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was exceedingly numerous. gaged in the services of the preceding evening, I had been greatly oppressed with heat, owing to the crowded state of my audience; and, after they had retired, I gave directions to have a large opening made in the ceiling, for the admission of a current of fresh air. This morning, however, the place was still more excessively crowded; so much so, that my expedient proved altogether abortive, and respiration became as difficult as before. In the afternoon, the attendance was not quite so numerous. I preached again in the evening, to an assembly fully as large as that in the morning. It was mentioned to me that, during the whole of this Sabbath, only one Protestant had been seen playing at bowls. Several of the inhabitants of a neighbouring hamlet, who, for the first time, had attended our evening service, were heard to remark, as they returned homewards, 'If this man were to come here more frequently, he would soon be the ruin of our wine merchants.'

Notwithstanding all this apparent zeal, however, truly spiritual religion makes a

very tardy progress, and I am afraid that, apart from occasional and momentary excitement, it may be a long time before these people are aroused to a sincere and earnest desire after the things pertaining to the kingdom of heaven. They are by no means averse to the truths of the gospel; but, on the contrary, listen to them with attention, and readily comply with the outward forms of religion, although it is but too painfully evident that they have never experienced its transforming power. Indeed, it is an event of very rare occurrence amongst the French population of this open country, to see any of those sudden conversions which are so frequently witnessed in other places."

CHAPTER X.

STRIKING CHARACTERISTICS OF NEFF HIS DIFFICULTY IN TEACHING THE DORMILLOUSIANS AN IMPROVED METHOD OF AGRICULTURE-HE INTRODUCES A BETTER MODE OF BUILDING, &c. ESTABLISHES AN ADULT SCHOOL AT DORMILLOUSE-DELIVERS LECTURES ON GEOMETRY AND NATURAL PHILOSOPHY AND EXCITES, AMONGST HIS PUPILS, A MISSIONARY SPIRIT-HIS PUPILS DISPERSEAND TWELVE OF THEM DEVOTE THEMSELVES TO THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY.

We have now arrived at that period in the life of Felix Neff, when the extraordinary talents and the ample resources possessed by this devoted pastor were more fully developed, and when every power and faculty of his mind was brought into vigorous and unceasing exercise. It is pre

sumed that no one can review the narrative of his past exertions, his self-denial, his holy zeal, his humility, his deep concern for the souls of men, and his supreme love to his Divine Redeemer, without being at once brought to the conclusion that, in his character and pursuits, there was

a concentration of whatever was pure and elevated in piety, disinterested and ennobling in ambition, sublime and glorious in Christian enterprise.

In the discharge of his sacred trust as the missionary pastor of the Higher Alps, the life of Neff was necessarily a series of almost constant migrations. He was continually moving from hamlet to hamlet, throughout the wide range of those mountains and valleys, which Divine Providence had allotted to him as his last and most useful sphere of arduous and toilsome duty. Whereever he went, he regarded the conversion of immortal souls as the supreme and essential object of all his exertions; and yet, in the midst of almost continual preaching, and of all those solemn and sacred duties which belong exclusively to the ministry of the gospel, he found some leisure moments wherein to occupy himself with the temporal affairs of his Alpine flock. Every thing, indeed, which had either an immediate or remote tendency to advance them in knowledge, or which might, in any way, promote their moral and physical welfare,

was the object of his constant and most anxious solicitude. He apparently bore continually in mind the language which the Apostle Paul addressed to the brethren at Phillipi. Finally, Brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

It has already been remarked, that Neff found the inhabitants of the Alpine region buried in a state of the most deplorable ignorance and destitution. The reader will readily call to mind the description which the pastor himself has given of the poverty and extreme wretchedness which he found prevailing throughout Val Fressiniere. Strangers alike to the hopes and consolations of religion, and to all the means of moral and intellectual improvement, they were destitute of every temporal comfort, and were living in a state of almost heathenish barbarism. Their subsistence was entirely dependent upon the few flocks they

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