to strengthen
my brethren, groaning under their oppressions."

His wife threw herself at his feet. "Thou wouldst go to certain
death," she said; "think of me and thy little children." She implored
him again and again to remain. He loved his wife and children, but he
thought a higher duty called him away from them. When his friends told
him that he would be taken prisoner and hung, he said, "When God
permits his servants to die for the Gospel, they preach louder from
the grave than they did during life." He remained unshaken. He would
go to the help of the oppressed with the love of a brother, the faith
of an apostle, and the courage of a martyr.

Brousson knew the danger of the office he was about to undertake.
There had, as we have seen, been numerous attempts made to gather the
Protestant people together, and to administer consolation to them by
public prayers and preaching. The persons who conducted these services
were not regular pastors, but only private members of their former
churches. Some of them were very young men, and they were nearly all
uneducated as regards clerical instruction. One of the most successful
was Isaac Vidal, a lame young man, a mechanic of Colognac, near St.
Hypolite, in the Cevennes. His self-imposed ministrations were
attended by large numbers of people. He preached for only six months
and then died--a natural death, for nearly all who followed him were
first tortured and then hung.

We have already referred to Fulcran Rey, who preached for about nine
months, and was then executed. In the same year were executed
Meyrueis, by trade a wool-carder, and Rocher, who had been a reader in
one of the Protestant churches. Emanuel Dalgues, a respectable
inhabitant of Salle, in the Cevennes, also received the crown of
martyrdom. Ever since the Revocation of the Edict, he had proclaimed
the Gospel o'er hill and dale, in woods and caverns, to assemblies of
the people wherever he could collect them. He was executed in 1687.
Three other persons--Gransille, Mercier, and Esclopier--who devoted
themselves to preaching, were transported as slaves to America; and
David Mazel, a boy twelve years of age, who had a wonderful memory,
and preached sermons which he had learned by heart, was transported,
with his father and other frequenters of the assemblies, to the
Carribee Islands.

At length Brousson collected about him a number of Huguenots willing
to return with him into France, in order to collect the Pr