r zeal in the establishment
of schools and their methods of instruction, and the many branches of
industry and the advancement of agriculture and the improvement of roads,
which have made that district flourishing and happy." The National
Agricultural Society gave him a gold medal for "prodigies accomplished in
silence in this almost unknown corner of the Vosges,... in a district
before his arrival almost savage," and into which he had brought "the best
methods of agriculture and the purest lights of civilization."

In the early stages of his remarkable career his narrow-minded people
opposed every step he took in the direction of community progress. They
resented his doing anything but preaching. When he proposed that they
build a passable road over the mountains to civilization they jeered at
the idea. But he shouldered his pick and began the task, and ere long they
joined him. Together they built the first real highway and bridged the
mountain stream. Out of a salary of $200 a year he paid most of the
expense of two new schoolhouses, because the people refused to help. The
other villages, however, saw the improvement and built their own. He
gradually revolutionized the educational methods, and even in the course
of years, succeeded in supplanting the mountain dialect with Parisian
French. He studied and then taught agriculture, and horticulture,
introducing new crops, new vegetables (including the potato), and new
fruits; even reclaiming the impoverished soil by scientific methods which
gradually won the respect of even the dullest of his people.

In all his reforms he kept his religious aim and purpose foremost and his
church never suffered but constantly grew in influence and popular
appreciation. Gradually he became the honored pastor, the "Protestant
saint," of the whole mountainside. Lutherans, Catholics and Calvinists
attended his services. They would even partake of the sacrament together
and he furnished them with three kinds of bread, to suit their diverse
customs, wafers for the Romanists and bread leavened for the Calvinists
and unleavened for the Lutherans; and thus they lived together in peace!

_The Force of Oberlin's Example_

Few modern ministers perhaps will need to follow in detail the example of
Johann Friedrich Oberlin, but the sacrificial spirit and working
principles of his life ministry are as necessary as ever. As President K.
L. Butterfield states so well, "Rural parishes in America that