esentation of the coffin at the church, and the subsequent interment make explicit statements about the social relationships of the participants because religious events carried with them both secular and spiritual overtones. As Isaac contends, "Elaborately orchestrated rituals offer social and cultural historians clear declarations of how the nature of things was intended to be understood at the time of the ritual" (328).
In terms of the impending Revolution and its impact on colonial Virginia, Isaac found that three channels were of primary importance in conveying the views and responses of the people. These channels were the printed word, word of mouth, and community action (Isaac 245). Isaac notes that the printed media served a different function in colonial America than it serves in the present-day. For example, a newspaper report of the Burgesses' reaction to the closing of the port of Boston contained few lines and was printed without a headline. In contrast, news of such impact would merit a special edition of the daily newspaper in modern times. Editors of the dailies during colonial times knew that the chief means of dissemination of important events was by word of mouth. The common people were likely to get their news read to them by community leaders or through conversations with others, since people regularly met in places of assembly for this purpose: "The newspapers, with their small type, their long reports from the courts of Europe, and their polemical exchanges in learned literary style, were not directed to the general populace" (Isaac 245).
Since word of mouth transmission is the most difficult of the three channels to document, Isaac also relied on reports of meetings to provide clues as to the mindset of the Virginia colonists during this period. One such report describes the community mobilization to donate produce and supplies for the people of Boston. Local elections also provided opportunit...