The Sun.
London, England, 1862-04-29 00:00:00

A TRUE CHRISTIAN.

Among the most characteristic and remarkable men con-
nected with this people, at least during the present century,
was Etienne de Grellet du Mabillier—Anglicised into
Stephen Grellet. A Frenchman and a Catholic, nearly
allied by birth and education to the old nobility of France—
an officer in the army of the princes—a refugee in the
West Indies, and a disciple of Voltaire—an authorised mi-
nister of the Society of Friends—a missionary of no com-
mon type, traversing the unsettled wilds of the new terri-
tories of the United States, the prairies of the Indian, the
forests of Canada, and the mountain valleys of St.
Domingo—crossing the Atlantic eight times in the exercise
of his ministry, planting societies in Norway and Sweden,
preaching the Gospel throughout the Russian empire, from
Abo to Odessa, visiting in the service of the Gospel every
country inEurope —securing private personal interviews with
its monarchs and statesmen, to utter to them his testimony
for his Master-- closeted on direct religious service with the
heads of thai reek Church at Petersburg and Constantinople,
and with the Pope himself at Rome—threatened with death,
by the forest on fire, by shipwreck, by poison, by fever, by
earthquake—heralded by a royal ordonnance throughout
the kingdom of Spain—without a shilling of fortune, yet
paying all the expenses of his numerous and distant jour-
neys—sustained throughout them all by a firm faith in his
Divine call, and by a persuasion which never left him, that
the Master's own hand directed each step, and guided him,
Abraham-like, to places that he knew not, but where his
" dear Master" had work for him to do—tried and exercised
in a way that stirred his being to its inmost depths—en-
couraged by answers to prayer, and by interpositions of
Providence, so frequent and so singular, as to be suffi-
cient of themselves to form a chapter of marvels; such
was the man, of whose laborious and varied life
it is only the briefest sketch that can be attempted
here. Our full recognition is duo to such a man as a true
minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Not the less a true
minister, because he never wore a black coat, never received
a salary, and never was placed in charge of a congregation.
It is not desirable that our views of that great institution
of Christ, the ministry of His Gospel, should be formed ex-
clusively from the circumstances of our own day or Church,
or should be limited by the conventionalities of the moment •
conventionalities as to dress and the like, which may be
harmless enough, and even becoming, as the taste of the
day goes, and which no one would dream of violently inter-
fering with, yet which bear no higher relation to the reali-
ties of the ministry itself than the epaulettes upon a gene-
ral's shoulder bear to his commission, or to his dispositions
in the field. Garibaldi was not the less a general, because
he chose to wear a wide• awake hat and corduroy trowsers,
nor, on the other hand, did this unsoldierlike attire add
anything either to his skill or to his achievements. Nor
does the costume in which friend Gellett studiously pre-
sents himself—the plain brown coat and hat on, in every
company—either add to or detract from his office as a
minister of Jesus Christ. Unimportant in one sense, these
peculiarities of the Friend have their own importance and
significance. They ace a visible witness to the truth that
what is merely external is not to be confounded with what
is essential. Were these peculiarities imposed upon the
whole Church, they would not only lose all their signifi-
cance, but would become a grievous yoke of formality ; but,
adopted by a few, they recall to our minds a truth of which
we are too liable to lose sight. And for ourselves, we con-
fess to a lingering regret at the disappearance of such a tes-
timony from amongst us; although it must be acknowledged
that in this age of unprecedented display, it would require
more than human courage to uphold it.
Nikon was a man of a different stamp. Born in
Russia in the beginning of the 17th century, of gi-
gantic stature, (he was seven feet high), of indomi-
table energy, and of powerful intellect, he embraced
a monastic life, astonished the religious orders of the
time by his asceticism, and was consecrated Prior.
Meeting at length, with the Czar Alexia the latter