hearers publicly giving utterance to their
emotions, and many being converted. Before his departure he corrected
some of the errors into which the dissenters had fallen, and taught them
to conduct public worship with better order, prayer and singing being
now introduced, so that "he brought them into some kind of church order
on the Presbyterian model."[441:A] He was followed shortly afterwards by
the Rev. John Blair, whose preaching was equally impressive. Another
missionary, the Rev. John Roan, from the New Castle Presbytery, preached
to crowded congregations there and in the neighboring counties. The
consequent excitement, and his speaking freely in public and in private
of the delinquency of the parish ministers, and his denouncing them with
unsparing invective, in spite of reproaches, ridicule, and threats, gave
alarm to them and their supporters, and measures were concerted to
arrest the inroads of these offensive innovations. To aggravate the
indignation of the government a witness swore "that he heard Mr. Roan
utter blasphemous expressions in his sermons," preached at the house of
Joshua Morris, in James City County.

At the meeting of the general court in April, Governor Gooch, in his
charge to the grand jury, denounced, in strong terms, "certain false
teachers lately crept into this government, who, without order or
license, or producing any testimonial of their education or sect,
professing themselves ministers under the pretended influence of new
light, extraordinary impulse, and such like satirical [sic] and
enthusiastic knowledge, lead the innocent and ignorant people into all
kinds of delusion." He even suspected them to be Romish emissaries,
saying, "their religious professions are very justly suspected to be the
result of jesuitical policy, which also is an iniquity to be punished
by the judges." He calls upon the jury to present and indict these
offenders. On the next day the jury presented John Roan for "reflecting
upon and vilifying the established religion," and Thomas Watkins, of
Henrico County, for saying "your churches and chapels are no better than
the synagogues of Satan," and Joshua Morris, "for permitting John Roan,
the aforementioned preacher, and very many people, to assemble in an
unlawful manner at his house on the seventh, eighth, and ninth of
January last past."

The intolerant spirit of the government continuing unabated, the
Conjunct Presbyteries of New Castle and New Brunswick, at t