it;
and, lastly, the more ignorant, who still clung to prophesying and
inspiration. These last had done the Protestant Church much injury,
for the intelligent classes generally regarded them as but mere
fanatics.

Court found it would be requisite to keep the latter within the
leading-strings of spiritual instruction, and to encourage the "new
converts" to return to the church of their fathers by the
re-establishment of some efficient pastoral service. He therefore
urged that religious assemblies must be continued, and that discipline
must be established by the appointment of elders, presbyteries, and
synods, and also by the training up of a body of young pastors to
preach amongst the people, and discipline them according to the rules
of the Protestant Church. Nearly thirty years had passed since it had
been disorganized by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, so that
synods, presbyteries, and the training of preachers had become almost
forgotten.

The first synod was convened by Court, and held in the abandoned
quarry near Nismes, above referred to, in the very same month in which
Louis XIV. breathed his last. It was a very small beginning. Two or
three laymen and a few preachers[53] were present, the whole meeting
numbering only nine persons. The place in which the meeting was held
had often before been used as a secret place of worship by the
Huguenots. Religious meetings held there had often been dispersed by
the dragoons, and there was scarcely a stone in it that had not been
splashed by Huguenot blood. And now, after Protestantism had been
"finally suppressed," Antoine Court assembled his first synod to
re-establish the proscribed religion!

[Footnote 53: Edmund Hughes says the preachers were probably
Rouviere (or Crotte), Jean Huc, Jean Vesson, Etienne Arnaud,
and Durand.]

The first meeting took place on the 21st of August, 1715, at daybreak.
After prayer, Court, as moderator, explained his method of
reorganization, which was approved. The first elders were appointed
from amongst those present. A series of rules and regulations was
resolved upon and ordered to be spread over the entire province. The
preachers were then charged to go forth, to stir up the people and
endeavour to bring back the "new converts."

They lost no time in carrying out their mission. The first districts
in which they were appointed to work were those of Mende, Alais,
Viviers, Uzes, Nismes, and Montpell