How fitting that the four little broken walls alone remaining of all that the colonists built, should be not the walls of house or tavern or fort, but of the tower of the village church! Almost with the solemn significance of a tomb above the ashes of the dead, stands the sacred pile over the buried remains of old James Towne. The ruin is about thirty-six feet high, though doubtless originally several feet higher. Near the top are loopholes that perhaps suggest the reason why the tower is of such massive build; in those days the red man influenced even church architecture. Excavations to the east of the tower have disclosed the foundation walls of the remainder of the church, and have helped to fix the date of erection as about 1639. Within these foundations, the ruins of a yet older building have been unearthed. They are doubtless the remains of a wooden church with brick foundations that was built about 1617. So, in the contemplation of these little ruins within ruins, the mind is carried back to the very beginnings of our country, to within ten years perhaps of the day when those first settlers landed. What this old wooden church looked like probably nobody can tell; but much has been determined as to the general appearance of the brick church, that to which the venerable tower belonged. The visitor will not be far wrong if, as he stands in the presence of these ruins, he sees in fancy a picture like this: the old tower with several feet of lost height regained, and with a roof sloping up from each of the four sides to a peak in the middle surmounted by a cross; behind the tower, those crumbling church foundations built up into strong walls, bearing a high-pitched roof; each side of the church with four flying buttresses and three lancet windows; the entrance, a pair of arched doorways, one in the front and one in the back of the tower; above the doorway in the front, a large arched window; and, yet higher, the six ominous loopholes; all the walls of the structure composed of brick in mingled red and black, and the roofs of slate. Now, if the visitor will enter the quaint old church that his fancy has thus restored--moving softly, for truly he is on holy ground and every step is over unknown dead--he may see in vague vision a very little of the ancient interior: the nave lighted by diamond-paned windows, not stained; the aisles between the rows of pews paved with brick; the chancel paved with tile; a gallery at the end next the tower; and, over all, the heavy timbers of the high-pitched roof. Perhaps beyond this fancy can not safely go.