PROFOUND WORDS WRITTEN BY MY GRANDMOTHER IN FAMILY BIBLE

Bible inscription by Louise Wright (1860-1932): "Strew gladness in the path of men, you will not pass this way again." 

I was flipping through a 140-year-old family bible, as I am wont to do on occasion, and paused to read a front page inscription (see above) written by my grandmother Louise Wright, some time in 1895. Realizing that this was not a quotation from the bible itself, I could not help but wonder where my grandmother found those profound words and perhaps more importantly, who first uttered them and in what form.

Louise (Reddick) Wright

The answer to those probing questions, as it turned out, was not all that easy to find. Initially, I discovered that my grandmother's inscription may have been a shortened version of the original: "I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it for I shall not pass this way again.'

This, and variants of it, have been been widely circulated as a Quaker saying since at least 1869, and attributed to Stephen Grellet since at least 1893. W. Gurney Benham in Benham's Book of Quotations, Proverbs, and Household Words (1907) states that though sometimes attributed to others, "there seems to be some authority in favor of Stephen Grellet being the author, but the passage does not appear in any of his printed works." It appears to have been published as an anonymous proverb at least as early as 1859, when it appeared in Household Words: A Weekly Journal, an English weekly magazine edited by Charles Dickens in the 1850s.

It has also often been attributed to the more famous Quaker William Penn, as well as others including Mahatma Gandhi and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Stephen Grellet (2 November 1773 – 16 November 1855) was a prominent French-born American Quaker missionary. Interestingly, he was born Étienne de Grellet du Mabillier in Limoges, the son of a counsellor of King Louis XVI. Raised as a Roman Catholic, he was educated at the Military College of Lyons, now the Institut d'études politiques de Lyon, and at the age of 17 he entered the personal guard of the king. During the French Revolution he was sentenced to be executed, but escaped and eventually fled Europe to the United States in 1795.

Stephen Grellet

Impressed by the writings of William Penn, George Fox, and Quaker beliefs, in 1796 Grellet joined the Society of Friends. He became involved in extensive missionary work across North America and most of the countries of Europe, in prisons and hospitals, and was respectfully granted meetings with many rulers and dignitaries, including Pope Pius VII, Czar Alexander I, and the Kings of Spain and Prussia. He encouraged many reforms in educational policies and in hospital and prison conditions.

In 1804 Grellet married Rebecca Collins, the daughter of the publisher Isaac Collins. The family home, the Isaac Collins House, in Burlington, New Jersey, is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

*It is reputed that Grellet was the last living person who could have identified the "Lost Dauphin", the heir apparent of France.

(*) The fate of the “lost dauphin,” Louis XVII, has been a subject of mystery for over 200 years. Did he die in prison? Did he escape and become a famous American naturalist, or a German clockmaker, or an Episcopal minister raised by Native Americans? All of these solutions, and more, still have loyal supporters. The issue was laid to rest by DNA testing in 2000. But this is a mystery that just won’t die. There is no question that Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette died under the guillotine during the French Revolution. It is the fate of their 10 year old son, Louis Charles, who disappeared in 1795, that is the mystery.

Grellet died in Burlington on 16 November 1855 and his body was buried there, behind the historic Quaker Meeting House in Burlington.

As I say, all very interesting...But I guess I'll never know where my dear grandmother picked up those fadding words that are now so firmly imprinted in my mind. Had to have been from something she read.

I never met my grandma Louise, she died five years before I was born. But I think she would be happy to know that something she wrote 125 years ago has left an impression on her only grandchild.

The circumstances of life truly do often cheat us out of wonderful and meaningful relationships afforded to the more fortunate.

Someone once said that you can't miss what you never had...To which I say "Oh ya?"