The head of this Island, seized and fortified by these
settlers whose deeds and endurance we are commemorating
bears the indelible traces of a later and greater war whose
fierceness and bloodshed many of us here remember.
    Not long since it was my fortune to walk over this ground
and view these imperishable relics of this dreadful strife;
where the redouts of the Civil War rose upon the very ground
where the first settlers planted their first fortress. Within
fifty paces rose the only surviving remnant of the town which
gave its name to this Island. The ivy-clad ruin of a Church
Tower had survived all else save the foundation and the mem-
ories of this fateful settlement. Beyond it rose the rebuilt
body of a Church-rebuilt through the pious and patriotic
devotion of American women who bearing the patriotic name
of the Colonial Dames of America representing more than even
that distinguished class whose name they bear, for they repre-
sent whatever is best in American womanhood. And bearing
the chief part of this work are those who come from the region
once known as North Virginia. I cannot blot think it the work
of God that these pious women should place here as their
memorial of the great deed here wrought the restored edifice
of the First Christian Temple. And that God will bless the
work.
    That night I stood on the deck of a boat anchored on the
bosom of the river and gazed on this Island as it lay under
the moonlight and half veiled by the soft and mysterious haze.
It was about midnight. and all nature appeared as though
asleep: the veiled sky and long line of the slhore with its clumip
of trees marking this spot, the placid river, the deep unbroken
silence of the night transforming it into a scene of peace.
The redouts had disappeared; even the sacred edifice itself was
veiled from sight; only God's sky looked dlown upon God's
earth. And it seemed to me as though wars and strife were
but a dream, as though the differences and contentions and
strifes were all petty and transient. and the only thing that
was abiding and eternal was Nature and God, who has promised
Peace to them who love IHim.
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