after the Revolution he converted into a legalized meeting-house. His neighbours came, a congregation was established, and a pastor chosen. [Sidenote: 1688–1702.] Places of worship were put in trust. Presbyterians drew up their deeds in general terms, not enumerating articles of faith or referring to any ecclesiastical standard. In many cases, Congregational edifices were secured in a similar way, some schedule being annexed to the deed, declaring that the structure should be used by such Protestants in the neighbourhood as could not conform to the established religion. Whatever might be the policy ruling the arrangement, the selection of ministers, and the character of their preaching, in numerous cases still easily ascertained, betrayed no indifference as to what is esteemed orthodoxy of sentiment.[490] Energies which resisted persecution did not expire in the midst of freedom, although Bishop Burnet predicted “that Nonconformity could not last long, and that after Baxter, Bates, and Howe were laid in their graves, it would die of itself.” The last of these, on hearing the prophecy, remarked to the Bishop, “that its existence depended much more on principles than persons”--an opinion verified by subsequent facts. [Sidenote: NONCONFORMISTS.] The Presbyterians formed the largest, and, in point of social position, the most respectable branch of English Nonconformists in the reign of William. What most indicated their persistency and hope is discovered in their numerous ordinations. Down to the time of the Revolution they had been privately conducted. Just as the Prince of Orange was being driven back to his native shores by untoward storms, a young man named Joseph Hussey, who had been preaching for eight years, sought the rite from the hands of Dr. Annesley and other Presbyterians. Not in the meeting-house of Little St. Helen’s did the parties dare to assemble, but at the Doctor’s “private dwelling in Spitalfields, in an upper chamber.” There, on the 24th of October, 1688, the candidate, as he himself reports, was examined “in the parts of learning by the Elder, who took the chair and spoke in Latin.” The next day he defended a thesis against the Papacy. Upon the 26th he was ordained. The proceedings were begun and finished within the same chamber, in a neighbourhood then losing the last vestiges of rural life under the encroachments of weavers, driven from France by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.[491] As another instance of the privacy of Nonconformist services, I would mention that the Lord’s Supper was not publicly celebrated in the new chapel in Leeds until the month of October, 1692.[492] [Sidenote: 1688–1702.]