hes in communion with Rome." Enough is therefore certain as to the
antecedents of these Protestant mountaineers to surround them with an
entirely peculiar interest. The saddest feature, perhaps, of all their
history is the stunting of mind and character that has resulted from
centuries of oppression. After the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes
they were subject to fresh persecution, and until within the present
century they have been denied the privileges of citizenship and forced
to look upon themselves as outcasts. One can only wonder at the degree
of individuality and force which they have still preserved.

Felix Neff, while still a _proposant_, or candidate for the ministry, at
Geneva, was sent to Dauphine in response to the appeal of two pastors
there for an assistant. Two years later, at the beginning of 1824, in
the twenty-sixth year of his age, he became pastor of the Protestant
churches in the Arvieux section of the High Alps. This was the larger
and by far the more arduous of the two parishes into which the
department was at that time divided. In seventeen or eighteen
widely-scattered villages Neff found the little groups of "Huguenots"
which composed his charge. His official residence, the presbytery, was
at La Chalp, a hamlet above the village of Arvieux and near the border
of Italy. From this point to St. Laurent, the western limit of his
parish, is a journey of sixty miles, including the passage of a
dangerous gorge and the crossing of a difficult snow-pass. St. Veran on
the east was the least remote of his boundaries, but even this is
separated from La Chalp by twelve miles of steep descent and rough
climbing. On the north and the south the extreme points were distant
respectively thirty-three and twenty-miles, and the routes are of the
same character as in the other directions.

These disadvantages, instead of daunting the young pastor, seemed only
to stimulate his ardor. "I am always dreaming of the High Alps," he had
written in 1823, after visiting them for the first time. "I had rather
be stationed there than in places which are under the beautiful sky of
Languedoc. The country bears a strong resemblance to the Alps of
Switzerland. It has their advantages, and even their beauties. It has,
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." The
illusion