapted to the worship of the Church of England, Quaker meeting houses and the buildings designed to accommodate the different German sects. In theocratic New England, while Church of England edifices were to be met with now and again, the simple meeting house type, agreeable to the congregational form of worship, everywhere prevailed.