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This lean, sallow-faced man with the sunken eyes, reddened with his constant study and writing, towered spiritually over the Rakow college and community for 17 years.

Son of a Lutheran minister, he was born and educated in Germany, but migrated to Rakow at the age of twenty-three, specifically because

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through his own studies he had become convinced that the Brethren in Christ held the Truth of the Scriptures. Within two years he had mastered the difficult Polish language sufficiently to be able to lecture fluently. At the early age of twenty-six he was appointed rector of the Brethren's college in Rakow, when it was at the peak of its international reputation and had over a thousand students. In the same year he assisted Jan Stoinski in a famous debate with the Carmelite monk Italus in Lublin on the nature of Christ.

In a community well endowed with fine intellects, Krell was an outstanding scholar. As a speaker, he was deep and meaty rather than eloquent. But his Bible Class notes are a mine of sound Scriptural exposition, and he undoubtedly influenced hundreds of young Brethren in their knowledge of the Bible.

Never of robust health, he succumbed to a fever when he was only forty-two, leaving an attractive wife, Rosina, a young family and a whole grateful Brotherhood to mourn a true pillar of the household of faith.