He had been profoundly moved by the widely-spread distresses in his earlier years.
Activity in missionary work, especially in alleviating the distresses of the victims of the Druses, soon brought him prominently into notice; he was made a chevalier of the Legion of Honour, and in October 1861, shortly after his return to Europe, was appointed French auditor at Rome.
Julie, ou La Nouvelle Heloise, is a novel written in letters describing the loves of a man of low position and a girl of rank, her subsequent marriage to a respectable freethinker of her own station, the mental agonies of her lover, and the partial appeasing of the distresses of the lovers by the influence of noble sentiment and the good offices of a philanthropic Englishman.
In spite of the many physical distresses that weighed upon the island, ballads (fornkvicedi) were still written, ceasing about 1750, rimur composed, and more elaborate compositions published.
Suffer no wicked mouth to make blasphemous mirth out of my distresses by asking, " Where is thy God?
