The houses are low, dark and dirty, and the people themselves seem to be
stupefied with the utter misery of their condition."
Besides the strong appeal thus made to his sympathy, the young pastor
nowhere else felt as in this valley the inspiration of his parish's
history. Dourmillouse especially he regarded as the most staunchly
Protestant of all the villages to which he ministered. "It is
celebrated," he writes, "for the resistance which its inhabitants have
opposed for more than six hundred years to the Church of Rome. They
never bowed their knee before an idol, even when all the inhabitants of
the valley of Queyras" (on the opposite side of the Durance, and
embracing Arvieux, St. Veran 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.
Pages:
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122