'Neff lost no time in returning to France, and to the scene of his first labours in that country; but his journey to England had nearly been the means of defeating all his hopes and plans. He was represented to the French government as an agent of England, and when he presented himself before the prefect of the department of the Isère at Grenoble, to meet any charge that might be made against him, that functionary candidly told him, that the minister of the interior had received information, that all the preachers not French, and more especially those who had religious connexions out of the kingdom, were in the pay of England, and were charged with some political mission. The prefect was at the same time polite and kind in his manner, and strongly advised Neff to take up letters of naturalization, as the best answer to the calumny, and the only way of securing his object in regard to a pastoral appointment.'-p. 92.

But his was not a spirit to be depressed by difficulties, and this was enough to cheer him. The Protestants at Mens left their shops and their husbandry work to meet him, with all the outward and visible signs of affection which the French so readily display, and which, in this instance, no doubt were sincere. The population of St. Jean d'Héran turned out more than once upon a report of his approach. When at length some one ran before him to give the joyful intelligence, he saw the bottom of the little hill on which the village stands covered with people who were waiting to greet him. But he, foreseeing that, in jealous times, an unfavourable construction might be put upon such public indications of esteem, begged one of his friends to go forward and request that they would return to their houses, where he would visit them successively. Yet notwithstanding this ardour in his friends, the cabals which had been raised at Mens rendered it unadvisable for him to remain in that town or its immediate neighbourhood. The inhabitants of St. Sebastian wished him to become the pastor of their commune, and undertook to raise his salary among themselves. The same reason induced him to decline this offer; and though he had many attachments there, it was no great act of selfdenial in him to determine upon quitting the department of the Isère. He felt that he could better accomplish his own desires if

he had more freedom and a field to himself.'

I am always dreaming of the High Alps,' said he in a letter of the 8th Sept. 1823, and I would rather be stationed there than under the beautiful sky of Languedoc. In the higher Alpine region I shall be the only pastor, and therefore more at liberty. In the south, I should be embarrassed by the presence and conflicting opinions of other pastors. With respect to the description which B-- has given of those mountains, it may be correct as to some places, but still the country bears a strong resemblance to the Alps of Switzerland. It has its advantages and even its beauties. If there are wolves

and

and chamois, there are also cattle and pasturages and glaciers, and picturesque spots, and, above all, an energetic race of people, intelligent, active, hardy, and patient under fatigue, who offer a better soil for the Gospel, than the wealthy and corrupt inhabitants of the plains of the south.'-p. 94.

A few weeks after this letter was written, the elders of the Protestant churches of Val Queyras and Val Fressinière made application to the consistory that he might be appointed their pastor. He was apprized of this, and that he might shortly expect to receive his appointment. Not waiting for it, he set out to visit the scene of his future labours, and was received by the people as their pastor elect. But there were many preliminary steps before he could be fully installed in what Mr. Gilly may well call the most arduous piece of ecclesiastical preferment in Christendom.' He must receive his diploma from the consistory of Orpierre, and his naturalization from the office of the ministry in Paris. And doubts frequently crossed his mind,-would the president of the consistory sanction the election? would the minister of the interior confirm it? would the keeper of the seals grant him letters of naturalization? He however resolved to enter upon his charge provisionally, and run the risk of receiving the government stipend or not, as it might happen. In fact, some of the necessary forms were never regularly obtained; but all parties concerned were so weil satisfied with his conduct, that by some management which the higher authorities winked at, he remained in undisturbed possession.'

The first act of toleration after the revocation of the edict of Nantes (a century before) was published by Louis XVI. in 1786. In 1802 the consular government conferred certain privileges on the Protestants, and placed them so far upon a level with the Roman Catholics, that they were to have an organization sanctioned by the state, and their pastors were to receive a stipend from the public treasury; but this was under certain regulations. None but Frenchmen might exercise the ministerial functions, and no pastoral appointment might take place except under the seal of a local consistory, and with the sanction of the government. A consistory should consist of not less than six thousand souls of the same communion, and might not have more than six pastors without the express permission of government. The amount of the stipend was to depend upon the population, 3000 francs the highest, 1200 the lowest; but a house and garden might be provided in addition, at the expense of the commune. The discipline of the church thus organized was to be the same as that of the reformed churches of France before the revocation, and in this there was to be no change without the authority of government.

Neff,

Neff, in consequence of the irregularity of his appointment, never received the government stipend. An allowance from the Continental Society of about 50l. a-year (probably what would have been the minimum of the official salary) was his principal, if not his sole maintenance. His means of beneficence were small indeed; and he who saw so many ways in which he might have employed it wisely, must have often yearned after a little of that wealth, so much of which is misbestowed. But this wish would only have been for the sake of others. He had enough for himself as long as he should remain single; and he was wedded to his parish. Though poor, it was among the poor that his lot had fallen; and religious poverty brings with it no contempt, when the institutions of a country have taught the people to look upon it with respect.

The Protestants of the department of the High Alps have but two ecclesiastical sections to which pastors have been appointedOrpierre and Arvieux; the latter, which was Neff's parish, extends over too civil arrondissements (Embrun and Briançon), and consists of seventeen or eighteen villages, occupying an extent of sixty miles, in a straight line from east to west; but eighty must be traversed through the windings of the mountains, in travelling from one extreme point to the other. Hitherto there had been no regularly appointed or resident minister to this laborious parish, for any length of time together. Oberlin's son Henry, whose death is so touchingly related in the memoirs of his father, took charge of it for a few months. It had been occasionally served by the pastor of Orpierre; and the people of Vals Fressinière and Queyras used to assemble on Sundays, in the churches and oratoires, when some one or other read the service.

There is this difference between the valleys of Piemont, and those of Fressinière and Queyras. The former are for the most part smiling with verdure and foliage, the latter are dark and sterile. In each, alp rises above alp, and piles of rock of appalling aspect block up many of the defiles, and utterly forbid any further advance to the boldest adventurer. But the Italian valleys are so beautifully diversified by green meadows and rich corn-fields, and thick foliage of forest and fruit trees, that the eye is perpetually relieved and delighted. Add to these the herds of cattle in the pasturages, and the innumerable flocks of goats and sheep browsing upon the mountain sides, and skipping from rock to rock, and you have an animated picture of life and enjoyment which cannot be surpassed. The Piemontese valleys form a garden, with deserts as it were in view: some of them indeed are barren and repulsive, but these are exceptions. On the contrary, in the Alpine retreats of the French Protestants, fertility is the exception, and barrenness the common aspect. There the tottering cliffs, the sombre and frowning rocks, which, from their fatiguing continuity,

look

look like a mournful veil, which is never to be raised, and the tremendous abysses, and the comfortless cottages, and the ever present dangers from avalanches, and thick mists and clouds, proclaim that this is a land which man never would have chosen, even for his hidingplace, but from the direst necessity.'-p. 111.

Considering the extent of his charge, and the character of the country, a man of Neff's zeal, says Mr. Gilly, could not but sink under his labours, There is a twofold lesson,' he observes, to be learned in following the steps of a pastor through these wilds. It is well that we should see how hard some of our brethren work, and how hard they live; and that we should discern, to our humiliation, that it is not always where there is the greatest company of preachers, that the word takes most root.' Neff's manse, if it may be so called, was a small low cottage, with no other comfort than what it derived from its southern aspect, and its situation in a warm sunny spot; it was in the little hamlet of La Chalp, not far from Arvieux, the principal village of the commune so named, where the church stands; but the majority of the Protestant population are settled higher up the valley, for wherever the remains of the primitive Christians still exist, they are invariably found to have crept up to the farthest habitable part of their glens.' Tyranny and persecution allowed them no other resting-place, and they were safe there only because they were hidden there, or because their persecutors feared to follow them. So dangerous, indeed, are some of these defiles, that scarcely a year passes without the loss of several lives in them,

'One of the principal charms in the recital of a good clergyman's life,' says the biographer, 'is the character of the clergyman at home. But Neff had none of the comforts of this life to cheer him. No family endearments welcomed him to a peaceful fireside after the toils of the day, nothing of earthly softness smoothed his seat or his pillow. His was a career of anxiety, unmitigated and unconsoled by anything but a sense of duties performed, and of acceptance with God.' But a parish that was eighty miles long could have none of those advantages which are derived from the residence of a good clergyman, advantages little inferior to those which result from his public ministry. Neff's life in such a scene was necessarily that of an itinerant, and with this the people of Arvieux and La Chalp were somewhat dissatisfied; as their commune provided a dwelling for him, they thought themselves entitled to a greater portion of his time, and they remonstrated with him very earnestly one day when he was about to set forth for a distant hamlet. He replied by representing, as was reasonable, that it was his duty to divide his services according to the number of those who required them; and that, as he did not

take

take up his abode in any other part of the parish capriciously, or longer than was necessary, they had no just cause for complaint. But independently of this, 'the repose and enjoyment of domestic life had no attraction for him,' and he thought his time better employed in any other part of the parish: for the people in this, he said, were spoilt by the advantages of their situation, and not so well inclined to profit by his instruction as the inhabitants of less favoured spots. He had indeed formed an opinion that, in his sphere of action, there was least religion where there were more comforts. The mildness of the climate at Arvieux, he said, 'appeared somehow or other not favourable to the growth of piety:'—and of another commune he observes, that its fertility, as well as its proximity to a high road and to a town, was a great stumbling-block.' One place is more fertile than the rest of the valley, and even produces wine; the consequence is, that there is less piety.' In the valley of Queyras, San Veran is the highest and consequently the most pious village.' And Mr. Gilly says, in his note upon this assertion, that a similar observation was made to him by more than one Vaudois pastor in Piemont, on the relative degree of piety in the lower and more elevated mountain hamlets.

Neff's biographer seems, therefore, to think that Neff's opinion upon this point is confirmed by the testimony of other persons who have the best means of observation. It is more difficult to explain the fact in the case of the Vaudois, than to suspect how it may have originated where Neff was concerned. There can be no natural cause for it; for, though certain philosophers graduate their scale of convenient morality according to different latitudes, they have never pretended that our religious instincts are, in any degree, dependent upon such influence. The highest of Neff's hamlets were the poorest, and in the rudest state: to assign this as the reason would lead to no favourable inference, nor could such an explanation be maintained upon any fair grounds; for in no part of his extensive parish was there any great wealth, or any such superabundance of comforts as might lead to luxury. But the pastor's relative position was not the same there, as in those villages which were placed in a more fertile soil and in a more genial region. Where the manse had been provided for him, though it was nothing more than such a cottage as would be dignified to English conceptions if it were called humble, it has been seen that the people considered themselves as having a claim upon him on that score; where such a feeling could find place it is not unlikely that they looked upon his ministry as a purchasable service, and thought, perhaps, that the obligation was less on their side than on his. But in the remoter hamlets his ministry appeared to be, what in reality it was, a pure labour of love, such as, under

no