Today’s Leader of Faith
STEPHEN GRELLET
Home Call : 16 Nov 1855
French-American Missionary, Preacher and Educator.
Stephen Grellet (1773-1855) was a prominent French-American Quaker Missionary. He was born in Limoges, France. His father was counselor to King Louis XVI. He was raised as a Roman Catholic, educated at the Military College of Lyons, and joined the king’s personal guard at the age of 17. During the French Revolution in 1789 he was sentenced to be executed, but escaped to Amsterdam and eventually fled to America in 1795 where he taught French language.
While in America, Grellet encountered the phrase ‘No Cross, No Crown,’ which deeply moved him. Soon afterward, he met a Quaker missionary, Deborah Darby, and was saved by grace. He became a Quaker in 1796 and settled in Philadelphia. In 1798, when a yellow fever epidemic was ravaging the city, he ministered to the sick and dying before falling ill himself. Upon his recovery, he dedicated his life to missionary work.
Grellet had a great burden for gospel and from 1799 onwards, he was actively involved in extensive missionary work in prisons, schools and hospitals across North America and most of the countries of Europe, and was granted meetings with many rulers and dignitaries, including Pope Pius VII, Tsar Alexander I, and the Kings of Spain and Prussia. He also visited Haiti in 1816 and Russia in 1819. He continued to travel in the United States, where he often spoke about evil of slavery. During all his missionary journeys, he met people from all walks of life and interacted with them, showing them the Way, the Truth, and the Life and led them to Christ.
Grellet spent the rest of his life in Burlington, Canada, where he died at the age of 83 and was buried behind the Burlington Quaker Meeting House.
— John Michael, Rajahmundry