“When he was not resident at the presbytery, he was the guest of some peasant, who found him willing to live as he lived, and to make a scanty meal of soup-maigre, often without salt or bread, and to retire to rest in the same apartment, where a numerous family were crowded together, amidst all the inconveniences of a dirty and smoky hovel.” We have already stated that the benevolent pastor of the High Alps was intent upon improving the condition of his people as to physical comfort, at the same time that he proclaimed to them the hopes and consolations of religion. Let us see how he set about this work:-- “His first attempt was to impart an idea of domestic convenience. Chimneys and windows to their hovels were luxuries to which few of them had aspired, till he showed them how easy it was to make a passage for the smoke, and admittance for the light and air. He next convinced them that warmth might be obtained more healthily than by pigging together for six or seven months in stables, from which the muck of the cattle was removed but once during the year. For their coarse and unwholesome food, he had, indeed, no substitute, because the sterility of the soil would produce no other; but he pointed out a mode of tillage, by which they increased the quantity: and in cases of illness, where they had no conception of applying the simplest remedies, he pointed out the comfort which a sick person may derive from light and warm soups and other soothing assistance. So ignorant were they of what was hurtful or beneficial in acute disorders, that wine and brandy were no unusual prescriptions in the height of a raging fever. Strange enough, and still more characteristic of savage life, the women, till Neff taught the men better manners, were treated with so much disregard, that they never sat at table with their husbands or brothers, but stood behind them, and received morsels from their hands with obeisance and profound reverence.”