Neff was not a man in whom book-learning constituted the only knowledge. He received a tolerable education from the pastor of the village near Geneva in which he was born; and the contemplative and devout qualities of his mind were called forth by the grand and beautiful scenery by which he was surrounded in his boyhood. But he had a strong love for what was practically useful, and he therefore learnt the trade of a nursery gardener; he had a stronger passion for romantic adventure, and he entered as a private soldier in the service of Geneva in 1815. At sixteen, when he was a gardener, he published a valuable little treatise on the culture of trees; and, within two years after he became a soldier at the age of seventeen, he was promoted to be serjeant of artillery, in consequence of his theoretical and practical knowledge of mathematics. His anxious desire, however, was to be a teacher of religion; and he at length quitted the army to devote himself to the studies which would be necessary previous to his ordination as a minister. He first assumed the functions of what is called a pastor-catechist; and was ultimately called to the vocation for which he was so anxious, by one of those independent congregations of England, whose ministers are received in the Protestant churches of France. Neff adopted the resolution to be ordained in London, for the satisfaction of some religious scruples. This ceremony took place in a chapel in the Poultry, in 1823; and within six months after he was appointed authorized pastor of the department of the High Alps. To form an estimate of the labours which such an appointment involved, it may be sufficient to mention that, in order to visit his various flocks, the pastor had to travel, from his fixed residence, twelve miles in a western direction, sixty in an eastern, twenty in a southern, and thirty-three in a northern; and that Neff steadily persevered, in all seasons, in passing on foot from one district to another, climbing mountains covered with snow, forcing a way through valleys choked up by the masses of rocks that were hurled down by the winter’s storm, partaking of the coarse fare and imperfect shelter of the peasant’s hut, and never allowing himself any repose or relaxation, because the ignorance of the poor people who were intrusted to his charge was so great, that nothing but incessant activity on his part could surmount its evils. Mr. Gilly has justly observed (speaking in his character of an English clergyman), “it is well that we should see how hard some of our brethren work, and how hard they live; and that we should discover, to our humiliation, that it is not always where there is the greatest company of preachers that the word takes deepest root.” The course of Neff’s life, and the affection which he inspired, will be better understood from the following extract:--