The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1853-08-10

THE OLD ST.. JOINS CHURcH.-We oc-
casioualy take quiet stroll into the environs of the
city when the hard and monotonous abors of the day
begin to slacken, and wander down into the vallies
and up to the SUBMITS of the hills which add much
to the beauty of surrounding scenery. Il often
happens that attain two objects at the time
health and-a paragraph. Among other localities in
which we have spent many pleasant, dreamy, half
sleeping and half-waking hour we may mention St.
Johns Church-yard. We have read every tomb
stone in it than once, and tried to call up the
good old times when all that sleeping there,
moved and acted and hoped and feared as we do now
fancy that Richmond as it eighty years
ago, hamlet with its prineval hospitality and
simplicity of manners That old wooden church. too
is eloquent in its ugnes flor really is unsighy
buildng,) and before knows what he is about he
imagines himself transported back to March, IT'S,
when in the House of Burgesses, there assembled,
Patrick Henry dared to hurl the gauntlet of defiance
in the teeth of England and exclam, We must fight
repeat it, SIR, must fight; appeal to arms, and
to the God of hosts is all that is left u.s." That thrill
ing speech only reused the House, and the nation
at the time but is treasured in the memory of every
school boy, to this hour and goes burning along his
nerves. quickenng each patriotic impulse and making
him nobler and better man.
The landscape visible from the old church is of
the beautiful this continent and the beholder
would scarcely wonder that at such spot with such
theme, the most stolid should grow eloquent
The surrounding hills and groves the city beneath
your feet, and the far-wnding river form sum-tota
of beauty which the verest boor would admire
At later period, believe, the State Convention
to ratify the Federal Constitution assembled in this
place-then chiefly used public hall-and in that
august body might have been seen two madison and
| en- 4 n
There also three sgners of the Declaration of
Independence: Marshall afterwards Chief Justice of
the U. S. Supreme Court the wise Mason, Pendleson
Grayson, Randolph, then Governor,) Innes, the
State Attorney General, and many whose names
and memories dear TO every Virginian. There
also Patrick Henry who feared that the consitu-
ton vested too much power in the Chief Magistrate
and therefore opposed it. 1t adopted by a ma
jority of only two out of 16S votes We know not
when the edice originally built, or when first
used church 1t must, however, have been at
early period, for some of the monuments in the
church-yard date back more than q hundred years
Most of the older tomb-stones bear the names OF
foreigners, English, Scotch Irish and French The
birth place of the deceased generally mentioned in
their epitiphs. We remember among them to have
noticed Bamrnfshire, Lana-kshire Glamorganshire,
Glasgow London, Limerick, Lorraine, Bordeaux NC
Very few names OF native srsinans OF New Eng
landers to be found upon the oldest monuments
IJnon those of somewhat later date are found the
- &c he ,,,ns+ a. i,
ihehaoriais " many " .ne Atoss =
the State. Many inscriptions are wholly obliterated
The causes are, probably the humidity and variable
character OF the climate, the inienol qaas - 'n
marble or perhaps the continued action of the roots
Of PARASITIC fungi which penetrate the minute
-. = :, "a ~. fost i, rendering
/ stands need
some repairs ana ~. susa oala