Stephen Grellet

Prefatory Note

' I V HE following is the Life of a man who saw the -*• , last days of the great French Monarchy, shared the sufferings of the old French Nobility, traversed Europe several times on a mission of Mercy during the wars of the First Napoleon, assisted after the peace in the development of a new period, was one among the first and foremost workers for the abolition of slavery, aided in the advancement of the United States Republic to its present greatness, and lived on beyond the middle of this century. This remarkable life has hitherto been little known beyond the circle of the Society of Friends. The " Memoirs of the Life and Gospel Labors of Stephen Grellet," edited by Benjamin Seebohm, are contained in two large and closely printed octavo volumes, and have passed through three Editions. There is also an interesting and good sized volume, called an "Abridged Edition," by R. and C. R. Alsop, but written mainly for the use of Friends. Messrs. Samuel Harris & Co., have courteously granted permission to prepare in a briefer form a Life intended for the general Christian public.

W.G.

MUton-on- Thames.

Chapter I. Gviding Principles

THE few introductory remarks of this chapter will not, it is hoped, be regarded as mere truisms, but rather as the statement of principles of which we need in this age to be reminded.

The latter part of the third quarter of this centurybrought into full manifestation two totally opposite schools of opinion. On the one side were eminent, and distinguished students of biology, physics, and philosophy, who having started on their investigations with the principle that the supernatural is not the field for human inquiries, have apparently come to admit design without a designer, to teach a sublime scheme of evolution which has proceeded, not with a presiding will, but on self-acting laws, and have thus, by a willing dismissal of the Creator, turned the faces of not a few in this generation away from the light, so that they confront only negations and ever deepening darkness. Unspeakably melancholy has this become to a younger race of scientific inquirers, while in lower levels of society the disbelief has filtered as a baleful poison of vice, license and corruption. On the other hand, there is a vast multitude of rare cultured and earnest Christian believers who, compelled to note in the world and in human history indubitable proofs of the presence and temptations of the spirit of evil, and at the same time irrefutable evidences of the presence among men of a Saviour, are prepared for a cordial acceptance of the profound spirituality, of the New Testament, and for a self- less and saintly consecration to the well-being of the human race. The latter class have happily no reason to be ashamed of their fellow-workers, and of the results of their lives. To confirm their faith in the mission of the Comforter, and in His abiding guidance, is the main end in offering this life of Stephen Grellet.

An intelligent reader who should come for the first time to the pages of the New Testament would be impressed by the emphatic, tender, and unambiguous manner in which Christ promised the abiding presence among men of the Spirit of grace and truth.

The Spirit was to " convince " the world. Until the end of the age He was to remain with the race for whom the Son of God had offered the great expiation. Men in a moral graveyard of death would " hear His voice and live." While the grace would be for all men, the effectual operation would be in His hands to whom the eternal Father had " given authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of man" (John v, 27).

Endowed by the Spirit, Christ's servants Were to do " greater works " than the Master's. The acts of His incarnation specially bore the mark of being works on nature. The " greater works " of His disciples were to be moral and spiritual.

GUIDING PRINCIPLES. 3

There was, however, to be a condition — the entire and cordial acceptance of the Divine will. His followers were to " abide " in fellowship of heart and purpose with their ascended Lord. Only thus could they bear this " abundant fruit." As they willed and planned and acted with Him, they might " ask what they would, and it should be done unto them." Thus would they be ^'vessels meet for the Master's use," ready for every emergency and for every demand of their Lord in the way of service and of testimony.

In reading such lives as those of St. Paul, of St. Bernard, of Boniface, of Francis de Sales, of Fletcher, of Bramwell, and McCheync, we find these conditions fulfilled. We shall note the same habitual waiting upon Christ, the same sympathy with Him, and the "hearkening to His word," in the apostolic life of Stephen Grellet. We shall see that after this calm and prolonged looking unto the Lord he became a witness for Him during a terrific crisis of European history ; and that over the two hemispheres he bore a testimony adapted, with marvellous wisdom, alike to dwellers in palaces and in slaves' huts, to the inmates of ecclesiastical mansions and common jails, and yet none the less suited to the periodic meetings of Friends and to large assemblies of Roman Catholics and Protestants in Europe and America.

By the twofold watching for heavenly direction — the inward voice and external providences — we shall, in following the narrative, observe how a humble, but not ungifted man, seldom testified in any one circle, and over not less than sixty years, without witnessing those " greater works " of moral awakening and of spiritual revival of which the Lord Jesus spake.

This also we shall learn, and the lesson is not unneeded in the present time. The subject of this memoir was like " the Servant of Jehovah," of whom it was predicted—" He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause His voice to be heard in the streets." By the craving for crowds and numbers, by the placard sensation and advertisement, by mechanical methods for revival services, we may be fulfilling the Lord's will. But by relying on these methods, and by the inflexible fore-arrangements for them, we may unconsciously be out of harmony with the Spirit's guidance, and out of sympathy with Him who gave His sublime teaching on spiritual worship to one solitary woman; who " opened the Scriptures," during several hours on the day of His resurrection, to two disciples, both obscure, and the name of one of whom we do not even know; and who directed the evangelist Philip to make a long journey in order to relieve the solicitudes arid guide into the way of peace one inquiring man.

The life of Stephen Grellet will teach one other important lesson. In reading the history of Jesus we could hardly conceive of His laying out His plans at the beginning of a week, and resolving that this should be done on the first day, that and the other on the days following. He lived in such unity with God's providence that the path of service was constantly made plain as He came up to it. In like manner will this guidance be apparent as we follow the course of the subject of this memoir. He travelled over Europe

GUIDING PRINCIPLES. 5

four times, made long journeys in the work of the ministry and of benevolence in America, and did all this under an impulse and monition that never failed him.' There was a wonderful timeliness and a natural but beautiful sequence in his visits and intercourse with men. He believed that he should be taught of God on every new emergency, and it was so. To many servants o£ Christ who in our time desire to live this life of faith, this record of a long but calmly consecrated and most useful life may give appropriate encouragement and direction.

We may then dismiss the apprehension that the world has lost its youth, and that its fires are dying out. The Spirit of God can never be old. While He is the abiding witness for Christ in the world there will always be a substantial identity in the Christian confessions, and always be guidance and usefulness shed over those who believe and teach that Eternal Love is in every age yearning to bless and save a fallen and tempted race.

Chapter II. The Yovng Noble: The Preparation- For His Mission

ETIENNE de GRELLET, afterwards, when he became a Friend, called Stephen Grellet, was born on November 2d, 1773, in France, in the city of Limoges, capital of the modern department of Haute Vienne, and situated in the beautiful district of Limousin. He was the fifth child of Gabriel Marc Antoine de Grellet and of his wife Susanne de Senamaud.

His parents were wealthy, and ranked high among the nobility of that district. During Etienne's childhood, his father, Gabriel de Grellet, resided on his patrimonial estate. He was owner of extensive porcelain manufactories in the neighborhood of Limoges, as well as proprietor of some iron works. For some years he was comptroller of the Mint, and, at one time, formed part of the household of Louis XVI. As the intimate friend and counsellor of the king, he was accustomed to attend service with him in his private chapel. A title was conferred upon him for the benefits he had rendered to his country, especially by the introduction of the manufacture of superior porcelain ware. His porcelain works were afterwards purchased by the king, just before the French Revolution ; but, on account of that event, never paid for.

The ancestors of the mother of Etienne de Grellet had for many generations resided at Limoges. They were all persons holding high positions in society. On both sides Grellet's parents were Roman Catholics. Two of his aunts retired from the world to seek the holier life of the "religieuse." It is all but certain that such an example would make a strong impression on the affectionate and aspiring mind of their nephew. The high moral bearing of his father, and the uniform kindness of his home, had also their influence over the tender and susceptible boy. His direct religious advantages were, however, few. He tells us : " My parents were desirous to give their children such an education as should make them accomplished in the eyes of the world ; but, though trained in the precepts of a high-toned morality, they received little direct religious instruction. The simple truths of Holy Scripture were not the food of their early childhood, — the 'principles of the doctrine of Christ' were not taught them, and they had scarcely ' so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost.' "

A quick susceptibility to religious impressions seems, nevertheless, to have marked the youthful days of Etienne de Grellet, and early indications of the work of Divine grace upon his heart were not wanting. When quite a child, his thoughts on the omnipotence of the Divine Being, the Creator of all things, so deeply affected him, that he never afterwards lost the recollection. At the early age of five or six, the efficacy of prayer to an omnipresent and omniscient God was remarkably taught him. His juvenile powers had been overtasked by a long Latin exercise ; he was quite disheartened. Alone, in his chamber, he looked abroad upon the glories of the external world, and remembered that it was God who had created them all. The thought arose in his heart — " Cannot the same God give me memory also ? " He knelt down at the foot of fiis bed, and poured out his soul in prayer to the Lord. On re-perusing his lesson, he found himself master of it ; and henceforward he was able to acquire learning with increased facility. Even in his old age he could look back to " happy days," when his childish heart was deeply affected, and remember, " with grateful emotion," the places in his father's house, where, " on his knees, with his eyes flowing with tears, he had poured forth his supplications unto God." Having early learnt to repeat the Lord's Prayer, he exclaims, " Oh, how was my heart contrited, while uttering the words, 'Our Father, who art in heaven.' " To be permitted thus to look up to his God, to call Him Father, and to consider himself as His child, filled his young soul with the tenderness of reverential awe.

To those who believe that (so far as we know) the chief object of Eternal Love is man, and that for man's sake God raises up His chosen witnesses in every age, it will be readily admitted that Divine love was educating Etienne de Grellet for the place he was to fill in a time of trouble such as Europe had not previously known. Happily, schools and colleges in France were no longer under the sway of the Jesuits. Young Etienne was sent to the University of the

Oratorians at Lyons. It was a well-ordered institution. There were, with the professors and officers of the establishment, about a thousand inmates. The religious principles were those of the Jansenists. " Corruption and levity" were repressed, order and discipline were carefully maintained, and the literary advantages were of a high and varied nature.

Etienne was endowed with rare capacities for learning. He had, moreover, a graceful address, and assiduously cultivated suavity and self-reliance. He rose rapidly in the university, and obtained advanced prizes for his classical acquisitions. It was at this time that he laid the foundation of that fortitude, skill in languages, and general knowledge, which fitted him so singularly for moving with such freedom and ascendancy among all classes of society. It was at this period also that, to use his own words, he was again " favored with the Lord's gracious visitations to his soul.'' To this he afterwards gratefully refers when, commemorating the Divine goodness, he exclaims : " Oh, the heart-meltings I have known — fervent were some of the prayers I then put up, when on my knees, my cheeks were bedewed with tears.

" As we were educated," he continues, " by Roman Catholics, and in their principles, we were required to confess once in every month. I had chosen for my confessor one whom I thought to be a pious and conscientious man ; and, as I could not understand how it was possible for a man to forgive my sins, I asked him what he could say to satisfy my mind on that point, for I considered that God alone could for-

10 STEPHEN CKELLET.

give sins ; a doctrine, however, which I had never heard of. He, seeing further than many other priests, told me that he considered himself invested with such authority, only so far as that, if I was sincere, and truly penitent in the sight of God, he was the instrument through whom information was given me that my sins were forgiven. This rational answer gained him much of my confidence and respect. He bestowed a fatherly care upon me.

" From my earliest days, there was that in me which would not allow me implicitly to believe the various doctrines I was taught. Though I was told that they were mysteries which I was not to seek to see into, yet my reasoning faculties brought me to the root of the matter; from created objects to the Creator, from time to eternity."

Before leaving the university he received confirmation according to the rites of the Roman Catholic church, and joined in participating in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. But he grew doubtful of what Roman bishops and priests could do for him.

Among what he termed " religious openings " at Lyons, one left a deep impression ; and the remembrance of it helped to sustain his spirit under many subsequent exercises and trials.

" I thought I saw," he says, " a large company of persons, or rather purified spirits, on one of those floating vessels which they have at Lyons, on the Rhone, occupied by washerwomen. They were washing linen. I wondered to see what beating and pounding there was upon it, but how beautifully white it came out of

THE YOUNO NOBLE. 11

their hands. I was told I could not enter God's king-* dom until I underwent such an operation, — that unless I was thus washed and made white, I could have no part in the dear Son of God. For weeks I was absorbed in the consideration of the subject — the washing of regeneration. I had never heard of such things before, and I greatly wondered that, having been baptized with wates, and having also received what they call the sacrament of confirmation, I should have to pass through such a purification ; for I had never read or heard any one speak of such a baptism."

Dr. Arnold, of Rugby, said, " It is not learning or genius that makes the truly effective man, but moral thoughtfulness." The thoughts of his heart, of which the foregoing vision was the outgrowth, led Etienne to feel astonished that, spite of ceremonies, confirmations, sacraments, and rites of priests, his heart still was unchanged, his conscience and sense of sin unrelieved, and his evil propensities still unsubdued. As might therefore have been expected, after leaving the university, he " sought his happiness in the world's delights," gave full sway to his inclinations, and lost his earlier religious convictions. Nevertheless, the Holy Spirit of Christ was lovingly drawing him on. He records : " I sought after happiness in the world. I expected to find it. I went in pursuit of it from one party of pleasure to another ; but I did not find it, and I wondered that the name of pleasure could be given to anything of the kind." This is remarkable language for a youth, and deeply interesting is it to witness that great and memorable crisis in the history

12 STEPHEN GEELLET.

•*. of a soul, of which myriads of saved ones bear witness,

when the law of purity is consented to that it is good, but another law in the members wars against this law of the mind, and the struggling spirit cries out, " Who shall deliver me from the body of this death ? "

Deliverance was to come to Etienne de Grellet through a baptism of fire and a storm of terrors and desolation. The French Revolution of 1789 broke out ; that time of horrors, that awful nemesis of wrong. The De Grellets belonged to the nobility of France, on whom the chastisement had chiefly to fall ; and, like all such tribulations, it fell upon the innocent with the guilty. The haughtiness of the nobles forbade all compromise with the popular party. A hundred thousand of the most wealthy and influential landowners fled their country, to unite with the armies -of the continental powers in bringing about a counter revolution. Etienne, with his brothers, joined the fugitives, and proceeded to unite with the royalists. He left his father, and his father's house, and never saw them again. At Mont Midi, on the way to Germany, he thus records a rencontre : " I shudder when I remember the state of insensibility I was in. I was not the least moved when surrounded by people and soldiers, who lavished their abuse upon us, and threatened to hang me to the lamp-post. I coolly stood by, my hands in my pockets, being provided with three pairs of pistols, two of which were double-barrelled. I concluded to wait to see what they would do, and resolved, after destroying as many of them as I could, to take my own life with the last. No thought of eternity was then before me, no sense of remembrance that there is a God."

Probably his coolness, by God's good care, preserved him from suffering or doing injury.

The rendezvous of the nobility was Coblentz, whither the French princes had fled. There the winter and spring of 1791-2 were spent in preparations for the approaching campaign in France.

" Everything about me," says Etienne, " and the very nature of the work I was engaged in, was highly calculated to destroy every fibre remaining of those tender impressions I had heretofore received ; but my gracious Ldrd did not wholly forsake me. I was preserved from those gross evils that are too generally attendant on an army. But oh, the height of my infatuation ! I attributed my preservation to my own reasoning powers ; for I viewed the vices to which my companions were addicted in the same light as, a little before, I had done jovial parties for dancing, etc., etc.; concluding that what degrades the man can yield him neither true comfort nor pleasure. Divine light would, nevertheless, at seasons, pierce into the inmost recesses of my benighted heart. I was fond of solitude, and had many retired walks through the woods and over the hills. I delighted to visit the deserted hermitages which formerly abounded on the Rhine. I envied such a life of retirement and of purity. I, too, looked forward wistfully to such a life ; but I saw also that unless I could leave behind me my earthly- mindedness, my pride, vanity, and every carnal propensity, an outward solitude could afford me no shelter.''

In the summer of 1792 young Grellet was in the King's Horse Guards. Accompanied by the Austrians and Prussians, the army entered France. But disasters came, and the forces were soon after disbanded. It was not the will of God to save France from the fiery deluge which was to follow. Etienne had stood in battle array. He had seen many falling around him. But he often afterwards, with peculiar thankfulness to the good providence of God, reverts to the fact that he was in a corps of reserved troops, and was preserved from the shedding of the blood of his countrymen.

After the retreat of the princes' army, the young De Grellets became prisoners of war, and were ordered to be shot. Again God in mercy preserved Etienne. Just as the time for the execution of the sentence had come, a commotion arose in the hostile army, and he and his brothers escaped, first to Brussels, and thence reached Holland in safety. In Amsterdam they met with friends. Their hearts were, however, drawn to their beloved parents, who were in the midst of the vicissitudes of the Revolution. But to return to them as young soldiers of the King's Guards would aggravate instead of alleviating their trials. Danger threatened on every side. Etienne and one of his brothers resolved to go to South America. Having obtained a passage on board a ship bound for Demerara, they arrived there, January, 1793.

That visit to a slave colony was a part of the training Etienne de Grellet was to have to educate him for his subsequent mission, and his witness in England and in the United States.

THE YOUNO NOBLE 15

There have been few brighter or more honored chapters in human history than the record of the benevolent labors of the Friends on behalf of slaves, and De Grellet was to do much to sustain among them abolitionist principles.

The two brothers were provided with letters of introduction from their friends in Holland to some of the principal planters, who received them with much hospitality. Mercantile pursuits soon occupied their attention, and during a residence of two years in the colony, which then belonged to Holland, they had an opportunity of seeing much of the horrors of slavery, and of becoming intimately acquainted with the ruinous effects of the iniquitous system, both upon the colored and the white population. They were much shocked, on their first arrival in the colony, in observing the degraded condition of the miserable descendants of the African race, whose almost naked bodies bore evident marks of the cruelty of their oppressors, and whose backs were frequently covered with large scars, left by the lash of the whip ; some still bleeding under the strokes recently inflicted, had cayenne pepper and salt rubbed into their wounds, to increase their suffering. Such was the impression made upon Etienne by the scenes of cruelty and anguish he witnessed, that, many years after, the sound of a whip in the street would " chill his blood," in the remembrance of the agony of the poor slaves ; and he " felt convinced that there was no excess of wickedness and malice of which a slaveholder, or driver, might not be guilty."

"Demerara," he remarks, "was a place of much dissipation. I do not recollect, during the whole time I was there, that I saw anything, in any one, that indicated a feeling of religious sensibility There was no place of worship ; no priest of any kind, except one who had been there a few years, who was a dissolute, drunken man. It was of the Lord's mercy that I, and the whole land, were not destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrah. At that time, the prince of the power of the air, who rules in the hearts of the children of disobedience, had obtained such a victory over me, that I had become one of the number of those infatuated ones who call good evil, and evil good, — darkness light, and light darkness, — to so daring a pitch as to say, There is no God! I not only thought that there was no God, and consequently no religion, that all the profession of it was but priestcraft, invention, and deceit, but so plausibly had I compassed myself with sparks of my own kindling, that I thought I saw a way to steer my own course. I had become a complete disciple of Voltaire, and writers of that class.

"How low, how degraded, did I see man to be! And yet I could dare to think I had reached to that correctness of reasoning, that would enable me to rise from that sink of corruption, and live a virtuous life, — even concluding that it was this philosophy that preserved me from giving way to the vices which flowed like a torrent about me. This was my situation when the Lord Himself interfered to release me from that land, and to open a way for my emancipation from a bondage far more to be dreaded than that of the poor slaves whom I commiserated."

A rumor, apparently well sustained, reached Demerara in the spring of 1795, that the French were coming to take possession of the colony. A fleet was seen approaching. The two brothers resolved to leave immediately, and they took passage forthwith in an American trading vessel which was on the point of sailing. As they were leaving, they saw the fleet approaching the harbor of Demerara. Not until their arrival in America did they learn that the alarming rumor was incorrect. The fleet had come from England.

Mistakes are frequently overruled to serve the purposes of God. Columbus meant to find a short way to India and Cathay, and he revealed a new world by a " splendid blunder." It is well to see special providences ; it is better to see that all events are a chain of providence. Young Grellet regarded it as a circumstance that "stood prominent in the days of his pilgrimage," that he left Demerara. The brothers' prospects in mercantile pursuits were bright. Had they found earlier that the English vessels had come to establish, in the place of anarchy and maladministration, an equitable British rule, it is little likely they would have left the colony.

A series of providential deliverances followed them. The ship, on her way to America, was chased by a privateer off Martinique. But the boats of the privateer could not be lowered because of the violence of the storm. Off the island of San Domingo the vessel on

•which the brothers sailed was driven amidst sunken racks; taking the crew for enemies, the islanders pointed their cannon on them. In the extremity of their strait between the rocks and the cannon, they unexpectedly found a narrow channel of escape. Some days after, their vessel took fire; but when matters appeared hopeless, the flames were restrained. Off the New Jersey shore a thick fog brought the ship into a most critical position ; in a few minutes all on board would have perished ; for a brief moment the fog cleared, to show the master where the vessel was.

De Grellet remarks : " Thus did Divine Providence repeatedly interfere, and prevent my sinking into everlasting misery. But such was the obduracy of my heart, all that time, that I do not recollect to have felt any emotion of gratitude."

Probably every life would bear such evidences of a controlling Hand if it were carefully watched. The accidents that happen to men occur mostly because, in Divine wisdom, the errors and faults of men are intended to be for our warning. By never favoring incompetence and carelessness God educates His creatures.

" O Father-eye, that hath so truly watched, O Father-hand, that hath so gently led, O Father-heart, that by my prayer is touched, That loved me first when I was cold and dead :

Still do Thou lead me on with faithful care The narrow path to heaven where I would go.

And train me for the life that waits me there

Alike through love and loss, through weal and woe."

Arrived in America, the brothers first took up their abode on Long Island, and resolved to wait until they might obtain tidings of their parents, towards whom the hearts of the fugitives went out in ceaseless solicitude. Whether it would be safe to return to them, and to brave the chaos of conflict and enmities on which France had entered, or to remain in the United States, was now their anxious inquiry. Meanwhile, they settled for the summer of 1795 at Newtown. Their manners and position gave them access to the best society of the place. On taking leave of their father, he had given them a maxim, to choose the company of " their seniors in age, and their superiors in ability." This counsel from one whom they ever regarded with the deepest reverence and affection was not without its advantages. In Newtown they were received as visitors into the well-ordered family of an officer of rank who had served in the British army. His wife was connected by lineage with Franklin, who had signed the Declaration of Independence. The family was one of culture and of refined manners. There the two unfortunate but engaging strangers found often a congenial home. At this time the brothers had little knowledge of the English language, and Miss Corsa, the daughter of the family, who was accustomed to converse with them in French, recommended the study of the works of William Penn, the illustrious founder of the State of Pennsylvania. Etienne de Grellet, regarding Penn as a statesman and politician, began to translate, with a view to obtain a better acquaintance with the English language, the