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TESTIMONY OF THE CELEBRATED OBERLIN. f 15
*•
On entering the house (of Oberlin) I was met by the venerable pastor, then
in the eighty-fourth year of his age. I presented my letters of recommendation,
and he immediately saluted me with a cordial welcome, and taking me by the
hand, led me into his apartment. He seemed to feel a deeper interest in my
visit, from the circumstance of my being an Englishman. The numerous be-
nevolent societies in England had always excited his admiration at the extraor-
dinary efforts made to benefit our race, and to distribute the Word of God in all
languages for the healing of the nations, and a visit of one of the sons of Britain,
who took an interest in these beneficent undertakings, seemed a peculiar treat
to one who for nearly sixty years of his life, had devoted himself so zealously to
the accomplishment of those objects, which the religious and philanthropic
societies of Britain contemplate. The stature of Oberlin was tall and well-pro-
portioned, and the weight of four score years and upwards, had scarcely caused
his person to bend; his sight was not dim, and he appeared to enjoy the use of
his faculties unimpaired ; but the energy that formerly actuated him, had abated
in its vigor, like the rays of the summer’s sun, when verging to the distant west.
His countenance was very expressive, and full of that energetic appearance,
*
which is the characteristic of firmness and greatness of soul.
" In a short time after my arrival, dinner was announced, and Oberlin, leading
me by the hand, showed me the place at his table, which was always reserved,
for the friend and the stranger, opposite to the seat which he occupied himself.
The entire household -dined together: himself, his friends, and the housekeeper
occupying the upper, and the servants, and frequently one or other of the in^
habitants of the more distant part of the valley, the lower end of his table. Ober-
lin embraced this opportunity to instil many solid principles of goodness and
rirtue into the hearts of his family, his flock, and his guests. He well knew the
correspondence there is between feeding the body, and nourishing the mind 5
and how the affections of the heart are, on such occasions, more open to receive
the seeds of truth scattered by the paternal hand of the master, who is loved, and
whose life is a continual testimony of the precepts he professes. Oberlin spoke
.German and French with equal ease and fluency; on the frontiers, between
Germany and France, these two languages are indispensable to the pastor, as
the population is partly of French, and partly of German extraction. Our con-
versation was in German. He was full of inquiries respecting many things in
Britain. After dinner he took me to his library, a large upper room ; two sides
of which were fitted up with shelves from the top to the bottom, and well stock-
ed with books in several languages. The other two sides were furnished with
maps, diagrams, plates, designs, and models, of various kinds, by which he in-
structed the members of his flock in the useful arts of life, such as architecture,
I
in its most simple application, the construction of bridges, of agricultural imple-
! ments, &c. In all these useful arts and sciences he had, from the commencement
of his ministry in Steinthal instructed his people, and had brought them, by a
superior system of agriculture, by forming roads across the most accessible parts
of the mountains, and by introducing the manufacture of some of the most useful
articles of domestic and agricultural economy, to a state of comfort and com-
parative independence, although inhabiting the wildest and most ungenial dis-
tricts of France, where the winter is said to be as cold as in the latitude of St.
Petersburg, and where only three months of fine, warm, genial weather can be
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