"MY DEAR FRIEND,

"The best advice I can give you, is to care chiefly for the souls of your flock. I would not have you too anxious to render them eager in the pursuit of worldly good; for, as they become Christians, they will naturally become active, industrious, and provident. You must not allow them to be either idlers, or the slaves of mammon.

"By endeavouring too much to induce them to adopt your plans in preference to others, and on account of some supposed superiority over those to which they have been accustomed, you will defeat your own purposes, and excite their suspicion and disgust. I advise you, therefore, to leave them, for the present at least, pretty much to their own devices, and to labour, in charity and love, for the salvation of their souls, firmly believing that by so doing you will obtain the greatest blessing. This is the

last thing that experience taught me, during my residence in the Steinthal, or rather since I left it. I much regret having occasionally induced the people to do things against their will. If I were now there, I would leave them much more to themselves; and, however indifferent might be the appearance of their external affairs, the state of their finances, or the conduct of their schools, I would say little to them on the subject of economy or management, but, by evincing a sincere interest in their concerns, I would endeavour to gain their confidence, and induce them to regard me as their friend; and then, having once obtained this confidence, and a proportionate degree of influence, I would exert it, to the utmost of my ability, to their advantage, both in the instruction of the young and the conversion of the old, seeking to win their affections by my earnest desire to promote their spiritual interests. If you adopt this method, my dear friend, God will take care of the rest. Necessity will compel your people to employ themselves, and they will think a thousand times better of their own schemes, than of any that you can propose to them.

"I am far from wishing you to give up your projects, (many of which have been already attended with such admirable success,) but I acknowledge that I have, for my own part, felt the danger of bestowing too much attention upon such things, rather than upon more essential and important duties. At the same time, I would not have you by any means neglect a ready acquiescence in such practical schemes as may suggest themselves to the minds of your people, or the adoption of such as may occur to yourself:-only do not make them your primary object."

Oberlin particularly felt the importance of the latter part of this advice in his efforts for the improvement of agriculture; a branch of rural economy in which the mountaineers, however readily they might acquiesce in his other plans, evinced great reluctance to be instructed, supposing that their own knowledge of the subject must necessarily exceed that of their pastor, whose life, previous to his arrival in the Ban de la Roche, had been generally spent in a town.

He knew this so well that he determined to

appeal to their eyes rather than their ears, believing that they would be more easily led to coincide in his views when they had seen his theories reduced to practice. Belonging to his parsonage were two gardens, crossed by very public foot-paths, and these he chose for the scene of his labours. Assisted by a favourite and intelligent servant, he dug trenches, four or five feet deep, and surrounded the young trees, that he planted in them, with such soil as he considered best adapted to promote their growth. He also procured slips of apples, pears, plums, cherries, and walnuts, and made a large nursery ground of one of the gardens, hitherto noted for the poverty of its soil; and then waited with patience for the time when his parishioners, observing the success of his experiments, should come of their own accord to express their astonishment, and to ask his assistance in raising trees for themselves.

His expectations were not disappointed; the trees grew and flourished; and, as the peasants had to pass through the gardens in going to their daily work, they could not help stopping to observe the surprising contrast between the

scanty supply of their own, and the rich produce of their pastor's land, and at length repaired to him, anxiously inquiring how such very fine trees could grow in such a soil. Oberlin, according to his accustomed method of deriving instruction from every incident, first directed their thoughts to Him who " causeth the earth to bring forth her bud," and who "crowneth the year with his goodness," and then proceeded to explain the mode of cultivation, by which, under his all-superintending Providence, their exertions might be followed by similar success.

The taste for planting trees was thus diffused, and the art of grafting, in which he himself instructed those who wished to understand it, became a favourite employment. The very face of the country, in consequence, underwent a complete change; for the cottages, hitherto for the most part bare and desolate, were surrounded by neat little orchards and gardens; and, in the place of indigence and misery, the villages, and their inhabitants, gradually assumed an air of rural happiness.

So barbarous, before Oberlin's time, had been