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and as he had been a humble servant in her temples, and hoped to serve before her altars, it must have been his wish to receive orders under her sanction.' But he was not a Frenchman, and unless he were naturalized, this was at that time not easy, perhaps not practicable. The easiest course, therefore, was to repair to England, and there ask for a public recognition as a devoted servant of God, in one of those independent congregations whose ministers are received in the Protestant churches of France as duly authorized.' His name had been made known in this country, through the means of the Continental Society, and of Mr. Cook and Mr. Wilks, two eminent dissenting ministers.'

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Without understanding a single word of English, he embarked in a steam-boat at Calais, in the beginning of May, 1823, landed at Dover half-dead with sea-sickness, committed himself to a night coach, and arrived in London on a Sunday morning, with no other aid to help him through the mazes of a city (which is more embarrassing to a stranger than any other capital in Europe) than a direction to Mr. Wilks's house.' Thither he puzzled out his way'—and there he found that Mr. Wilks was not at home, and that not a person in the house could speak French. He had probably considered how to proceed in the case of such a disappointment; and by addressing such passengers as seemed likely to understand him, he got directed, through a labyrinth of streets and lanes, to a French chapel, where it was certain that he should find some one who could converse with him, and put him in the way of profiting by his letters of introduction. 'The excellent Mr. Scholl was the preacher at the chapel upon this occasion, and to him Neff addressed himself after the service, with the modest request that he would direct him to an hotel where French was spoken.' Mr. Scholl, in reply, accosted him by name, and told him that he knew his errand, and that every thing which could promote his views should be done. He was placed in comfortable lodgings, and Mr. Wilks introduced him on his return to the ministers who were to receive him into their body. But though he received every attention from his new friends during the interval that elapsed before the public ceremony which brought him to England, yet only one or two could hold conversation with him, and his time hung heavily on his hands. 'My visits,' said he, in one of his letters, are very insipid; I cannot talk English, nor they French, and the sooner I can get away, the happier I shall be. But I will remain as long as I can to form connexions that may prove useful in promoting the reign of Christ in France.' On May 19th he ' received a diploma in Latin, signed by nine ministers, of whom three were doctors of theology, and one was a master of arts,' aud he was ordained in a chapel in the Poultry.

'Neff

'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.'

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'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

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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 well 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,

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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,

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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

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