sliding. Piety increased, and assemblies in
the Desert were more largely attended than before. The intendants
ceased to interfere with them, and the soldiers were kept strictly
within their cantonments. More preachers were licensed, and more
elders were elected. Many new churches were set up throughout
Languedoc; and the department of the Lozere, in the Cevennes, became
again almost entirely Protestant. Roger and Villeveyre were almost
equally successful in Dauphiny; and Saintonge, Normandy, and Poitou
were also beginning to maintain a connection with the Protestant
churches of Languedoc.

CHAPTER XI.

REORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH IN THE DESERT.

The organization of the Church in the Desert is one of the most
curious things in history. Secret meetings of the Huguenots had long
been held in France. They were began several years before the Act of
Revocation was proclaimed, when the dragonnades were on foot, and
while the Protestant temples were being demolished by the Government.
The Huguenots then arranged to meet and hold their worship in retired
places.

As the meetings were at first held, for the most part, in Languedoc,
and as much of that province, especially in the district of the
Cevennes, is really waste and desert land, the meetings were at first
called "Assemblies in the Desert," and for nearly a hundred years they
retained that name.

When Court began to reorganize the Protestant Church in France,
shortly after the Camisard war, meetings in the Desert had become
almost unknown. There were occasional prayer-meetings, at which
chapters of the Bible were read or recited by those who remembered
them, and psalms were sung; but there were few or no meetings at which
pastors presided. Court, however, resolved not only to revive the
meetings of the Church in the Desert, but to reconstitute the
congregations, and restore the system of governing them according to
the methods of the Huguenot Church.

The first thing done in reconstituting a congregation, was to appoint
certain well-known religious men, as _anciens_ or elders. These were
very important officers. They formed the church in the first instance;
for where there were no elders, there was no church. They were members
of the _consistoire_ or presbytery. They looked after the flock,
visited them in their families, made collections, named the pastors,
and maintained peace, order, and discipline amongst the people. Though
first nominated by the past