Adventurers--Military and Religious

THIS small book, so Dr. Grenfell tells us in the preface, had its genesis in the request of various friends that he "put on record" what Christ means to him. Those friends may have expected from him a measured, careful statement of his religious creed, instead of which he gives them, and us, a brief but extraordinarily vivid autobiography. In taking this course rather than the other, Dr. Grenfell has very certainly been truer both to himself and to his subject, for, as he says, "facts are still the most trustworthy and verifiable things we know of." What anything "has meant to us" is known only by the record which it writes in our lives. On this principle he lets us read his religion in his life.

It makes admirable reading. It is a direct and human story, normal and natural, told without a breath either of conscious advertisement, or of unreal humility. It is written with quick and nervous energy. There is much deft description, shrewd comment, and keen insight. All through it runs a virile loyalty, and a disciplined enthusiasm which marks the spiritual expert. It is skillfully condensed, giving a true perspective and a clear impression.

In his account of life at his English Public School he notes the wisdom of "normality" and the danger of "introspection" in a boy's religion. He frankly owns that "there is more in the habits of formal religion than I used to think--In spite of the fact that Christ was a very silent partner in the life of us boys, he was a very real companion." Charles Kingsley was a kinsman, and "the first person to give me the idea that religion made men efficient." His clinical work in a London Hospital, graphically described, stirred searching questions which cut deep into his life. Accidental contact with D. L. Moody, "down a dark street in Shadwell on my way from a maternity case", proved a turning point, rooting in him the ideal that "loyalty to a living Leader was religion, and that nightly service in the humblest life was the expression of it".

Shortly after the completion of his medical training, he was drawn to active interests in, and work for, seamen. It came naturally to him, for his forbears had been "fighting men from Cornwall and Devon", who had "followed the old admirals, from Drake and Howard and Releigh to Rodney, Boscawen and Nelson." The physical danger of the seamen's trade, and their splendid courage, fascinated him. Their helplessness before the "vampires" who prayed on them, was a challenge ringing in his ears. So he discovered his vocation, and in the end, came to find his field and life work along the coast of Labrador, where his brave optimism, his resourcefulness, his skill and untiring devotion, have given him a name and fame now almost world-wide. Out of this vivid little book one gets the inner meaning of the well known story, told without seeming to be told, with "an artlessness concealing art."