The Indian pastor of Natick, who had been trained by Mr. Eliot, died in
1716, and two years later was born one of the men who did all in his
power, through his brief life, to hold up the light of truth to the
unfortunate natives of America, as they were driven further and further
to the west before the advancing tide from Europe.
The fourth son among nine children, who lost both parents at a very early
age, David Brainerd, though born above the reach of want, had many
disadvantages to contend with. Both his parents had, however, been
religious people, the children of ministers who had come out to America
in the days of the Pilgrim Fathers, and settling at Haddam in
Connecticut, trained up their families in the stern, earnest, and rigid
rules and doctrines of Calvinism, which certainly, where they are
accepted by an earnest and thoughtful mind, have a great tendency to
stimulate the intellect, and force forward, as it were, the religious
perceptions in early youth. David was, moreover, a delicate child, with
the seeds of (probably) hereditary decline incipient, and at seven or
eight years old he drew apart from play, thinking much of death, and
trying to prepare by prayer and meditation. His parents' death increased
these feelings, and while living at East Haddam, under the charge of his
brothers, and employed in farm work, the boy was continually struggling
with himself in silence, disliking all youthful mirth and amusement,
fasting, watching and praying, and groaning over the state of his soul.
At nineteen, the wish to become a minister came upon him, and he began to
study hard at all spare moments; and in another year, at twenty, he went
to reside with Mr. Fiske, the minister of Haddam, and in him found, for
the first time, a friend to whom he could open his heart, who could
understand the anxieties and longings within him, and who gave him advice
to withdraw himself from the young companions whose gay spirits were
uncongenial to him, and spend more time with the graver and more
religious.
Whether this were good advice we do not know, but a period of terrible
agony had to be struggled through. It seems plain, from comparison of
different lives, that in the forms of religion which make everything
depend upon the individual person's own consciousness of the state of his
heart and feelings, instead of supporting this by any outward tokens for
faith to rest upon, the more humble and scrupulous spirits often undergo
fearful misery before they can attain to such security of their own faith
as they believe essential. Indeed, this state of wretchedness is almost
deemed a necessary stage in the Christian life, like the Slough of
Despond in the Pilgrim's Progress; and with such a temperament as David
Brainerd's, the horrors of the struggle for hope were dreadful and lasted
for months, before an almost physical perception of light, glory, and
grace shone out upon him, although, even to the end of his life, hope and
fear, spiritual joy and depression alternated, no doubt, greatly in
consequence of his constant ill-health.
In 1739, in his twenty-first year, he became a student at Yale, and,
between hard work and his mental self-reproach for the worldly ambition
of distinction, his health broke down, haemorrhage from the lungs set in,
and he was sent home, it was supposed, only to die. He was then in a
very happy frame of mind, and was almost sorry to find himself well
enough to return to what he felt to be a scene of temptation. That same
year, his head was entirely turned by the excitement of George
Whitfield's preaching; he was carried away by religious enthusiasm, and
was in a state of indiscreet zeal, of which his better judgment
afterwards repented, so that he destroyed all the portion of his journal
that related to that year. Indeed, his vehemence cost him dear, for, in
the heat of a discussion, he had the misfortune to say, "Mr. Whittlesey,
he has no more grace than this chair I am leaning upon." Mr. Whittlesey
was one of the college tutors, and a gossiping freshman who overheard the
words thought proper to report this to a meddling woman, who immediately
walked off to the Rector of the college with the awful intelligence that
young Brainerd said that Mr. Whittlesey had no more grace than a chair!
The Rector had not the sense to silence the silly slander; he sent for
the freshman, took his evidence, and that of the young men with whom
Brainerd had been conversing, and then required him to make public
confession and amends to Mr. Whittlesey before the whole assembled
college,--a humiliation never previously required, except in cases of
gross moral misconduct. The fact was, that the old-fashioned hereditary
Presbyterianism, which had had time to slacken in the hundred years since
the foundation of the colony, was dismayed at the new and vivid life
imported by Whitfield from the Wesleyan revival in the English Church. It
was what always happens. A mixture of genuine sober-minded dread of
extravagance, or new doctrine, and a sluggish distaste to the more
searching religion, combine to lead to a spirit of persecution. This was
the true reason that the lad's youthful rashness of speech was treated as
so grave an offence. Brainerd's spirit was up. Probably he saw no cause
to alter his opinion as to Mr. Whittlesey's amount of grace, and he
stoutly refused to retract his words, whereupon he was found guilty of
insubordination, and actually expelled from Yale. A council of ministers
who assembled at Hartford petitioned for his restoration, but were
refused, the authorities deeming themselves well rid of a dangerous
fanatic.
Still, as a youth of blameless life and ardent piety, he was encouraged
by his friends to continue his preparation for the ministry, and he
persisted in reading hard, and going out between whiles to meditate in
the depths of the glorious woods. It is curious that while his homely
and rigid system precluded any conscious admiration of the beauties of
nature, it is always evident from his journal that the lightenings of
hope and joy which relieved his too frequent depression and melancholy,
were connected with the scenery and the glories of day and night. Sunrise
and the aurora borealis seem to have filled him with spiritual bliss, and
he never was so happy as when deep in the woods, out of the sight of men;
but his morbid, sensitive, excitable nature never seems to have been
understood by himself or by others.
Just as John Eliot's missionary zeal was the outcome of the earnestness
that carried the Puritans to New England, so the fresh infusion of
religious life, brought by Whitfield, produced an ardent desire on the
part of David Brainerd to devote himself to the remainder of the Indians;
and in the year 1742, at twenty-five years old, he was examined by an
assembly of ministers at Danbury, and licensed to preach the Gospel, when
he began at once with a little settlement of Indians at Kent, with such a
sinking of heart at his own unworthiness that he says he seemed to
himself worse than any devil, and almost expected to have been stoned
rather than listened to. Indeed, something of this diffidence and
sadness seems always to have weighed him down when he began to preach,
though the fervour of his subject and the responding faces of his
audience always exhilarated him and bore him up through his sermon. To
learn the Indian language had not occurred to him as part of his
preparation, but probably these Kent Red men had been enough among the
English to understand him, for they seem to have been much impressed.
A Scottish Society for propagating Christian Knowledge had arisen, and
the delegates hearing of the zeal of David Brainerd, desired to engage
him at a salary. The sense of his own unworthiness, and fear of keeping
out a better man, brought his spirits down to the lowest ebb;
nevertheless, he went to meet the representatives of the Society at New
York, and there, though between the hubbub of the town and his own
perpetual self-condemnation he was continually wretched, they were so
well satisfied with him as to give him the appointment, on condition that
he studied the language, intending to send him to the Red men between the
Susquehanna and the Delaware; but there was a dispute between these and
the Government, and it was decided to send him to a settlement called
Kanaumeek, between Stockbridge and Albany.
Before going, David Brainerd, having no thought beyond devotion to the
Indians, and thinking his allowance enough for his wants, gave up the
whole of his inheritance to support a scholar at the University, and set
forth, undaunted by such weakness of health as in ordinary eyes would
have fitted him for nothing but to be carefully nursed; for even then he
was continually suffering from pain and dizziness, and weakness so great
that he could often hardly stand.
In this state he arrived at Kanaumeek, with a young Indian to act as his
interpreter, and there spent the first night sleeping on a heap of straw.
It was a lonely, melancholy spot, where the Indians were herded together,
watched with jealous eyes by adventurers who were always endeavouring to
seize their lands, and sadly degenerated from the free, grave,
high-spirited men to whom Eliot had preached. His first lodging was in
the log house of a poor Scotchman who lived among the Indians--a single
chamber, without so much as a floor, and where he shared the family meals
upon porridge, boiled corn, and girdle-cakes. The family spoke Gaelic,
only the master of the house knowing any English, and that not so good as
the Indian interpreter's; and, moreover, the spot was a mile and a half
from the Indian wigwams, no small consideration to so weakly a man, thus
poorly fed. However, the Indians were pleased with his addresses, and
seemed touched by them; but the evil habits of the White men were the
terrible stumbling-block. Parties of them would come into the town, and
vex the missionary's ears with their foul tongues, making a scandalous
contrast to the grave, calm manners of the Indians. More than ever did
he love solitude, and when with his own hands he had built himself a log
hut, where he could be alone when he pleased, his relief was great.
He was not the highly educated scholar and practical theorist that his
predecessor had been: he seems to have had no plans or systems, and
merely to have tried to fulfil immediate needs; but he soon found that he
could not hope to benefit his Red flock without a school, so he made a
journey to New Jersey to entreat for means to set one up, and this was
done, with his interpreter as master. His journey was made on horseback,
and was no small undertaking, for even between Stockbridge and Kanaumeek
he had once lost his way, and had to sleep a night in the woods.
He had by this time thoroughly repented of the uncharitableness and
hastiness of his speech about Mr. Whittlesey, and he took a journey to
New Haven to send in a thoroughly humble and Christian-like apology,
requesting to be permitted to take his degree. Twice he was refused, and
the third time was told that the only condition on which the degree would
be granted would be the making up his term of residence at Yale, which
was, of course, not possible to a licensed minister in full employment,
and in fact was an insulting proposal to a man of his standing and
character.
His journey cost him dear, for as he was riding home he was attacked with
violent pain in the face and shiverings, which forced him to halt at the
first shelter he could find, happily with kind friends, who nursed him
for a fortnight before he could return home. He believed that had his
illness seized him in his log house at home, he must certainly have died
for want of care and attendance, although he was much beloved by his poor
Indians.
His life was indeed a frightfully hard one, and would have been so for a
healthy man; for he had to work with his own hands to store provisions
for his horse in the winter, and that when weak and suffering the more
for want of proper food. He could get no bread but by riding ten or
fifteen miles to procure it, and if he brought home too much it became
mouldy and sour, while, if he brought home a small quantity, he could not
go for more if he failed to catch his horse, which was turned out to
graze in the woods; so that he was reduced to making little cakes of
Indian meal, which he fried in the ashes. "And then," he says, "I
blessed God as if I had been a king." "I have a house and many of the
comforts of life to support me," he says with great satisfaction; and the
solitude of that house was so precious to him that, however weary he was,
he would ride back twenty miles to it at night rather than spend an
evening among ungodly men. By this terrible stinting of what we should
deem the necessaries of life, he was actually able, in fifteen months, to
devote a hundred pounds to charitable purposes, besides keeping the young
man at the University.
So much, however, did he love his solitude, that he counted it as no
relief, but an affliction, to have to ride to Stockbridge from time to
time to learn the Indian language from Mr. Sergeant, the missionary there
stationed. Something of this must have been morbid feeling, something
from the want of energy consequent on the condition of his frame. For a
man in confirmed decline such an entry in a journal as this is no
trifle:--"December 20.--Rode to Stockbridge. Was very much fatigued with
my journey, wherein I underwent great hardship; was much exposed, and
very wet by falling into a river." Mr. Sergeant could hardly have been
profane company, but Brainerd never enjoyed these visits, thinking that
intercourse with the world made him less familiar with heaven.
Another inconvenience was the proximity of Kanaumeek to the frontier, and
these were the days of that horrid war between England and France in
America, when the native allies of each nation made savage descents on
the outlying settlements, inflicting all the flagrant outrages of their
wild warfare. A message came one evening to Kanaumeek from Colonel
Stoddart, warning all in exposed situations to secure themselves as well
as possible, since an attack might come at any moment; and this Brainerd
quietly records as a salutary warning not to attach himself too much to
the _comforts of life_ he enjoyed.
The attack was never made, but he came to the conclusion that his small
congregation of Indians would be much better with their fellows at
Stockbridge under the care of Mr. Sergeant, and that this would leave him
free to go to more wild and untaught tribes. It was carried out, and the
Indians removed. There was much mutual love between them and their
pastor, and the parting was very affectionate, though even after two
years he was still unable to speak the language, and never seems to have
troubled himself about this trifling obstacle. Several English
congregations entreated him to become their minister, but he refused them
all, and went to meet the Commissioners of the Scottish Society at New
Jersey. They arranged with him for a mission to the Delaware Indians, in
spite of his being laid up for some days at the time; and when he went
back to Kanaumeek to dispose of his books and other "comforts," the
effects of being drenched with rain showed themselves in continued
bleeding from the lungs. He knew that he was often in an almost dying
state, and only wished to continue in his Master's service to the end he
longed for. He owns that his heart did sometimes sink at the thought of
going alone into the wilderness; but he thought of Abraham, and took
courage, riding alone through the depths of the forest, so desolate and
lonely day after day, that it struck terror even into his soul. There
were scanty settlements of Dutch and Irish, where he sometimes spent a
night, but the Sunday he passed among some Irish was so entirely unmarked
by them, that he felt like a "creature banished from the sight of God."
At last he reached his destination on the fork of the river Delaware, and
being within moderate distance of Newark, there received ordination as a
minister on the 11th of June, 1744. Severe illness followed the exertion
of preaching and praying before the convened ministers; but as soon as he
could walk, he set forth on his return, though he was so weak that he
could hardly open his numbed hand, but his heart and hopes had begun to
revive, and the little settlement of Whites with whom he lived were
willing to listen to him.
The Indians were in the midst of preparing for an idolatrous feast and
dance. Brainerd spent a day in the woods in an anguish of prayer, and
then went to the place of meeting, where, stranger as he was, he
prevailed on them to cease their revels and attend to him.
His biographer, President Jonathan Edwards, provokingly leaves out his
method of teaching, "for the sake of brevity," and from his own diary
little is to be gathered but accounts of his state of feeling through
endless journeyings and terrible prostrations of strength. He was always
travelling about--now to the Susquehanna, now back to New
England--apparently at times with the restlessness of disease, for this
roving about must have prevented him from ever deepening the impression
made by his preaching, which after all was only through an interpreter,
for he never gave himself time to learn the language.
Yet after some months he did find a settlement of Indians, about eighty
miles from the fork of Delaware, at a place called Crossweeksung, who
were far more disposed to attend to him. They listened so eagerly, that
day after day they would travel after him from village to village, hardly
taking any heed to secure provisions for themselves. The description of
their conduct is like that of those touched by Wesleyan preaching. They
threw themselves on the ground, wept bitterly, and prayed aloud, with the
general enthusiasm of excitement, though, he expressly says, without
fainting or convulsions, and even the White men around, who came to
scoff, were deeply impressed.
David Brainerd had at last his hour of bliss! He was delivered from his
melancholy by the joy of such results, and in trembling happiness
baptized his converts in the river beside their wigwams before leaving
them to proceed to a village on the Susquehanna, where he hoped for an
interview with the chief Sachem of the Delawares.
The place, however, was in the wildest confusion and uproar, it being the
period of a great festival, when every one was too tipsy to attend to
him. At an island called Juneauta, he met a very remarkable personage, a
Powaw, who bore the reputation of a reformer, anxious to restore the
ancient religion of the Red man, which had become corrupted by
intercourse with the White and his vices.
His aspect was the most dreadful thing Brainerd had ever seen. He wore a
shaggy bearskin coat, hood, and stockings, and a hideous, painted mask,
so that no part of his person was visible, not even the hand in which he
held an instrument made of the shell of a tortoise, with dry corn within,
and he came up rattling this, and dancing with all his might, and with
such gesticulations that, though assured that he intended no injury, it
was impossible not to shrink back as this savage creature came close.
Yet he was a thoughtful man, such as would have been a philosopher in
ancient Greece or Rome. He took the missionary into his hut, and
conversed long and earnestly with him. He had revolted in spirit from
the degradation of his countrymen, and had gone to live apart in the
woods, where he had worked out a system of natural religion for himself,
which he believed the Great Spirit had taught him, and which had at last
led him to return to his people and endeavour to restore them to that
purity which of course he believed to have once existed. He believed
there were good men somewhere, and he meant to wander till he found them;
meantime, he was kindly to all who came near him, and constantly uplifted
his testimony against their vices, especially when the love of strong
drink was brought among them. When all was in vain, he would go weeping
away into the woods, and hide himself there till the hateful fire-water
was all consumed and the madness over. Brainerd was greatly touched by
this red-skinned Epictetus, who, he said, had more honesty, sincerity,
and conscientiousness than he had ever met with in an Indian, and more of
the temper of true religion; and he expounded to him the Christian
doctrine with great carefulness and double earnestness. The self-taught
philosopher broke in now and then with "Now that I like,"--"So the Great
Spirit has taught me;" but when the missionary came to the regions where
faith surpasses the power of the intellect and the moral sense, the
Indian would not follow him, and rejected his teaching. It was curious
that he particularly denied the idea of a devil, declaring that there was
no such being, according to the ancient Indians. Now, the incantations
of the Powaws were generally supposed to be addressed to evil spirits,
and probably the perception of the falsehood of these pretended rites led
to his disclaiming the Christian doctrine.
Whether time and further teaching would have overpowered his belief in
his own inspiration does not appear, for Brainerd found the Indians too
vicious and hardened to pay the least heed either to him or to their own
reformer; and he went back to Crossweeksung, where his flock was still
increasing, and in a most satisfactory condition, renouncing their
heathen customs and their acquired vice of drunkenness, and practising
some amount of industry. A school was set up, old and young learnt
English, the children in three or four months could read the Bible in
English, and Brainerd's sermons and prayers were understood without an
interpreter.
This improved condition of the Indians destroyed the shameful profits of
the nearest settlement of Whites, whose practice it had hitherto been to
entice them to drink, and then run up a heavy score against them for
liquor. Finding that all endeavours to seduce them into drunkenness were
now vain, these wretches first tried to raise the country against
Brainerd, by reporting that he was a Roman Catholic in disguise; and when
this failed, they laid claim to the lands of Crossweeksung, in discharge
of debts that they declared to have been previously contracted.
Fortunately, Brainerd had it in his power to advance 82_l._ from his
private means, so as to save his people from this extortion; but he
afterwards thought it best to remove them from these dangerous neighbours
to a new settlement, fifteen miles off, called Cranberry. He remained
himself in his little hut at Crossweeksung, after they had proceeded to
raise wigwams and prepare the ground for maize; but, whenever he rode
over to visit them, his approach was notified by the sound of a conch
shell, and they all gathered round for his prayers and instruction.
His success with them seems to have greatly cured his depression of
spirits, but his mind was balancing between the expedience of remaining
among them as their permanent pastor, protector, and guide, and that of
striving to extend the kingdom of faith. Sometimes he liked the prospect
of a settled home and repose, study and meditation; but, at the thought
of gaining souls to Christ, all these considerations melted before him,
and he believed that he was marked out for the life of a pilgrim and
hermit by his carelessness about hardships.
He had not, however, taken leave of his flock when he set forth on
another expedition to the obdurate Indians of the Susquehanna, in the
September of 1746. It was without result; he could obtain no attention,
and the hardships of the journey, the night exposure, and the frequent
drenchings completed the wreck of his health. He came back with night
perspirations, bleeding from the lungs, and suffering greatly, feverish
and coughing, and often in pain; yet, whenever he could mount his horse,
riding the fifteen miles to attend to the Indians at Cranberry, or
sitting in a chair before his hut, when they assembled round him.
On Sunday he persisted in preaching, till generally at the end of half an
hour he fainted, and was carried to his bed; and at the administration of
the Lord's Supper he was carried to the place where he had forty Indian
communicants, and likewise some Whites, who had learnt to reverence him,
and who supported him back to his bed. He was quite happy now, for he
felt he had done all he could to the utmost of his strength; but, soon
becoming totally unable to speak at all, he felt that he must do what he
called "consuming some time in diversions," and try to spend the winter
in a civilized place.
After riding his first short stage, however, his illness increased so
much, that he was quite incapable of proceeding or returning, and
remained in a friend's house at Elizabethtown, suffering from cough,
asthma, and fever the whole winter. In March 1747 he had rallied enough
to ride to Cranberry, where he went from hut to hut, giving advice to and
praying with each family, and parting with them with great tenderness.
Tears were shed everywhere; for, though he still hoped to return, all
felt that they should see his face no more! But, to his great comfort
and joy, his poor people were not to be abandoned to themselves and their
tempters. His younger brother--John--relieved his mind by offering to
assume the care of them, and under his pastorship he could thankfully
leave them.
In April he set out again on his journey, at the rate of about ten miles
a day, riding all the way, and on the 28th of May arrived at Northampton,
where Jonathan Edwards, afterwards President of the College of New
Jersey, was then minister. They were like-minded men, both disciples of
Whitfield, and the self-devoted piety of the young missionary was already
so well known to Mr. Edwards by report, that it was most gladly that he
received him into his house and family. There the impression Brainerd
made was of a singularly social, entertaining person, meek and
unpretending, but manly and independent. Probably rest and brightness
had come when the terrible struggle of his early years had ceased, and
morbid despondency had given way to Christian hope, for he became at once
a bright and pleasant member of any society where he formed a part, and
to the Edwards family he was like a son or brother. When he was able,
Mr. Edwards wished him to lead the family devotions, and was always
greatly impressed by the manner and matter of his prayers, but one
petition never failed, _i.e._ "that we might not outlive our usefulness."
Even in saying grace there was always something about him that struck the
attention.
His purpose in coming to Northampton had been to consult Dr. Mather,
whose verdict was that he was far gone in decline, and who gave him no
advice but to ride as much as possible. So little difference did this
sentence make to him that he never noted it in his diary, though he spoke
of it cheerily in the Edwards family--a large household of young
people--where he was so much beloved, that when he decided to go to
Boston, Jerusha, the second daughter, entreated to be allowed to
accompany him, to nurse him as his sister would have done.
The pure, severe simplicity of those early American manners was such,
that no one seems to have been surprised at a girl of eighteen becoming
the attendant of a man of twenty-nine. Jerusha had the full consent and
approbation of her parents, and she was a great comfort and delight to
him. He told her father that she was more spiritual, self denying, and
earnest to do good, than any young person he had ever known; and on doubt
their communings were far above earth, hovering, as he was well known to
be, upon the very borders of the grave.
They took four days to reach Boston, and there he was received with the
greatest respect by all the ministers; but, a week after his arrival, so
severe an attack of his illness came on that he became delirious, and was
thought to be at the point of death. Again, however, he came back enough
to life to sit up in bed and write ardent letters of counsel to the
brother who had succeeded him among his Indians, and likewise to give his
friends the assurance of his perfect peace and joy. He said that he had
carefully examined himself, and though he had found much pride,
selfishness, and corruption, he was still certain that he had felt it his
greatest happiness to glorify and praise God; and this certainty,
together with his faith in the Redeemer, had calmed all the anguish he
had suffered for years.
Whenever he was able to converse he had numerous visitors, especially
from the deputies of the Society in London which had assisted Eliot. A
legacy for the support of two missionaries had newly been received, and
his counsel on the mode of employing it was asked. He was able to strive
to imbue others with the same zeal as himself, and to do much on behalf
of his own mission, although he often lay so utterly exhausted that he
said of himself that he could not understand how life could be retained.
One of his brothers, a student at Yale, came to see him, and to tell him
of the death of his favourite sister, of whose illness he had not even
heard, but it was no shock to him, for he felt far more sure of meeting
her again than if she had been left on earth.
The summer weather, to the surprise of all, brought back a slight revival
of strength, and some of his friends began to hope he might yet recover,
but he knew his own state too well, and told them he was as assuredly a
dead man as if he had been shot through the heart; still he was resolved
to profit by this partial restoration to return to Northampton, chiefly
because the rumour had reached him that the Bostonians had intended to
give him such a funeral as should testify their great esteem; and being
disappointed in this, they intended to assemble and escort him publicly,
while still alive, out of their city, but the bare idea naturally made
him so unhappy that they were forced to give it up.
Five days were spent in the journey, and again the Edwardses
reverentially opened their doors to a guest so near heaven. For some
time he rode out two or three miles daily, and sat with the family,
writing or conversing cheerfully when not engaged in prayer. His brother
John came from Crossweeksung and cheered him with a good account of his
Indians; and hearing of the great need of another school, he wrote to the
friends who had shown themselves so warmly interested in him at Boston,
and was gratified by their reply, with a subscription of 200_l._ for the
purpose, and of 75_l._ for the mission to the Six Nations. His answers
were written with his own hand; but he had become so much weaker that he
felt this his last task. He had been one who, in his short life, had
sown in tears to reap in joy.
He was sinking fast as the autumn cold came on, often talking tenderly to
the little ones of the house, but suffering terribly at times, and
sighing, "Why is His chariot so long coming?" then blaming himself for
over-haste to be released.
He had a smile for Jerusha as she came into his room on Sunday morning.
"Are you willing to part with me? I am willing to part with you, though
if I thought I could not see you and be happy with you in another world,
I could not bear to part. I am willing to leave all my friends. I am
willing to leave my brother, though I love him better than any creature
living. I have committed him and all my friends to God, and can leave
them with God!"
Presently, looking at the Bible in her hands, he said, "Oh that dear
Book! the mysteries in it and in God's providence will soon be unfolded."
He lingered in great agony at times till the 9th of October, 1747, when
came a cessation of pain, and during this lull he breathed his last, then
wanting six months of his thirtieth birthday. He had told Jerusha that
they should soon meet above, and, in effect, she only lived until the
next February. She told her father on her death-bed, that for years past
she had not seen the time when she had any wish to live a moment longer,
save for the sake of doing good and filling up the measure of her duty.
David Brainerd's career ended at an age when John Eliot's had not begun.
It was a very wonderful struggle between the frail suffering body and the
devoted, resolute spirit, both weighed down by the natural morbid temper,
further depressed by the peculiar tenets of the form of doctrine in which
he had been bred. The prudent, well-weighed measures of the ripe
scholar, studious theologian, and conscientious politician, formed by
forty-two years' experience of an old and a new country, could not be
looked for in the sickly, self-educated, enthusiastic youth who had been
debarred from the due amount of study, and started with little system but
that of "proclaiming the Gospel"--even though ignorant of the language of
those to whom he preached. And yet that heart-whole piety and patience
was blessed with a full measure of present success, and David Brainerd's
story, though that of a short life, over-clouded by mental distress,
hardship, and sickness, fills us with the joyful sense that there is One
that giveth the victory.