When Calvin saw this movement of life going on around him, he thought of France. Would she remain behind Germany and Switzerland?... No. France will awake ... she is already waking; erelong she will receive the Gospel in its holy purity, and will increase in morality, in light, and in liberty: such were his hopes. But for their realisation, men were needed who, being regenerate themselves, should be fellow-workers with God in this new creation. Calvin asked himself whether some of the converts of Poitiers were not called to this work? Alas! what a small company for so large a kingdom! How great the weakness of the Gospel compared with the magnificence of Rome! 'God acts thus,' he said, 'in order to strip us of all pride. And therefore he chooses the weak ones of this world to confound the strong. If the iron grows red in the fire,' he added, 'it is that it may be forged.'[122] He wished to forge it and to make serviceable instruments out of it. One day being at the usual meeting, he said: 'Is there any one here willing to go and give light to those whom the pope has blinded?'[123] Jean Vernou, Philip Véron, and Albert Babinot stood forward. Calvin had not forgotten the Angoumois where he possessed beloved friends; thither and into the adjacent provinces he will first send his missionaries and commence the evangelisation of France: 'You, Babinot, will go into Guyenne and Languedoc,' he said; 'Philip Véron, you will go into Saintonge and Angoumois; and you, Jean Vernou, will stay at Poitiers and the neighbourhood.' Calvin and the other brethren did not think that these missionaries required regular theological studies; had they not received the necessary gifts from God, 'neither more nor less than if He had given them with His own hand?'[124] But they had need to be recommended to the almighty grace of God. They therefore prayed together, and Calvin called upon the Lord to accept the services of these pious men. He told them to go and proclaim the Gospel, not in the name of any man, but in the name of the Lord, and because God commanded it. A collection provided for the expenses of this mission, and the evangelists departed.