The two friends spoke next upon a subject of deep interest to both. By the advice, and at the instigation of Hamelin, Bernard had, for a considerable time, been in the habit of gathering together a small company of poor people on sabbath days, to read the Scriptures, and to make exhortations weekly. At first their number did not exceed nine or ten, and they were indigent and illiterate men, nevertheless they had the matter at heart, and from this small beginning was established a church which, in a few years, grew and flourished. Very simple and touching is Palissy’s account of the manner in which he, “moved with an earnest desire for the advancement of the gospel,” daily searched the Scriptures with Victor; and how at length the two, taking counsel together, one Sunday morning assembled a few neighbours, to whom Bernard read “certain passages and texts which he had put down in writing, and offered for their consideration.” First, he showed them how each man, according to the gifts he had received, should distribute them to others, and that every tree which bore not fruit, must be cut down and cast into the fire. He also propounded to them _the Parable of the Talents_, and a great number of such texts; and afterwards exhorted them, to the effect that it was the duty of all people to speak of the statutes and ordinances of God, and that his doctrine must not be despised on account of his own abject estate, seeing that God little esteems those things which men account great. For, while he gives wisdom, birth, or worldly greatness, to such as shall never see his face, he calls to the inheritance of glory poor despised creatures, who are looked upon as the offscouring and refuse of the world. These, he raises from the dunghill, setting them with princes, and making them his sons and daughters. “Oh, the wonder!” He then begged his auditors to follow his example, and do as he had been doing; which he so successfully urged, that they resolved that same hour, that six of their number should make exhortations weekly; that is to say, each of them once in six weeks, on the Sunday. And it was agreed that “since they undertook a business in which they had never been instructed, they should put down in writing what they had to say, and read before the assembly.” “That was,” said Palissy, “the beginning of the Reformed Church of Saintes.” Six poor and unlearned men were all who had the boldness, with resolute hearts, to form themselves into a worshipping assembly of Protestant Christians in that town, which had so recently beheld the burning of a heretic. We seek in the chronicles of earthly glory for the names of our famous heroes, patriots, and statesmen. The only annals in which the name of our potter is recorded are those of the despised Huguenot church of Saintes. In a contemporary list of preachers we find mentioned BERNARD PALISSY.