the valley of Queyras" (on the opposite side of the Durance, and
embracing Arvieux, St. Véran and other villages) "dissembled their
faith. The aspect of this desert, both terrible and sublime, which
served as the asylum of truth when almost all the world lay in darkness;
the recollection of the faithful martyrs of old; the deep caverns into
which they withdrew to read the Bible in secret and to worship the
Father of Light in spirit and in truth,--everything tends to elevate my
soul." He spent here the whole of one winter and large portions of
another, and it was here that he gathered his most important schools.

The rest of the field was not, however, neglected. Neff allowed himself
twenty-one days for traversing his parish from end to end, and during
much of the year his rounds succeeded each other with little interval.
He was continually passing from the extreme of heat in sunny valleys to
the arctic cold of snows and glaciers. His lodging on these journeys was
in the huts of the peasants. He shared their coarse and unwholesome
food, often cooked in ill-cleansed copper vessels. He slept in small,
unventilated hovels, a dozen other persons often dividing with him the
scanty space. He did not shrink from even the stables in winter. However
exhausted he might be by hours of toilsome walking, his elastic spirit
quickly revived: all thought of refreshment for himself was secondary to
the spiritual wants he sought to meet in others.

Nor was he content without trying to ameliorate the temporal condition
of his parishioners. By the care of his own garden he sought to teach
them more intelligent and productive methods of agriculture than the
rude processes to which they were accustomed. In the valley of
Fressinière he built an aqueduct for purposes of irrigation, overcoming
prejudice and opposition by beginning the work with his own hands. The
example of Oberlin was constantly before him, and he often expresses his