It was a peculiar field.  No ordinary man could have entered it with hope of success.  Mere ability as a physician and surgeon of wide experience was not enough.  In addition to this, success demanded that he be a Christian gentleman with high ideals, and freedom from bigotry.  Courage, moral as well as physical, was a necessity.  Only a man who was himself a fearless and capable navigator could make the rounds of the coast and respond promptly to the hurried and urgent calls to widely separated patients.  Constant exposure to hardship and peril demanded a strong body and a level head.  Balanced judgment, high executive and administrative ability, deep insight into human character and unbounded sympathy for those who suffered or were in trouble were indispensable characteristics.  All of these attributes Grenfell possessed.

A short time before Mr. Moody’s death, Grenfell met Moody and told him of the inspiration he had received from that sermon, delivered in London many years before by the great evangelist.

“What have you been doing since?” asked Moody.

What has Grenfell been doing since?  He has established hospitals at Battle Harbor, Indian Harbor, Harrington and Northwest River in Labrador, and at St. Anthony in northeastern Newfoundland.  He has established schools and nursing stations both in Labrador and Newfoundland.  He has built and maintains two orphanages.  He founded the Seamen’s Institute in St. Johns.

Year after year, since that summer’s day when the Albert anchored in Domino Run and Grenfell first met the men of the Newfoundland fishing fleet and the liveyeres of the Labrador coast, winter and summer, Grenfell himself and the doctors that assist him have patrolled that long desolate coast giving the best that was in them to the people that lived there.  Grenfell has preached the Word, fed the hungry, clothed the naked, sheltered the homeless and righted many wrongs.  He has fought disease and poverty, evil and oppression.  Hardship, peril and prejudice have fallen to his lot, but he has met them with a courage and determination that never faltered, and he is still “up and at it.”

Grenfell’s life has been a life of service to others.  Freely and joyfully he has given himself and all that was in him to the work of making others happier, and the people of the coast love and trust him.  With pathetic confidence they lean upon him and call him in their need, as children lean upon their father, and he has never failed to respond.  When a man who had lost a leg felt the need for an artificial one, he appealed to Grenfell: 

     Docter plase I whant to see you.  Docter sir have you got a
     leg if you have Will you plase send him Down Praps he may
     fet and you would oblig.

One who wished clothing for his family wrote: 

To Dr. Gransfield Dear honrabel Sir, I would be pleased to ask you Sir if you would be pleased to give me and my wife a littel poor close.  I was going in the Bay to cut some wood.  But I am all amost blind and cant Do much so if you would spear me some Sir I would Be very thankful to you Sir.

Calls to visit the sick are continuously received.  The following are genuine examples: