David Brainerd the Apostle to the North American
Jesse Page
Table of Contents
Preface.
Across the track of history the North American Indian has left his trail, with ineffaceable prints of blood. The romantic hero of fiction, the obstruction of civilization, we see the red-skin, with his squaw and papooses, as a broken and demoralized remnant of an untamed host, rapidly retreating to those happy hunting-grounds of the future, where the pale-faces harry never more. It has been said by one who knows: ― “ For the Indian in too many instances, the gospel of bullets has been preached more loudly than the Gospel of love.” This is lamentably true, and if it were the object of this book to recite the history of this unhappy people, much sinned against, however much sinning, a story could be told which would or should make the ears of the readers to tingle. These pages deal with a time when insignificant hamlets of wooden shanties occupied the creeks and clearings where great cities are now established, and vast territories were almost unexplored forests, held in fee by tribes of wild and superstitious braves. This was the parish in which Brainerd by deliberate choice and by evident Divine appointment spent his bright and glorious life.
It will doubtless strike many readers how much this man and Henry Martyn had in common. They shared the same physical delicacy which cut short their lives at a like age, and they were equally distinguished by that constitutional sadness which added a sober hue to a religious experience in itself severe and grave. Leaving college, both early responded to a call to missionary work, forsaking friends, home, and prospects behind, to pioneer the kingdom of heaven in distant lands. Martyn, however, gave up the ghost in Persian solitudes, while Brainerd came home to die amid his friends. The character of Brainerd, too, had not the metaphysical complexity of Martyn’s mind, no love disappointment had spoiled the music of his life, neither was the crown of intellectual honors his temptation, for the only noticeable fact about his college life is his expulsion from Yale. But notwithstanding these and other divergences, the two men were of the same mold, and stand out clearly in the history of missionary service, as brothers in feeling and action, though separated by a century of years. Both have left to the world a literary treasure in their letters and diaries. Those of Henry Martyn are rightly adjudged a classic, with scarcely a superior in English letters, and those of David Brainerd, which first inspired Martyn with missionary enthusiasm, are of equal excellence. They severally reveal the heart of the writer as nothing else could do. The strange fluctuations of spiritual feeling; the unsparing and searching introspective watchfulness; the blend of spiritual travail and inspiring faith; the soul now hiding wingless in the grass of abasement, then fluttering with sweetest carol in the blue of heaven.
No apology need surely be offered for the frequent quotations in these pages from Brainerd’s remarkable journal. When John Wesley, who lived nearer to Brainerd’s day than we, and had personal knowledge of the Indians, was anxious to preserve the zeal of his people, he put to his Conferences this question: “What can be done in order to revive the work of God where it is decayed?” answering it with the emphatic counsel, “Let every preacher read carefully over the life of David Brainerd. “ This advice is not out of date to-day, and it would be well if every divinity student, and all Sunday-school teachers, kept well before them the stimulating thoughts of this patient well-doer in the kingdom of God.
If it should be asked what were the characteristics of Brainerd which made him such a helpful study to his successors, they may be readily summed up.
He was a man of one grand idea, that of saving souls. The whole force of his nature focused here, he lived to serve his God, and in every page of his journal we find the same quenchless thirst after the ingathering of these poor savages to the kingdom of grace. Lest anything should hinder him in this Divine quest, he was ever on the watch to divest himself of any allurements which might stand in rivalry and betray his heart.
He believed intensely in the existence of the Author of Evil and a place of punishment for all who serve him. There was no enervating tepidity about his views on points of doctrine, his audiences always were to him a number of immortal souls more or less under Satanic jurisdiction and needing the only remedy, that of the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ the Lord.
He was the disciple of discipline, not only by being in perils oft, and suffering hardships enough to daunt the most heroic, but his own heart had been purged of self-love and crucified in its affections and lusts. His spiritual experiences, judging from his own words about them, must have been fierce and cleansing fires.
He was, as all Christ’s true men and women must be, mighty in prayer. It was his habit to spend long nights in the dark forests, with strong crying’s to God, a very wrestling with the Almighty for the salvation of sinners. His whole life seems to have been divided between preaching and prayer, hastening to the woods after some discouragement to meet his Lord for renewal of faith and confidence, or, with a whole heartful of thanksgiving casting himself on the ground and crying, “Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name be the glory.”
He was also a man of sympathy. With all the awakening faithfulness of his ministry, he had ever a tender solicitude for his “poor Indians,” comforting them when in tears, and bravely standing up for them where he saw the white man oppressing or defrauding them. Their children loved and trusted him, and ran to listen to his words.
Above all he was a man who lived very near to Christ. Although often bewailing his coldness of heart and languor of love, one cannot help feeling that this man knew his Lord with reverent intimacy, and walked with Him, until the Divine hand opened the gate of everlasting bliss for His servant to enter, and go no more out forever. Such high communion this man had, such glorious revelations of his Master’s presence, that his path through the dreary solitudes of forest and wilderness became hallowed ground. If the reading of Brainerd’s life teaches nothing else, it will not fail to impress every one with a profound sense of what a consecrated man may be and do. Contact with such a character is inspiration, and to know his heart is to enter a sanctuary. JESSE PAGE.
David Brainerd.
Chapter 1
His Forerunner in the Field.
“I will send a Prophet to you,
A Deliverer of the nations―
Who shall guide you and shall teach you,
Who shall toil and suffer with you.
If you listen to his counsels,
You will multiply and prosper;
If his warnings pass unheeded,
You will fade away and perish!”
Longfellow’s “Hiawatha.”
The North American Red Indian in his sprayed feathers and moccasins forms a conspicuous and well-known figure in the stories with which the young people on both sides of the Atlantic are familiar. He has always held a position a of respectability compared with other wild men of the woods-living a life of freedom and sport, brave in conflict, solemn in council over the pipe of peace, fond of his squaw and the little red youngsters who gamboled at the door of his wigwam, a mighty hunter, and yet pausing in the prairie solitudes to kneel in the presence of the Great Spirit; such is the Indian of literature. Perhaps the picture has been drawn a little fancifully, possibly the cruel torturing nature, the sly cunning, and the treachery of the warpath have not been truthfully disclosed, but in many respects the redskin was once, if he is not today, a noble savage with many fine characteristics, having a nature capable under Divine culture of many grand possibilities. Unhappily the white man has not improved the red man, except where the former has carried the message of the Cross, and by this time devastating wars and drink, the dreadful scourge of all the nations, has reduced this fine race of braves to a miserable group of exiles on their own land.
The story which is to be told in the following pages is of the early history of the Red Indians, and of one who gave himself up to the work of preaching the Gospel to them, and pointing them to heaven. The better however to understand what led up to the work which Brainerd took in hand so nobly, a brief glance at the experience of the earlier missionaries will not be out of place.
Although the gallant admirals of Queen Elizabeth in their visits to the newly discovered shores of America did not altogether neglect the Christian teaching of the natives with whom they came in contact, it cannot be said that mission work began with any enthusiasm until the seventeenth century, when religious intolerance drove the Pilgrim Fathers from their native land to seek a home in New England, where they might worship God according to the dictates of their own conscience. As will be seen later on, it was in the Mayflower, or one of the other ships of the Puritan refugees, that the ancestor, David Brainerd sailed for the new home across the wide sea.
But the first missionary was John Eliot, once a young schoolmaster in an Essex village, who in the year 1646 had gained the confidence of the Indians amongst whom he had taken up his abode, and succeeded in mastering their language, and constructing a grammar thereof; which has since been of much service to his successors. He worked with great industry in their cause, and actually secured so much interest and support in England, that the House of Commons and the Universities of Oxford and Camebridge contributed money freely for his enterprise.
With this he bought land, built towns, founded a sort of Commonwealth like his own country had at home, and got the Indian Christians to express publicly their confessions, and testify to their faithful belief in the new religion. A very curious book he wrote, called “Tears of Repentance,” dedicating it in this wise to Oliver Cromwell: “What the Jews once said of their centurion, he loved our nation, and built us a synagogue, the same may be affirmed upon a more noble accompt of your Lordship, and of those faithful centurions and soldiers under your control,” etc. The work is now very rare, and as the original volume, in strange old type, and queer spelling, on yellow faded leaves, lies before the present writer, he cannot forbear making a quotation of some of the experiences of those very earliest laborers, as told by John Eliot, under the title “The Day-Breaking, if not the Sun-Rising of the Gospel with the Indians in New England.”
After the Gospel had been preached, we read:– they told us they were troubled, but they could not tell what to fay to it, what fhould comfort them; hee therefore, who fpake to them at firft, concluded with a dolefull defcription (lb farre as his ability to fpeake in that tongue would carry him), of the trembling and mourning condition of every foul that dies in finne, and that fhall be caft out of favor with God. Thus after three houres time thus fpent with them, wee afked them if they were not weary, and they anfwered no. But we refolved to leave them with an appetite; the chiefe of them, feeing us conclude with prayer, defired to know when wee would come againe, fo we appointed the time, and having given their children fome apples; and the men fome tobacco, and what elfe we then had in hand, they defired fome more ground to build a towne together, which we did much like of, promifing to fpeake for them to the generall court, that they might poffefs all the compafs of the hill upon which their wigwams then flood, and fo wee departed, with many welcoms from them.”
Then, after a time, John Eliot and his companions visit the Indians again on the iith of November, 1646, and having spoken once more upon the Christian faith, pause to see the effect of their words upon the ring of red-skinned listeners.
“The firft queftion was fuddenly propounded by an old man then prefent, who, hearing faith and repentance preacht upon them to find falvation by Jefus Chrift, hee afked whether it was not too late for fuch an old man as hee, who was neare death, to repent or Peek after God? This queftion affected us not a little with compaffion, and we held forth to him the Bible, and told him what God Paid in it concerning fuch as are hired at the eleventh houre of the day; wee told him, alfo, that if a father had a fonne that had beene difobedient many yeares, yet if, at Taft, that fonne fall down upon his knees, and weepe and defire his father to love him, his father is fo merciful that hee will readily forgive and love him, fo we Paid it was much more with God, who is a more merciful Father to thole whom he hath made fo.... Having thus fpent the whole afternoon, and night being almost come upon us, confidering that the Indians formerly defired to know how to pray, and did thinke that Jefus Chrift did not underftand Indian language, one of us therefore propofed to pray in their owne language, and did fo for about a quarter of an hour together, wherein divers of them held up eies and hands whenever all of them (af we underftood afterward), underftanding the fame, and one of them I caft my eyes upon was hanging doune his head, with his rug before his eyes, weeping; at firft I feared it was for fome forenefs of his eyes, but lifting up his head againe, having wiped his eyes (as not defirous to be feene), I eafily perceived his eyes were not fore, yet fomewhat red with crying; and fo held up his head for a while, yet such was the pretense and mighty power of the Lord Jefus in his heart that hee hung down his head againe, and covered his eyes againe, and fo fell wiping and wiping of them, weeping abundantly, continuing thus till prayer was ended; after which hee prefently turnes from us, and turnes his face to a fide, and corner of the wigwam, and there fats aweeping more abundantly by himfelfe, which one of us perceiving, went up to him, and fpake to him encouraging words, at the hearing of which hee fell a-weeping more and more, fo leaving him he who fpake to him came unto mee (being newly gone out of the wigwam), and tolde mee of his teares, fo we resolved to goe againe both of us to him, and fpeake to him againe, and we met him comming out of the wigwam, and there we fpake againe to him, and he there fell into a more abundant renewed weeping, like one inwardly and deeply affected indeed, which forced us alfo to fuch bowels of compaffion that wee could not forbear weeping over him alfo, and fo we parted, greatly rejoicing for fuch fowing.”
In due time Eliot obtained such influence over the Indians, that he persuaded them to abandon their roving life, and settle in a town which was built under his direction and called “Noonatomen,” which is Indian for “Rejoicing.” He framed laws, not unlike those which prevailed in Puritan England at home, and translated the works of Baxter and other sound divines of that age for them to read. Subsequently, the town of Nantick, on the Charles River, was founded in 1651, and on a solemn fast-day he gathered the Indians together, and, like Moses speaking to the Children of Israel, he exhorted them to serve the Lord. But then as now, civilization brought some evils in its train, and the terrible effects of strong drink were so manifest, that neither whipping nor heavy fines could restrict its traders, of whose business Eliot spoke as follows: —“These scandalous evils greatly blemish and intercept their entertainment of the Gospel, through the policy of Satan, who counter-worketh Christ that way, with not a little uncomfortable success.”
Eliot was at this time the pastor of Roxbury, and endeavored to raise a native ministry, sending to college two young converted Indians, who, however, never lived to be useful in the work. The Puritan missionary, therefore, had to labor single-handed, and the unremitting nature of his traveling and preaching may be told in his own words, where he says in a letter:― “ I have not been dry night nor day, from the third day of the week to the sixth, but have traveled from place to place in that condition, and at night I pull off my boots and wring my stockings, and on with them again, and so continue. The rivers also have raised, so that we were wet in riding through them. But God steps in and helps me. I have considered the exhortation of Paul to his son Timothy, Endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ,’ with many other such like meditations.”
Great trouble, however, came upon those “praying Indians,” as they were called, for an influential chief managed to incite the various tribes against the English settlers, and a terrible onslaught was made upon the white men and their families, farms were ruthlessly burnt, and the people, including the helpless children, brutally murdered. Then came the inevitable reprisals; the Government sent the military to avenge those outrages, and although the Christian natives had, with few exceptions, kept aloof from their fanatical comrades, and stood loyal to their friends, they were suspected of complicity and had to pay the penalty. It was a bitter experience for Eliot; now an aged man, to see the very Indian towns which he had established broken up, and this too carried on with relentless violence by the whites, who drove the Christian natives into hiding, and destroyed the work which the patient industry and endurance of many years had built up.
But this man was the grand pioneer of Christian missionary work among the Indians, and although he closed his career amid circumstances of much discouragement, John Eliot will always be remembered as bearing, not without tears and weariness, the brunt of the battle for the Cross, and making, like John the Baptist, a highway for the spread of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ among the wild redskins of the New World.
Just two hundred years ago, as the flowers of the early summer were blooming, and the foliage of the Indian forest had burst forth into freshest green, this eminent saint of God lay dying. His thoughts were all for the Indians, and the work he loved so well. Here are his last words: — “There is a dark cloud upon the work of the Gospel among them. The Lord revive and prosper that work, and grant that it may live when I am dead. It is a work that I have been doing much and long about. But what was the word I spoke last? I recall that word my doings. Alas! they have been poor and small and lean doings, and I will be the man who will throw the first stone at them all.... Welcome joy! Come, Lord, come!”
God was not unmindful of the prayer of his servant, and within twenty years of his death a boy was born who was destined to take up the gracious labor he laid down, and whose life and work will be the theme of the following pages. But before restoring from the mist of past years the living figure and the brave deeds of his successor, it is fitting that we linger for one moment more over John Eliot’s message and the fruits seen after many days. Once more turning over the pages of that ancient volume which survives, a pathetic memento, the wreck of more than two centuries, we catch sight of the last of those confessions or testimonies which he noted down from the lips of the North American Indians, the simple heartfelt utterance of those who had found in Christ a Savior. It refers to the two little Indian children, three years old, whose father had already expressed his faith in the Lord Jesus. There is scarcely a more affecting incident in the literature of missions, and here, in John Eliot’s own words, after so many years, t-ct tinne shall be told:―
“This Spring, in the beginning of the year 1652, the Lord was pleafed to affect fundry of our praying Indians with a grievous difease, whereof fome with great torments in their bowels died, among which were two little children of the age above-said, and at that time both in one house, being together taken with this difeafe. The first of thefe Children in the extremities of its torments lay crying to God in thefe words,” God and Jesus Chrift, God and Jesus Christ, help me, “and when they gave it anything to eat, it would greedily take it (as it is ufual at the approach of Deathe) but firft it would cry to God,” O God and 7efus Chrift, blefs it,“and then it would take it; and in this manner it lay calling upon God and Jefus Chrift untill it died. The mother of this child alto died of that difeafe, at that time. The father of the child told me this ftory, with great wonderment at the grace of God, in teaching his child fo to call upon God. The name of the father is Nifhohkon, whose confeffion you have before.
“Three or four days after, another child in the fame haute, fick of the fame difeafe was (by a Divine hand doubtlefs) fenfible of the approach of death (an unufual thing at that age) and called to its Father and faid Father, I am going to God,’ feveral times repeating it, I am going to God.’ The Mother (as other mothers ufed to do) had made for the Child a little Bafket, a little Spoon, and a little Tray, thefe things the Child was wont to be greatly delighted withal (as all children will) therefore, in the extremity of the torments they fet those things before it to divert the mind and cheer the fpirit, but now the child takes the. Bafket and puts it away and Paid, I will leave my Bafket behind me for I am going to God, I will leave my Spoon and Tray behind me (putting thefe away) for I am going to God:’ and with thefe kind of expreffions the fame night finifhed its courfe and died.
“The Father of this child is Robert Speen, whole confeffions you have before, and in one of them he maketh mention of this child that died in Faith. When he related this {tory to me, he faid he could riot tell whether the forrow for the death of his child or the joy for its faith were greater when it died”
“These examples,” adds Eliot, “are a testimony that they teach their children the knowledge and fear of God, whom they now call upon, and also that the Spirit of God co-worketh with their instructions, who teacheth by man more than man is able to do.” With this sweet fragment, we bid John Eliot farewell. In noting down for us the heartfelt testimony of these Indian converts, he has indeed taught us how the Spirit of God “teacheth by man more than man is able to do.” These stalwart natives, drawn from their dark superstitions and ignorance to a knowledge of the true God, like Peter, are ready to declare unto their brethren how the Lord hath brought them out of prison. Their simplicity and childlike faith are beautiful characteristics, and the veteran missionary is not slow to appreciate them. The good old man, who looks from a portrait before us, of grave aspect, with solid and determined countenance not unlike the Lord Protector himself, his wavy hair falling upon the broad white Puritan collar, and with his old-fashioned bulky Bible in his hand, we see him standing by the wigwams, while the Indians, in attitudes of deep attention, spread themselves about him listening to his words. The little brown children venture near him and catch the name of Jesus, as the retreating sunlight fills the forest with a shadowy silence. The scene fast fades, the mist of many years rolls up again, blots out the group of listeners, blurrs the overarching trees, and again noiselessly envelops in oblivion the figure of the preacher, whose voice just now we could almost fancy we hear. For a moment it all was vivid to us, a breathing human group, and the other vision too of the little sufferers in their wigwams calling on God and Christ and putting their toys aside, because they were going to Him. Was it not all so real, so living, so heart-reaching? We will not willingly let the picture be dissolved in forgetfulness. Rather will we cherish its memory and keep it as a background as our eyes now turn to the approaching figure of a tall, spare young man with eyes lustrous and sad, DAVID BRAINERD, THE APOSTLE OF THE INDIANS.
“Lord, give the word; and waked by Thee,
Let many tongues Thy victory tell,
That hopeless sinners may now see
That Thou hast vanquished Death and Hell;
Sound, sound the joyful truth abroad;
Let sinners now draw nigh to God.
And Thou victorious Lord all hail!
Immortal honors deck Thy brow.
When Death and Hell Thy friends assail
They find in Thee a refuge now;
Thy name shall furnish them with arms,
And free their souls from all alarms.”
Thos. Kelly.
The Puritan Youth.
Chapter 2.
“O Lord! that I could waste my life for others
With no ends of my own,
That I could pour myself into my brothers
And live for them alone!
“Such was the life Thou triedst, self-abjuring,
Thine own pains never easing,
Our burdens bearing, our just doom enduring,
A life without self-pleasing.” ―Frederick W. Faber.
The men of the Mayflower, “has become a phrase in the history of our country which will not be easily forgotten. It marks a period when the intolerance of a foolish king drove from the shores of the old country those Puritans of sturdy piety who were destined to found another England across the sea. Thus the keel of the little Mayflower carried the future destinies of that mighty Anglo-Saxon commonwealth, which shares not only our speech, but our love for the Bible, and a desire for the evangelization of the world.
It is not clear, from the vague data of his ancestry upon which we have to rely, whether the forefathers of David Brainerd actually sailed from England in the Mayflower, but there can be no doubt about the fact that his great grandfather on his mother’s side, the Rev. Peter Hobart, was at one time a minister of the Gospel at Hingham in the county of Norfolk, and in consequence of the persecution of the Puritans, did take ship, and remove with his family to New England where he formed another church, and called the settlement after the name of the village from which he had been driven in the old land. It is also clear that his grandmother was the daughter of another Puritan divine, the Rev. Samuel Whiting, also an Eastern counties’ man, for he ministered at Boston in Lincolnshire, before he in turn left for the shores of New England and founded the town of Lynn in Massachusetts. Thus we see of what stock he sprang, and the old theology of the Puritans clung to him all through life. It is difficult now to understand, and still more to appreciate, the strict and unlovely discipline of a child’s training in those far off days. There is every reason to believe, that at a very early age the mind of the boy David was cast in a serious, and what appears to us, an unnaturally solemn mold. His father, Hezekiah Brainerd, who at the time of David’s birth, the 20th of April, 1718, was living at Haddam, Hartford, in the new colony of Connecticut, died when the boy was only a child, and was speedily followed by the mother, so that the family were left orphans very early. David was the third of the four sons, and like Henry Martyn seems to have inherited a delicacy of constitution, with a strong predisposition to consumption, from which disease one of his brothers died. How far this hereditary ill-health predisposed him to a melancholy turn we can only conjecture; certain it is that David, at a time when other boys are full of games and boisterous play, was a mournful little lad. He tells us in the diary, in that portion of it which was fortunately preserved after his death, a little about his feelings at this time, and no words can better describe these days and his conversion in childhood than his own.
“I was from my youth,” says he, “somewhat sober and inclined rather to melancholy than the contrary extreme; but do not remember anything of conviction of sin, worthy of remark, till I was, I believe, about seven or eight years of age. Then I became concerned for my soul, and terrified at the thoughts of death, and was driven to the performance of duties, but it appeared a melancholy business, that destroyed my eagerness for play. And though, alas! this religious concern was short-lived, I sometimes attended secret prayer, and thus lived at ease in Zion, without God in the world, and without much concern, as I remember, till I was about thirteen years of age.
“But, sometime in the winter 1732, I was roused out of carnal security by I scarce know what means at first; but was much excited by the prevailing of a mortal sickness in Haddam. I was frequent, constant, and somewhat fervent in duties, and took delight in reading, especially Mr. Janeway’s Token for Children.’ I felt sometimes much inclined to duties, and took great delight in the performance of them, and I sometimes hoped that I was converted, or at least in a good and hopeful way for heaven and happiness, not knowing what conversion was. The Spirit of God at this time proceeded far with me; I was remarkably dead to the world, and my thoughts were almost wholly employed about my soul’s concerns and I may indeed say Almost I was persuaded to be a Christian.’ I was also exceedingly distressed and melancholy at the death of my mother in March, 1732. But afterward my religious concern began to decline and by degrees I fell back into a considerable degree of security, though I still attended secret prayer.”
The boy already seemed to be haunted with that self-condemnation and unsettlement of trust which were the characteristics of the Calvinist experience of his day. He had the fear of death before his eyes, and felt that the best way to obtain peace and freedom from his terrors was immersing himself in a round of duties, some, no doubt, of a painful character, in order to wean himself from love of self and of the world. Such methods, however, could not possibly have the desired result, and with his father and mother both removed to another world, he seems to have had none to point him to “a more excellent way.” He grew up in the same mood, condemning himself roundly for the slightest pleasure, and in a most literal sense “working out his own salvation with fear and trembling.” Nearly sixteen now, the following is the retrospect of his experience, recorded in his diary: ―“About the 15th of April, 1733, I removed from my father’s house to East Haddam where I spent four years, but still ‘without God in the world’ though for the most part I went a round of secret duty. I was not much addicted to young company, or frolicking, as it is called, but this I know, when I did go into such company, I never returned with so good a conscience as when I went, it always added new guilt, made me afraid to come to the throne of grace, and spoiled those good frames I was wont sometimes to please myself with. But, alas! all my good frames were but self-righteousness, not founded on a desire for the glory of God.
“About the latter end of April, 1737, being full nineteen years of age, I removed to Durham to work on my farm, and so continued about one year, frequently longing from a natural inclination after a liberal education. When about twenty years of age I applied myself to study, and was now engaged more than ever in the duties of religion. I became very strict and watchful over my thoughts, words, and actions, and thought I must be sober indeed, because I designed to devote myself to the ministry, and imagined I did dedicate myself to the Lord.”
Although still profoundly dissatisfied with himself, and suspecting every little emotion of pleasure as a temptation to self-righteousness, David Brainerd continued to pursue a round of religious exercises and duties. He went in April, 1738, to live with Mr. Fiske, who was the minister at Haddam, Hartford, Connecticut, and this good man urged David to withdraw altogether from the society of other young men, so that he might devote himself without distraction to the study of holy things. In less than a year he had read the Bible twice through, gave the utmost attention to the preaching of the Gospel, and snatched every moment he could for secret prayer and self-examination. This earnest seeking after God soon made him yearn for the fellowship of others like-minded, and just as Wesley met with his fellow-students to pray and hold sacred converse under the college walls at Oxford, we find Brainerd every Sunday evening gathering with a number of earnest young men to worship and glorify their common Lord. Lest he should lose sight of the truths which he heard, it was his custom to commit the discourse of the day to memory, and repeat the same when alone, sometimes at midnight hour: Such a young man one would think might be credited with a sincere zeal and a pious mind, yet, Brainerd we find still bewailing himself. This is his own comment on all these religious observances: ― “I had a very good outside and rested entirely on my duties, though not sensible of it. After Mr. Fiske’s death I proceeded in my learning with my brother; was still very constant in religious duties, and often wondered at the levity of professors; it was a trouble to me that they were so careless in religious matters. Thus, I proceeded a considerable length on a self-righteous foundation and should have been entirely lost and undone had not the mere mercy of God prevented.”
Much of the experience of Brainerd at this time was very like that of John Bunyan, who in his walks abroad was constantly tempted of Satan, and lived in perpetual fear and awe of God. The mind of David Brainerd seems to have been perpetually set on “frames and feelings,” he looks with fearful interest into the pool of his heart’s experience, and sees there nothing but unrest and buffeting waves, which also could in no degree reflect the image of his Savior. To such an extent did this poor young man worry himself, that he looked upon nature and wished from his inmost soul that he also could be free of this terrible burden of spiritual responsibility. Thus he writes in his private diary: ― “Sometime in the beginning of winter 1738 it pleased God on one Sabbath morning, as I was walking out for some secret duties, to give me on a sudden such a sense of my danger, and the wrath of God, that I stood amazed, and my former good frames that I had pleased myself with, all presently, vanished.
From the view I had of my sin and vileness I was much distressed all that day, fearing the vengeance of God would soon overtake me. I was much dejected, kept much alone, and sometimes envied the birds and beasts their happiness, because they were not exposed to eternal misery as I evidently saw I was. And thus I lived from day to day being frequently in great distress, sometimes there appeared mountains before me to obstruct my hopes of mercy, and the work of conversion appeared so great that I thought I should never be the subject of it. I used, however, to pray and cry to God and perform other duties with great earnestness, and thus hoped by some means to make the case better.”
For a long time Brainerd continued under this cloud; here and there a break occurred, speedily to be drowned in darkness, for, like many a sincere but wretched man since his day, poor Brainerd vexed his soul with doubts as to whether he stood among the elect or not. A voice, he says, seemed to cry in his ears, “It is done, it is done, forever impossible to deliver yourself,” and he also tells us he got thinking upon God’s sovereignty until he shuddered as “a poor trembling creature to venture off some high precipice.”
At last, however, light came, the light of assurance, and Brainerd was for the first time filled with unspeakable joy. The occasion seems to have been almost a vision, for the Lord vouchsafed him a glorious manifestation of His presence. He notes the day very carefully, the 12Th of July, 1739, a Sunday evening, the close of a week of exceeding wretchedness, and he had, as was his wont, gone out into some solitary spot, far from men, to commune with his God. The remarkable occurrence which followed, and which may be considered the hour of his conversion, cannot be told better than in his own words: ― “Having been thus endeavoring to pray-though as I thought very stupid and senseless―for near half an-hour, then as I was walking in a dark thick grove, unspeakable glory seemed to open to the view and apprehension of my soul. I do not mean any external brightness, for I saw no such thing, nor do I intend any imagination of any body of light somewhere in the third heavens or anything of that nature, but it was anew inward apprehension or view that I had of God, such as I never had before, nor anything which had the least resemblance of it. I stood still, wondered and admired! I knew that I never had seen before anything comparable to it for excellency and beauty, it was widely different from all the conceptions that ever I had of God or things Divine. I had no particular apprehension of any one Person in the Trinity, either the Father, the Son, or the Holy Ghost, but it appeared to be Divine glory. My soul rejoiced with joy unspeakable to see such a God, such a glorious Divine Being, and I was inwardly pleased and satisfied that He should be God over all forever and ever. My soul was so captivated and delighted with the excellency, loveliness, greatness, and other perfections of God, that I was even swallowed up in Him, at least to that degree that I had no thought that I remember at first about my own salvation, and scarce reflected that there was such a creature as myself.”
This moment of exceeding glory marks the spiritual starting point of David Brainerd, although the peace was not of sustained duration, and the radiance was soon bedimmed with gathering clouds again. We shall, indeed, in following the chequered history of his after-life, catch, from time to time, glimpses of this gray melancholy, this pious gloom, which he seemed to almost cherish as part of his dismal creed. It would be scarcely sufficient to describe his spiritual experience as April weather for the transitions were oftentimes from bleak November gloom into the warmth and sunny blaze of June, and back again. In his subsequent travels over the Indian wilderness, the lonely man seems to have felt how this depressing and stormy environment had its reflection and counterpart in the tempests within his own breast. But even when the shadows gathered thickest about his feet, there was above him a bit of blue, a stream of Divine light showing him that in exceeding weakness there was strength and grace sufficient for his need. The Calvinistic severity of the Puritanic creed so often repels us with the joyless aspect of its experience; and yet, though the tree seems flowerless, it has its roots in a firm faith in God, and bore fruits of heroic endurance and righteousness. In reading this old diary of Brainerd the wonder rises whether this man was really so spiritually depressed as he appears by his own account, or if it is possible that this testament of his inner life tells rather the tale of what he felt than what he was. However, that may be, the spiritual manifestation just recorded was a real thing to David Brainerd; henceforth he seems to more frequently lose sight of self, poor, unsatisfactory, and ever troublesome self, and his thoughts center more upon the will of God, and his own responsibility in doing the same. That sweet New England singer of our day, John Greenleaf Whittier, in one of his fragments of verse, expresses what maybe was the heart-feeling of Brainerd at this time: ―
“There let me strive with each besetting sin,
Recall my wandering fancies, and restrain
The sore disgust of a restless brain;
And as the path of duty is made plain,
May grace be given that I may walk therein;
Not like the hireling, for his selfish gain,
With backward glances, and reluctant tread,
Making a merit of his coward deed;
But cheerful, with light around me thrown,
Walking as one to pleasant service led,
Doing God’s will as if it were my own,
Yet trusting not in mine but in His strength alone!”
The Student Expelled.
Chapter 3
“Shine, my only day-star, shine,
So mine eyes shall wake by thine;
So the dreams I grope in now
To clear visions all shall grow;
So my day shall measured be
By Thy grace’s charity;
So shall I discern the path
My sweet love prescribed hath;
For Thy ways cannot be shown
By any light but by Thine own.” ―J. Beaumont.
When the time came for David Brainerd to enter Yale College at New Haven, he prepared himself for the step with many misgivings. He felt that in the society of so many young men he might not be able to maintain his Christian profession; or, at any rate, enjoy those seasons of secret communion which had been so precious to him at Haddam. These anticipations fortunately were not realized; but, on the whole, his college career was far from being an agreeable success.
He had been scarcely six months at Yale before an epidemic of measles attacked the students, and Brainerd was sent home very ill indeed. The disease took a severe course in his case, and for days his friends despaired of his life. But his time was not yet; God had yet a work for him to do, and he was immortal until its accomplishment. He was pleased to find that such a nearness to the grave produced in his mind no fears of death, and his sick-bed became the place of much gracious meditation on the providence of God. On his recovery, he returned to College, and was so anxious to make up for lost time that he began to suspect “that, by reason of hard and close studies, and being much exposed on account of my freshmanship, I had but little time for spiritual duties, my soul often mourned for want of more time and opportunity to be alone with God.” He began to doubt, as Henry Martyn did after him, whether this direction of energy upon his examinations, and studious work, was not possibly antagonistic to his proper regard for the law of the Lord. “Though, indeed, my ambition in my studies greatly wronged the activity and vigor of my spiritual life, yet this was usually the case with me, that in the multitude of my thoughts within me, God’s comforts principally delighted my soul,’ these were my greatest consolations day by day.”
The next event which from Brainerd’s point of view acted prejudicially to him at the college was, strange to say, a great spiritual awakening among the students. In this it is evidently shown that he took a zealous part, but Jonathan, Edwards, who edits his private journal, is careful to point out that “Yet he was afterward abundantly sensible that his religious experiences and affections at that time were not free from a corrupt mixture, nor his conduct to be acquitted from many things which were imprudent and blame-able, which he greatly lamented himself, and was desirous that others should not make an ill use of such an example. And therefore, though at the time he kept a constant diary, containing a very particular account of what passed from day to day, for the next thirteen months from the latter end of January, 1741, fore-mentioned in two small books which he called the first two volumes of his diary, next following the account before given of his convictions, conversion and consequent comforts, yet when he lay on his deathbed, he gave orders (unknown to me till after his death) that these two volumes should be destroyed, and in the beginning of the third book of his diary he writes thus, The two preceding volumes immediately following the account of the author’s conversion are lost. If any are desirous of knowing how the author lived in general during that space of time, let them read the first thirty pages of this volume, where they will find something of a specimen of his ordinary manner of living through the whole space of that time which was about thirteen months, excepting that here he was more refined from some imprudence’s and indecent heats than there, but the spirit of devotion running through the whole was the same.”
An evangelical revival of religion was more uncommon and less understood in those days than now, and from what his biography further states on the subject, the principal temptation upon which Brainerd reflects with such shame, was a zeal which was not seemly for one “who was not only young in years, but very young in religion and experience.” It seems as though the enthusiasm of the young freshman was scarcely viewed with favor by his sedate superiors who probably held aloof from the results of the religious awakening which was stirring the college. Possibly Brainerd did no more harm than allow himself to be carried away on a stream of spiritual impulse for which he would have been commended in our day. The sum total of his offense is expressed in this sentence from the pen of Jonathan Edwards: ―
“In these disadvantageous circumstances Brainerd had the unhappiness to have a tincture of that intemperate, indiscreet zeal which was at that time too prevalent, and was misled, from his high opinion of others whom he looked upon as better than himself, into such errors as were really contrary to the habitual temper of his mind.”
Poor Brainerd The pale-faced young man, worn by watching’s and self-discipline, catches fire at this sudden flaming up of spiritual concern amongst his fellows at the college, sees in the movement a way for the glory of God, takes active part in the meetings for prayer and praise, actually gets excited possibly, and so far forgets himself in his burning zeal for souls as to pass judgment on the extra spiritual standing of those reverend persons who, high and dry, rather plumed themselves upon not being affected by all this enthusiasm. This cannot be tolerated, and the serious proprieties of Yale College soon found an occasion to rebuke it and make an example of the youthful Brainerd.
One day after a meeting of these earnest students, Brainerd, with two or three of his intimate friends, remained behind chatting together and discussing one of the tutors, a Mr. Whittesley, who evidently had not struck them with a sense of his fervent zeal.
“What, Brainerd, do you think of Mr. Whittesley?” asked one of his friends.
“He has no more grace than this chair,” was the incautious reply.
A listening freshman at the door caught these words, ran and told them to some tattling women in the town, who lost no time in imparting the secret to the rector of the college. A frenzy of indignation seized upon the rulers at Yale, the informing freshman was examined, who quickly said it was Brainerd’s voice he heard; his intimate friends to whom he had spoken were summoned and compelled to give evidence against him, and the judgment was, that Brainerd, as if he had been guilty of some open, notorious crime, “should make a public confession, and humble himself before the college.” This David, like a man, declined to do, and, therefore, he was expelled the college.
This harsh proceeding, a punishment altogether disproportionate to the offense, was a severe blow to Brainerd, indeed it gloomed the whole of his after-life. To a nature so sensitive as his the disgrace was insupportable, and he felt forcibly that careless and disrespectful as the words were which he had uttered, they had not been wholly without truth. Indeed, judging from the conduct of these irate professors, their possession of grace, looked at from our point of view, must have been slender indeed. What added to the mortification of Brainerd too, was the fact that his summary expulsion took place just before the public honors of the year, when, had he been among the students, he would have been entitled to the first position in the class, and have graduated with distinction. In after years, at the advice of his friends, he would have made many humble apologies if they would but withdraw his expulsion, but the authorities were inexorable. But while they thus embittered the life of Brainerd, posterity has given him the highest position of all who have entered that college door, which to-day is chiefly famous because it has the honor of being associated with his noble name.
His next step was to go to Ripton, and live with the Reverend Mr. Mills, the minister of that village, where he continued his studies. While there he makes a significant note in his diary: ―
“I then began to find it sweet to pray, and could think of undergoing the greatest suffering in the cause of Christ with pleasure, and find myself willing, if God should so order it, to suffer banishment from my native land, among the heathen, that I might do something for their salvation, in distresses and deaths of any kind.”
And then again under date 20th April, 1742, he notes that it is his twenty-fourth birthday, and praises the Lord for all His mercy and grace.
“I think my soul was never drawn out so in intercession for others as it has been this night. Had a most fervent wrestle with the Lord to-night for my enemies, and I hardly ever so longed to live to God and to be altogether devoted to Him, I wanted to wear out my life in His service for His glory.”
A few days afterward we find him in a most ecstatic condition of soul, he is so happy that in his diary he pours forth his feelings in verse. “My very soul, “says he, “pants for the complete restoration of the blessed image of my Savior, that I may be fit for the blessed enjoyments and employments of the heavenly world.”
“Farewell, vain world; my soul can bid adieu;
My Saviors taught me to abandon you.
Your charms may gratify a sensual mind,
Not pleasure a soul wholly for God designed.
Forbear to entice; cease then my soul to call,
‘Tis fixed through grace-my God shall be my ALL.
While He thus lets me heavenly glories view,
Your beauties fade, my heart’s no room for you.”
He was now licensed to preach, after due examination as to his learning and experience, by the association of ministers belonging to the eastern district of the county of Fairfield, in Connecticut. On his subsequent journeys we find the first mention of the Indians. “I had in a great measure,” he says in his diary, “lost my hopes of God sending me among the heathen afar off, and of seeing them flock home to Christ. I saw so much of my hellish violence’s, that I appeared worse to myself than any devil; I wondered that God would let me live, and wondered that the people did not stone me, much more that they should ever hear me preach! It seems as though I never could or should preach any more, yet about nine or ten o’clock the people came over, and I was forced to preach. And blessed be God He gave me His presence and spirit in prayer and preaching, so that I was much assisted, and spake with power from Job 14:14. Some Indians cried out in great distress, and all appeared greatly concerned. After we had prayed, and exhorted them to seek the Lord with constancy, and hired an English woman to keep a kind of school among them, we came away about one o’clock, and came to Judea, about fifteen or sixteen miles. There God was pleased to visit my soul with much comfort. Blessed be the Lord for all the things I meet with.”
For several months after this his diary is rich in records of a devout and self-examining mind. He blessed God for the wonderful mercy and favor which is granted him in every effort to promote the spread of his Master’s kingdom. It was clearly his set purpose to make every detail of life a sacred thing; to bring his religion all along the line of his career, so that every moment and every talent entrusted to him should be really held in stewardship for the purpose and will of his Heavenly Father. Thus, he makes a note of small conversations with friends on spiritual subjects, of earnest prayers before writing some letters, that he might bring glory to God thereby, of many walks alone in the still night with heart-searching’s and strong crying’s to the Lord. The rebuff which he met with at college seems to have made Brainerd still a little suspicious of any open manifestation of a revival among his people; the young Puritan is growing staid again, and cares little for emotional effects from his preaching of the Word. Here is a sentence from his private note-book of this time, which appears to disclose this state of mind: ― “Wednesday, 27th October, 1742. — I spent the forenoon in prayer and meditation; was not a little concerned about preaching in the afternoon-felt exceedingly without strength, and very helpless indeed, and went into the meeting-house ashamed to see any come to hear such an unspeakably worthless wretch. However, God enabled me to speak with clearness, power, and pungency. But there was some noise and tumult in the assembly that I did not well like, and endeavored to bear public testimony against it with moderation and mildness, through the current of my discourse. In the evening I was enabled to be in some measure thankful and devoted to God.”
This young man had an unquenchable thirst for God. Every page of his diary, written of course as a perfectly private record, and never intended for future publication, gleams with the fire of holy aspirations. It matters not in what age, or under what variation of circumstances they live, these saints of God, Augustine, Thomas a Kempis, Henry Martyn, David Brainerd, are in their best moments all alike so sensitive of their utter unworthiness, and at all times yearn for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Walking about his farm at New Haven, Brainerd talks with God face to face, and filled with the sweet hunger after righteousness, is according to promise filled abundantly with Divine love and peace. “At noon,” he writes, “I longed for sanctification and conformity to God. Oh, that is THE ALL, THE ALL! The Lord help me to press after God forever.”
On the 19th of November of that year a messenger brought a missive to Brainerd which mightily fluttered him. It was written by the Rev. Mr. Pemberton, of New York, an eminent and influential minister, requesting him to come at once there, and take part in a consultation about a special mission in contemplation to reach the Indians. To Brainerd it seemed too good to be true, a prospect opening out to him which exceeded his utmost hopes. Of this man truly it could never be said that he was disposed to run before he was sent. Always afraid lest his poor heart should deceive him, and lead him into vainglory, he immediately brought together two or three Christian friends, to whom he read the letter, and begged their prayers and counsel. After this “sweet time,” as he called it, he obeyed the summons, mounted his horse, and bade them farewell. It was the turning point in his life; and as he set out upon that journey it was destined to be a pilgrimage of honor and suffering, at the end of which waited an early grave.
The sight of New York, with what, to the young farmer minister; seemed its confusing bustle and agitation, almost overpowered him. The gentlemen who had sent for him were the correspondents in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, of the Honorable Society in Scotland for Promoting Christian Knowledge, and these instantly examined young Brainerd with a view to his fitness for this position. They were fully satisfied, and discerned in the humble disciple the marks of an heroic witness for the Cross; one evidently called of God for the prosecution of this great work among the Indians. We have no description of this eventful gathering except that which Brainerd himself jots down afterward; this is so characteristic of the man at possibly the most important juncture of his career that it must be quoted entire: ―
“Thursday, Nov. 25, 1742.―Spent much time in prayer and supplication; was examined by some gentlemen of my Christian experiences, and my acquaintance with divinity, and some other studies, in order to my improvement in that important affair of gospelizing the heathen, and was made sensible of my great ignorance and unfitness for public service. I had the most abasing thoughts of myself I think that ever I had; I thought myself the worst wretch that ever lived; it hurts me, and pained my very heart that anybody should show me any respect. Alas I one thought how sadly they are deceived in me! how miserably would they be disappointed if they knew my inside! Oh my heart! And in this depressed condition I was forced to go and preach to a considerable assembly, before some grave and learned ministers; but felt such a pressure from a sense of my vileness, ignorance, and unfitness to appear in public that I was almost overcome with it; my soul was grieved for the congregation, that they should sit there to hear such a dead dog as I preach. I thought myself infinitely indebted to the people, and longed that God would reward them with the rewards of His grace.... I spent much of the evening alone.”
“Yes, and I will and must esteem
All things but loss for Jesus’ sake;
O may my soul be found in Him,
And of His righteousness partake!
“The best obedience of my hands
Does not appear before Thy throne;
But faith can answer Thy demands,
By pleading what the Lord has done.”
Watts.
Among the Wigwams.
Chapter 4.
“I do not ask., O Lord, that Thou shouldst shed
Full radiance here.
Give but a ray of peace, that I may tread
Without a fear.
I do not ask my cross to understand, ]
My way to see;
Better in darkness just to feel Thy hand,
And follow Thee.” ―A. A. Procter
The opening of the year 1743 finds David Brainerd bidding farewell to his friends with the earnest solemnity of one who does not expect ever to look upon their faces again. Dangers, neither few nor slight, awaited him in his new departure. The rigors of a severe winter had set in; the means of conveyance were absolutely limited to his horse plodding over roadless wastes, and news came swiftly that the Indians and the white settlers at Fort Delaware were in conflict, and it would be extremely risky for the young missionary to venture at such a time upon his work.
But Brainerd, standing now on the threshold of his new sphere, looked forward full of faith in God. He had long ago counted the cost, and deliberately made a choice which meant separation from the world of civilized life with its advantages, and association with hardship, toil, and possibly an early and lonely death. He calmly made his preparations. The small property which he inherited from his father, bringing him in a sufficient livelihood, was immediately realized, and the money invested to pay the expenses of a God-fearing young man at college as a candidate for the ministry. Having thus divested himself of his money for the glory of God, he preached his farewell sermon, choosing the house of an old saint, who could not attend public worship in consequence of infirmities; and the following morning his friends for the last time knelt with him in prayer, and bade him good-bye. He rode many miles, and crossing the Sound reached Long Island, then inhabited by Indians. With mingled feelings of self-despising and hope in God did the young missionary approach the wigwams of the people for whom he was willing and glad to give up all that was dear, and even life itself, so that he might win them for Christ. On Wednesday, March 9th, 1743, he made this note in his diary: ―
“Endeavored to commit myself and all my concerns to God. Rode sixteen miles to Manturk, and had some inward sweetness on the road, but something of flatness and deadness after I came there, and had seen the Indians. I withdrew, and endeavored to pray, but found myself awfully deserted and left, and had an afflicting sense of my vileness and meanness. However, I went and preached from Isaiah 53:10, Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him,’ etc. Had some assistance, and I trust something of the Divine presence was amongst us. In the evening I again prayed and exhorted among them, after having had a season alone, wherein I was so pressed with the blackness of my nature that I thought it was not fit for me to speak so much as to Indians.”
At the last moment, the instructions from the Society, of which he was now the representative, were not to go to Fort Delaware, but to proceed to a place called Kaunaumeck, in the province of New York, hidden away among the dense woods between Stockbridge and Albany, and inhabited almost entirely by the Indians. This spot he reached on the 1St of April, and there found a lodging on a heap of straw. Casting himself on the ground, he was fiercely attacked with melancholy, and abhorred himself as the most detestable and unworthy of human beings. He longed for some Christian heart to cheer him; some of the dear friends left far behind to support by their sympathy and counsel his fainting spirit. Instead of this consolation, his trouble was embittered by the visit of an Irishman and a Dutchman, who had come some distance to hear him preach, and indulged, to his great distress, in continual profanity. In his anguish of mind, he crept into a hovel, and there groaned out to God, who graciously gave His servant that comfort which none other could afford.
His position was no enviable one from the point of view of earthly comfort. He was not the man to complain, indeed he rejoiced in afflictions, and felt, that deserving nothing at all, the smallest gift was in mercy. He never knew that the words he penned then in the solitudes of that Indian wilderness we should ever read, and one night he wrote a few words in his diary, which gives us a fairly good idea of the desolateness of his position: ―
“My circumstances are such,” says he, “that I have no comfort of any kind but what I have in God. I live in this most lonesome wilderness, having but one single person to converse with that can speak English, most of the talk I hear is either Highland Scotch or Indian. I have no fellow-Christian to whom I might unbosom myself or lay open my spiritual sorrows, with whom I might take sweet counsel in conversation about heavenly things, and join in social prayer. I live poorly with regard to the comforts of this life, most of my diet consists of boiled corn, pastry, pudding, etc. I lodge in a bundle of straw, my labor is hard and extremely difficult, and I have little appearance of success to comfort me. The Indians have no land to live on but what the Dutch people lay claim to, and these threaten to drive them off. They have no regard to the souls of the poor Indians, and by what I can learn, they hate me because I came to preach to them. But what makes all my difficulties grievous to be borne is, that God hides His face from me.”
What a glimpse of a brave soul in perpetual spiritual eclipse, but sticking to his post of duty, loyal to God; “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.” With his own hands he built himself a hut to dwell in, and night after night leaving this poor abode he would wander on the dark moor, talking, moaning, praying by turns, now catching bright glimpses of heavenly rapture, then plunged again into gloomy dejection.
“I have been so crushed down sometimes,” he writes, “with a sense of my meanness and infinite unworthiness, that I have been ashamed that any, even the meanest of my fellow-creatures, should so much as spend a thought about me, and have wished sometimes, while traveling among the thick brakes, to drop as one of them into everlasting oblivion.”
Occasionally, when weary, he lies on his straw and pours forth his feelings in rhyme: ―
“Come, death, shake hands; I’ll kiss thy bands:
‘Tis happiness for me to die.
What! dost thou think that I will shrink?
I’ll go to immortality.”
As an instance and evidence of the extreme sensitiveness of this man, we find that in his lonely and friendless condition he was again worrying himself about the expulsion from college. He set down in writing a most humble retractation and confession, and prayed the rector and authorities of the college to give him his degree, but, as we have seen, they were inexorable, and left the sting to rankle in his breast.
We have no evidence that Brainerd had any special gift of tongues, and from his own observations, noted down from time to time, it would appear that he had to labor very diligently to master the language of the North American Indians. The complex character of the language may be imagined when we find our English word “question” in the Iroquis is “kremmogkodonaltootiteavreganumeouash.”Another missionary who was laboring among the Indians at Stockbridge was his chief helper in this difficulty, and to visit this Mr. Sergeant for instruction he had to constantly ride on horseback through the wild, dark forests, twenty miles from place to place, and this too in the depth of winter. Thus it will be seen that this pursuit of knowledge was under real difficulties, especially when it is remembered that he was a delicate, ailing man, a fervent spirit urging on a feeble, aching frame.
For a whole year he worked on at Kaunaumeck, sharing the life and hardships of the Indians, preaching to them faithfully the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but with small success. He felt that his ministry was not the power it ought to be, and therefore he persuaded the Indians to emigrate from that place to Stockbridge, where his friend Mr. Sergeant could more acceptably work amongst them. As soon as this plan had been carried out, Brainerd hastened to New Jersey, and finding the Commissioners of the Society at Elizabethtown, told them of his readiness to be sent to other Indians, where he might begin work again. They immediately responded to his request by sending him to the native encampments on the Forks of the Delaware, which was destined to be his future sphere. Before starting out afresh, however, he had several invitations to become the pastor of New England congregations, and especially did the people who had formed a church at East Hampton and Long Island beg that he would be their minister. To many a man in his position the suggestion would have been a temptation not to be disregarded. He was in a wretched state of health and physically quite incapable of enduring the privations of Indian life, and East Hampton was then a charming settlement amid the finest scenery, and he would have had the grateful attention of a wealthy and devoted people. Then his first essay as a missionary to the Indians had not been altogether successful, even with the assistance of his friend Mr. Sergeant, at a comparatively near station, and if he went to the Forks of Delaware he would be quite isolated from his friends and kindred. It was a crisis in his life, and the position must for a time at least have been a difficult and painful choice with him. The only note he leaves us of the momentous decision is extremely brief. “Resolved to go on then with the Indians, if Divine providence permitted, although I had before felt some inclination to go to East Hampton, where I was educated to go.” His mind, once made up, Brainerd lost no time in setting forth, disposed of his books, clothes, etc., and in the pouring rain began a long march through the wilderness. He had to ford the Hudson river, and to go nearly a hundred miles beyond through the woods, and at last on Saturday, the 12Th of May, 1744, he reached a little settlement of Irish and Dutch people, twelve miles from the Forks of Delaware, where he would have to work. The journey had prostrated him, and more dead than alive he caught first sight of the wigwams of the Indians. This constant feeling of breaking up seems to have excited in Brainerd a thirst for winning souls ere the end should come. Henry Martyn, fragile and exhausted after dragging himself across Persian plains, is perhaps most like this young Puritan missionary in his weakness of body and consuming energy of soul. What infinite pathos there is in these brief records of his experiences at this time. He had enjoyed a brief sleep, and awoke on the Lord’s Day amid his new surroundings.
“Rose early, felt very poorly after my long journey, and after being wet and fatigued. Was very melancholy; have scarce ever seen such a gloomy morning in my life, there appeared to be no Sabbath, and the children were all at play, I, a stranger in the wilderness and knew not where to go, and all circumstances seemed to conspire to render my affairs dark and discouraging. Was disappointed respecting an interpreter, and heard that the Indians were much scattered, etc. Oh, I mourned after the presence of God, and seemed like a creature banished from His sight! Yet He was pleased to support my sinking soul amidst all my sorrows, so that I never entertained any thought of quitting my business among the poor Indians, but was comforted to think that death would ere long set me free from these distresses.”
He became a little more encouraged, however, on finding the Indians so willing to listen to him, although some of their practices, especially funeral rites, which he was compelled to witness, greatly shocked him. In obedience to orders which reached him from the Society, Brainerd now journeyed to Newark, in New Jersey, where the Presbytery were waiting to ordain him. This solemn occasion much impressed him. He was utterly out of health, and after passing the examination underwent a sleepless night, but got through very well, and his probation sermon from the text, “Delivering thee from the people and from the Gentiles,” etc., was very favorably received. His old friend, Rev. Mr. Pemberton, gave the ordination charge; the principal listener was, he tells us, “composed and solemn, without distraction, and I hope that then, as many times before, I gave myself up to God, to be for Him and not for another.”
The official statement written to the Society in Scotland declares, “We can, with pleasure, say that Mr. Brainerd passed through his ordination trial to the universal approbation of the Presbytery, and appeared uncommonly qualified for the work of the ministry. He seems to be armed with a great deal of self-denial, and animated with a noble zeal to propagate the Gospel among those barbarous nations who have long dwelt in the darkness of heathenism.”
After his ordination Brainerd was eager to return to his work, but an attack of illness delayed his departure. This enforced leisure of a few days with his friends produced in his mind unmingled feelings of thankfulness and self-abasement. He had some sweet seasons of communion with his fellow-Christians, gaining, thereby, hope and encouragement for the task which lay before him. The kindness of his friends filled him with gratitude. “I wondered,” he says, “that God should open the hearts of many to treat me with such kindness, and myself to be so unworthy of any favor from God or any of my fellow-men.”
His illness, undoubtedly had much to do with the constant melancholy which, like a cloud, overcast his life. He makes a note in his diary, that “I was much exercised with pain in my head; however, I determined to set out on my journey towards Delaware in the afternoon, but when the afternoon came my pain increased exceedingly, so that I was obliged to betake myself to bed. The night following, I was greatly distressed with pain and sickness, was sometimes almost bereaved of the exercise of reason by the extremity of pain. Continued much distressed till Saturday, when I was somewhat relieved by an emetic, but was unable to walk about till the Monday following in the afternoon, and still remained very feeble. I often admired the goodness of God, that He did not suffer me to proceed on my journey from the place where I was so tenderly used and to be sick by the way amongst strangers. God is very gracious to me, both in health and sickness, and intermingles much mercy with all my afflictions and toils.”
The ever-present sense of his own sinfulness recalls an ancient sacred poem, with which this chapter shall fitly close.
“If I could shut the gate against my thoughts,
And keep out sorrow from this room within,
Or memory could cancel all the notes
Of my misdeeds, and I unthink my sin:
How free, how clear, how clean, my soul should be,
Discharged of such a loathsome company.
“Or were there other rooms within my heart
That did not to my conscience join so near,
Where I might lodge the thoughts of sin apart,
That I might not their clamorous crying hear,
What peace, what joy, what ease should I possess,
Free from the horrors that my soul oppress!
“But, O my Savior, who my refuge art,
Let Thy dear mercies stand ‘twixt them and me,
And be the wall to separate the heart
So that I may at length repose me free;
That peace, and joy, and rest, may be within,
And I remain divided from my sin.”
Faint, yet Pursuing.
Chapter 5
“I will not let Thee go,
Thou Help in time of need!
Heap ill on ill,
I trust Thee still.
Even when it seems that
Thou would’st stay indeed!
Do as Thou wilt with me,
I yet will cling to Thee.
Hide Thou Thy face, yet,
Help in time of need,
I will not let Thee go!” ―Desszler.
“To the eye of reason,” says Brainerd, “everything that respects the conversion of the heathen is as dark as midnight.” Such was his conclusion as he began his missionary campaign at the Forks of the Delaware. The grand purpose which had called him there filled his thoughts by day and his dreams by night; his spirit was straitened until the end of his coming was accomplished. Constantly he speaks of his “poor Indians,” going to and fro among them preaching the glad tidings of a Savior, and when all the woods were hushed in midnight gloom, his voice could be heard entreating the Lord to save their souls. He had so completely severed himself from the outside world, that its concerns interested him no more; one thought, one aim, one desire, burning as a sacred passion, strove in his soul. “I was much assisted in prayer,” he tells us of one night, “for dear Christian friends, and for others that I apprehended to be Christless, but was more especially concerned for the poor heathen, and those of my own charge; was enabled to be instant in prayer for them, and hoped that God would bow the heavens, and come down for their salvation.”
The difficulties in his way were great-his inexperience with the language especially, as it was split up into so many dialects; his poor, failing health, the spirit forever outrunning the flesh; and the ignorance of the Indians, rendered still more an obstacle by their familiarity with white men, who treated them with brutality, deceived them, and left an impression then, as now, that the God of the palefaces was no friend of the poor redskin. Grasping traders and unscrupulous colonists had so pushed the Indians into hostility that it was some time before Brainerd could win their confidence, and make them feel that, with a brother’s yearning love, he sought not theirs but them.
We see him busying himself to make them more comfortable in their settlements, traveling miles on horseback to negotiate with the white people for land, on which they, might dwell in peace.
One Saturday evening he had been spending some time, as was his custom, in the woods meditating, and examining his own heart, when, on his return to the encampment, he heard that on the morrow a great feast was to be held, with idolatrous practices. His mind was in anguish about it. “I thought that I must in conscience go and endeavor to break them up, and knew not how to attempt such a thing. However, I withdrew for prayer, hoping for strength from above.” That night he spent in such an agony of supplication as can scarcely be described. When he rose from his knees, he could scarcely stand for very exhaustion, the perspiration stood on his forehead, he had cried to God until voice utterly failed, and Nature exhausted seemed, as he thought, to be giving way. Then came to him such a wonderful sense of confidence in God, and entire surrender to His will, as he never forgot to his dying day. He speaks of it as a season altogether “inexpressible” “All things here below vanished, and there appeared to be nothing of any considerable importance to me but holiness of heart and life, and the conversion of the heathen to God. All my cares, fears, and desires, which might be said to be of a worldly nature disappeared, and were, in my esteem, of little more importance than a puff of wind. I exceedingly longed that God would get to Himself a name among the heathen, and I appealed to Him, with the greatest freedom, that He knew I preferred Him above my chief joy.’ Indeed, I had no notion of joy for this world, I care not where or how I lived, or what hardships I went through, so that I could but gain souls to Christ. I continued in this frame all the evening and all the night. When I was asleep I dreamed of these things, and when I waked (as I frequently did), the first thing I thought of was this great work of pleading for God against Satan.”
When the day dawned he hurried to the woods to pour out his soul again to God, and emerge into the open again, with “a strong hope that God would bear the burdens and come down and do some marvelous work among the heathen.”
After three miles’ riding he reached the Indians, who were dancing wildly, and engaged in the frantic leaping’s and shouting’s which is still one of the distinguishing and terrifying characteristics of their worship. Brainerd went right into the midst of them, and with the blessing of the Divine companionship clothing him with grace and power, he persuaded them to cease and break up their gathering, so far, indeed, succeeding, that the Indians, who were frolicking about their medicine men, grouped themselves around the young Puritan, and listened with rapt attention to the Word of the Lord. Strange to say, after this remarkable answer to prayer, the preacher slowly wended his way home, disconsolate and buffeted by the insinuations of the evil one. “I was very weak and weary, and my soul borne down with perplexity, but was mortified to all the world, and was determined still to wait upon God for the conversion of the heathen, though the devil tempted me to the contrary.”
After this followed three weeks of illness, intense pain, in the midst of which he managed to crawl to his Indians to speak to them, but in truth he was sick and ready to die. He would sit amongst them, Bible in hand, pondering the Word of Life. Here we see the hero spirit in this faithful witness. Suffering made his work apostolic; with scarcely an exception he shared the same trials of him who speaks of being “in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils on the sea, in perils amongst false brethren, in weariness and painfulness, in watching’s often, in hunger and thirst, in fasting’s often, in cold and nakedness.”
At last he is so enfeebled that he cannot leave his hut, and the uncertainty of his mind begins to fill him with alarm. What infinite tenderness lies in these words which he scrawled upon paper as he lay there alone, save for his God.
“I am obliged to let all my thoughts and concerns run at random, for I have neither strength to read, meditate or pray, and this naturally perplexes my mind. I seem to myself like a man that has all his estate embarked in one small boat, unhappily going adrift down a swift torrent. The poor man stands on the shore and looks, and laments his loss. But alas! though my all seems to be adrift, and I stand and see it, I dare not lament, for this sinks my spirit more and aggravates my bodily disorders. I am forced, therefore, to divert myself with trifles, although at the same time I air afraid and often feel as if I was guilty of the mismanagement of time. And oftentimes my conscience is so exercised with the miserable way of spending time, that I have no peace, though I have no strength of mind or body to improve it to better purpose, and hope that God will pity my distressed state!”
God did so, and Brainerd sets forth upon a missionary journey of four hundred and twenty miles, and then after a few days’ rest, with recovered strength he goes forth to meet his friend Byram, who was to be his companion on an expedition to the Indians at Susquehannah. This journey was adventurous and fraught with danger. They traveled mile after mile through a wilderness which Brainerd calls “hideous and howling,” then reaching a mountain range they had to find or make a track over their brows, and through the awful gorges and chasms at their feet. One dark night just where a precipice was near, Brainerd’s horse trapped its leg between the rocks and threw its rider, fortunately without injury to him, but he had to kill the horse, as with her legs broken he knew there was no help for it in such a desert place. Here halting for a space they gathered a few bushes and made a fire, and then heaping up some slight shelter from the biting wind they committed themselves to their God, and fell asleep upon the turf.
“Through the day Thy love hath spared us;
Wearied we lie down to rest,
Through the silent watches guard us,
Let no foe our peace molest,
Jesus, Thou our guardian be,
Sweet it is to trust in Thee.
“Pilgrims here on earth, and strangers,
Dwelling in the midst of foes,
Us and ours preserve from dangers,
In Thine arms may we repose,
And when life’s short day is past,
Rest with Thee in heaven at last.”
Their reception by the Indian encampment was cordial and satisfactory. Brainerd courteously saluted the king or chief, and forthwith preached to the large crowd of braves who, with their squaws, gathered round. The following day he preached again, and asked them to put off a grand hunting expedition, for which they were preparing, in order that he might continue for a few days more to instruct them in the truths of Christianity. This they consented to do, but he was a little astonished and “rather damped,” as he says, to find some of the leading Indians entering into argument with him, and raising strong objections to Christianity. What these objections were is an interesting inquiry, and fortunately amongst the other valuable memoranda which Brainerd left behind him, is a statement of the difficulties which the Indian feels standing in the way of his accepting the Gospel.
The first of these is a sorrowful fact, the objection which not only these poor Indians of a hundred and fifty years ago felt well-nigh insurmountable, but which, amongst the heathen and the civilized alike, is the difficulty to-day. The following words of Brainerd, sounding like a far-off appeal to Christians across the dim waste of years, is painfully, pitifully true, and needed in the mission world to-day. He tells us that these Indians have a rooted aversion to Christianity, and abhor even the Christian name. Why? “This aversion to Christianity arises partly from a view of the immorality and vicious behavior of many who are called Christians. They observe that horrid wickedness in nominal Christians, which the light of nature condemns in themselves, and not having distinguishing views of things, are ready to look upon all the white people alike for the abominable practices of some. Hence, when I have attempted to treat with them about Christianity, they have frequently objected to the scandalous practices of Christians. They have observed to me that the white people lie, defraud, steal, and drink worse than the Indians; that they have taught the Indians these things, especially the latter of them, who before the coming of the English knew of no such thing as strong drink; that the English have by these means made them quarrel and kill one another, and in a word brought them to the practice of all those vices which now prevail amongst them.”
Another objection to Christianity preferred by these Indians is still a difficulty in many fields of work today, that is the “fear of being enslaved.” When Brainerd told these people that Christianity was for their good, they would remind him of their losses of land, of liberty; that the white men were so strong, and had such means of killing them, that they were suspicious that the missionary had only been “sent out to draw them together under a pretense of kindness to them, that they may have an opportunity to make slaves of them, as they do of the poor negroes, or else to ship them on board their vessels, and make them fight with their enemies, etc.” They are very suspicious, not without reason too, of the friendship of the white man. “He never would,” they said, with a cautious shake of the head, “take all these pains to do us good, he must have some wicked design to hurt us in some way or other.”
Brainerd enters very fully into another and more serious objection, “their strong attachment to their own religious notions (if they may be called religious), and the early prejudices they have imbibed in favor of their own frantic and ridiculous kind of worship.” He was evidently not impressed very favorably with the practices of the native religion. He tells us that he finds a belief existing that all birds, beasts, and reptiles must be reverenced, because they are possessed with a Divine power to do good or evil to mankind, “whence such a creature becomes sacred to the persons to whom he is supposed to be the immediate author of good, and through him they must worship the invisible powers, though to others he is no more than another creature. And perhaps another animal is looked upon to be the immediate author of good to another, and consequently he must worship the invisible powers in that animal. I have seen a Pagan burn fine tobacco for incense in order to appease the anger of that invisible power which he supposed presided over rattlesnakes, because one of these animals was killed by another Indian near his house.” Before the coming of the English they had a belief in four deities, occupying the four corners of the earth, but when they saw the pale faces they reduced the number to three, one creating English, another Negroes, and the third themselves. They had peculiar notions about the future state, believing implicitly that the chichung (i.e., the shadow), or what survives death, goes southward to a place of perfect happiness and content. A curious circumstance was that these Indians held a notion that sins and offenses were only as regards themselves, and it never occurred to them that they could fail of a happy hereafter from any want of religious observance or belief. “I remember,” says Brainerd, “I once consulted a very ancient but intelligent Indian upon the point for my own satisfaction, and asked him whether the Indians of old times had supposed there was anything of the man that would survive the body. He replied, Yes.’ I asked him where they supposed its abode would be? He replied, “It would go southward.” I asked him further whether it would be happy there? He answered, after a considerable pause, ‘ that the souls of good folks would be happy, and the souls of bad folks miserable.’ I then asked him who he called bad folks? His answer (as I remember) was, those who lie, steal, quarrel with their neighbors, are unkind to their friends, and especially to aged parents, and, in a word, such as are a plague to mankind.”
Akin to this loyalty to religious beliefs, is the immense influence of their pow-wows or magicians.
however, of all their pretensions, calling it a mystery of iniquity, and altogether of Satan. One fact, however, he mentions is worthy of a brief record here, being the confession to him made by one of these powwows after his conversion. He explained to the missionary how the spirit of divination came upon him. “He was admitted into the presence of a wonderful being, who loved, pitied, and desired to do him good. The interview took place in the upper heaven, this being was shining as the brightest day, and in him was reflected all the world. By his side stood his shadow or spirit (chichung), lovely as the man himself, and after declaring who should be this Indian’s mother, he was asked to choose what he should be in life. First to be a hunter, and afterward a pow-wow was the reply. Whereupon the great man told him he should have what he desired, and that his shadow should go along with him down to earth and be with him forever. There was, he says, all this time, no words spoken between them. The conference was not carried on by any human language, but they had a kind of mental intelligence of each other’s thoughts, dispositions, and proposals. After this he says he saw the great man no more, but supposes he has come down to earth to be born, but the spirit or shadow of the great man still attended him, and ever after continued to appear to him in dreams and other ways, until he felt the power of God’s Word upon his heart, since which it has entirely left him.”
These statements, selected from many more which Brainerd has preserved, will show the material with which he had to deal in preaching to the Indians.
They also show that in times past as in times present, the human heart, both among the heathen and the civilized, is pre-occupied with false notions and bewildering speculations forming a barrier to the entrance of the Word. But then, as now, when the Gospel is faithfully preached and sincerely received, it is the power of God unto salvation freeing the soul from slavish superstitions, and clothing it with a robe of clear faith and sweet love. But to those who accepted Christ persecution followed, and the powwows would dance before the young convert in a frenzy of threatening rage.
The history of this devoted missionary is full of evidence of the power of Christianity to effect, as nothing else can, this radical change in human nature. No material could be perhaps more unpromising in many respects than these wild Indian tribes, who were addicted to many brutalities as well as the practice of most heathenish superstitions. While Brainerd was spending his night-watches in the lonely woods, he was in danger not only of wild beasts but of the almost wilder men who roamed abroad, exulting in the trophies of scalped victims, and ready for any act of savagery in their thirst for blood. Unto such as these the missionary poured out the message of his soul, denouncing without fear the blind idolatry of their festivities, and preaching to them an undiluted Gospel which counted them as all under sin and condemnation. We have seen from his own testimony how this made the medicine men his enemies; the hope of their gains was gone, their hold upon the superstitious Indians was relaxed as the light of Christ’s Gospel dawned in the hearts of the people. But undaunted Brainerd went on, strong in a sense of being where duty called him, stronger still and more assured in the knowledge that God stood by him and would not desert His witness in the face of the foe.
“With force of arms we nothing can,
Full soon were we downridden;
But for us fights the proper Man,
Whom God Himself hath bidden.
Ask ye who is this same?
Christ Jesus is His name,
The Lord Sabaoth’s Son;
He and no other one
Shall conquer in the battle.” ―Luther
After Many Days.
Chapter 6.
“Lone watcher on the mountain height
It is right precious to behold
The first long surf of climbing light
Flood all the thirsty east with gold;
But we who in the shadow sit,
Know also when the day is nigh,
Seeing thy shining forehead lit
With His inspiring prophecy.” ―Lowell.
There are two ways of finding happiness, it is said, either by trying to get all that we want, or by reducing our wants to the very smallest compass. Socrates, looking in the Athenian shop-window was twitted by an observer as forgetting his philosophy in coveting the gold and silver which he saw. But he said it was not so, he was just feeling thankful that there were so many things which he could do without. And it is quite true of everything, that the more we have the more we want, whether of happiness, money, or righteousness.
David Brainerd was a Christian philosopher, and he tried, and not unsuccessfully, to endure hardness as a good soldier, and not cumber himself with too many wants, as regards this world. As we have already seen, when he began his ministry among the Indians he made a clean sweep of all those desires and attractions, which might otherwise bind him to a civilized community. He felt that if he meant to catch fish he must stand in the stream, and if he wished to win these poor Indians for Christ he must dwell amongst them as much as possible, as one of themselves. Of course, in those days, New England life had not the abundant comforts or luxuries to which a missionary has to say farewell in our times, but the sweet simplicity and severe regularity of those Puritan homesteads had much to hold the heart of a man of Brainerd’s mold. Henceforth, however, the wilderness must be his home, and instead of the meeting-house, the shadowy woods and dark ravines the places where he meets his God. In these solitudes he had high and inspiring communion, and amidst many hardships and perils he was able to rejoice in the compensation of the peace which passeth all understanding. He tells us his mind, under these trials, after a terribly arduous ride home one night in one of his missionary journeys: ―“About six at night,” says he, “I lost my way in the wilderness, and wandered over rocks and mountains, down hideous steeps, through swamps and most dreadful and dangerous places, and the night being dark, so that few stars could be seen, I was greatly exposed. I was much pinched with cold, and distressed with an extreme pain in my head, attended with sickness at my stomach, so that every step I took was distressing to me. I had little hope for several hours together but that I must lie out in the woods all night in this distressed case. But about nine o’clock I found a house, through the abundant goodness of God, and was kindly entertained. Thus I have frequently been exposed, and sometimes lain out the whole night, but God has hitherto preserved me, and, blessed be His name, such fatigues and hardships as these seem to wean me more from the earth, and I trust will make heaven the sweeter. Formerly, when I was thus exposed to cold, rain, etc., I was ready to please myself with the thoughts of enjoying a comfortable house, a warm fire, and other outward comforts, but now these have less place in my heart (through the grace of God) and my eye is more to God for comforts. In this world I expect tribulation, and it does not now, as formerly, appear strange to me. I do not in such seasons of difficulty flatter myself that it might be better hereafter, but rather think how much worse it might be, how much greater trials others of God’s children have endured, and how much greater are yet reserved for me. Blessed be God that He makes the thoughts of my journey’s end and of my dissolution a great comfort to me under my sharpest trials, and scarce ever lets these thoughts be attended with terror or melancholy, but they are attended frequently with great joy.”
Thus had Brainerd found the secret of happiness, not in gratifying every craving of his heart, or by extinguishing those desires, but by glorying in tribulation, and thinking more of the mercy of God than of his own sufferings.
Of this man it may be truly said he died daily, death constantly seemed to stare him in the face, and meet him at every turn of the way. So often sorely stricken with sickness, he was always urging himself on to do more, and do it quickly lest it should be too late. “I long to do much in a little time,” he says, “and, if it might be the Lord’s will, to finish my work speedily in this tiresome world. I am sure I do not desire to live for anything in this world, and through grace I am not afraid to look the King of Terrors in the face.
He found it still necessary to use an interpreter, as his command of the language was not sufficient, and with this man, whom he had baptized after profession of the Christian faith, Brainerd set out in May, 1745, for Susquehannah. Their journey was most unpropitious, the country bleak and shelterless, and in the night time being visited by awful storms of rain and thunder. They could find no place of cover, and the sheets of water which descended made it impossible to light a fire, and to add to their troubles, their horses had eaten a poisonous plant, which rendered them good for nothing. However, they kept on their way on foot, leading their animals, and at last finding a little Indian hut of bark, they were thankful to rest there. This missionary tour covered over a hundred miles, along the banks of the river; meeting with seven or eight distinct tribes of Indians, and, in preaching to them he discerned how hostile they were towards Christianity. A few he found, however, willing to learn, and these he carefully instructed in the Word of God, and was much encouraged on finding some of the Indians who had been with him at Kaunaumeck recognizing him with great gladness. Afterward he seems to have had much freedom in speaking to the people, although as usual his physical health was in a lamentable state. It was with difficulty that he managed to return to his quarters at the Forks of Delaware, having traversed three hundred and forty miles. Brainerd frequently spoke of the difficulties with which he had to contend in his work by reason of the Indian settlements lying so far apart. During the space of three years he had to build for himself a house in three different and far distant localities-viz., Kaunaumeck, the Forks of Delaware, and Crossweeksung, and he had to pass between these places constantly. He says that they needed his constant attention, for the oldest of them was but as a child in his dependence upon the missionary for advice and stimulus to action. He knew these people and studied their character very closely, and has set down his impressions very clearly and in a manner full of interest. The question of the Indians, and what will be done with them, is and will be a very strong point with the people of America. Although the Indian is rapidly disappearing, the world will not soon forget him, and the opinions which Brainerd formed all those years ago is well worth preserving.
“The Indians are a poor and indigent people, and so destitute of the comforts of life, at some seasons of the year especially, that it is impossible for a person, who has any pity for them, to refrain from giving assistance (as, in some cases, it is peculiarly necessary), in order to remove their pagan jealousy, and engage their friendship to Christianity. And while they retain their pagan tempers, they discern little gratitude amidst all the kindnesses they receive. If they make any presents, they expect double satisfaction. And Christianity itself does not at once cure them of these ungrateful tempers.
“They have been bred up in idleness, and know little about cultivating land, or indeed, of engaging vigorously in any other business. So that I am obliged to instruct them in, as well as press them to, the performance of their work, and to be the oversight of all their secular business. They have little or no ambition or resolution. Not one in a thousand of them has the spirit of a man. And it is next to impossible to make them sensible of the duty and importance of being active, diligent, and industrious in the management of their worldly business, and to excite in them any spirit of promptitude of that nature. When I have labored to the utmost of my ability to show them of what importance it would be to the Christian interest among them, as well as to their worldly comfort, for them to be laborious and prudent in their business, and to furnish themselves with the comforts of life, how this would incline the pagans to come among them, and so put them under, the means of salvation; how it would encourage religious persons of the white people to help them, as well as stop the mouths of others that were disposed to cavil against them; how they might, by this means, pay others their just dues, and so prevent trouble from coming upon themselves and reproach upon their Christian profession; they have, indeed, assented to all I said, but been little moved, and, consequently, have acted like themselves, or, at least, too much so, though it must be acknowledged that those who appear to have a sense of Divine things are considerably amended in this respect, and it is to be hoped that time will make a yet greater alleviation upon them for the better.
“The concern I have had for the settling of these Indians in New Jersey in a compact form, in order to their being a Christian congregation, in the capacity of enjoying the means of grace, the care of managing their worldly business in order to this end, and to their having a comfortable livelihood, has been more pressing to my mind, and cost me more labor and fatigue for several months past, than all my other work among them.
“Their wandering to and fro, in order to procure the necessaries of life, is another difficulty that attends my work. This has often deprived me of opportunities to discourse with them, and it has thrown them in the way of temptation, either among pagans further remote, where they have gone to hunt, who have laughed at them for hearkening to Christianity, or among white people, more horribly wicked, who have often made them drunk, and then got their commodities-such as skins, baskets, brooms, shovels, and the like, with which they designed to have bought corn and other necessaries of life, for themselves and families-for it may be nothing but a little strong liquor, and then sent them home empty. So that for the labor, perhaps, of several weeks, they have got nothing but the satisfaction of being drunken men, and have not only lost their labor, but, which is infinitely worse, the impressions of some Divine subjects that were made upon their minds before.”
It will be noticed, in the foregoing, that strong drink, that curse of all the nations, had already begun to produce its fatal results upon the poor Indians. Perhaps there is no more conspicuous example to be found in the history of any people, of the swift degradation of a race, through drink, than in the case of the North American Indians. The fine qualities of these people, their dignity and hardihood, have rapidly disappeared by the desolating contact with what is miscalled civilization. Since Brainerd’s day they have lost their land wholesale, and are fast dying out in poverty, drink, and despair. What drink has begun, the bullet is rapidly completing, and the Indians, among whose forefathers Brainerd labored, and about whose life all New England poets have sung, will soon be a forgotten people.
Brainerd tells us at this time (July, 1745), about the conversion of his interpreter, a native who had been with him for some time. He and his wife were the first Indians baptized by him. This man’s spiritual history, as presented in Brainerd’s journal, is very interesting. At one time a hard drinker, he seems to have undergone a moral reformation after he entered the service of the missionary, and even showed a desire to do all he could to persuade the Indians to give up their idolatries and accept Christianity. But as regards his own soul, he seemed to give the message no heed. One day, however, Brainerd had been preaching with very great power, and his interpreter who was assisting him was much impressed. After a time this wore off, but returned again with extraordinary intensity. Like his master he began to agonize about his spiritual state, sleep departed from him, and his fellow Indians noticed him as, with the deepest concern, he walked to and fro among them, crying “What should I do to be saved?” He told Brainerd that before him there rose a high mountain up which he was bound to ascend, but when he essayed to do this “his way was hedged up with thorns that he could not stir an inch farther.” Vainly he strove, the more he labored to climb the mountain the more he grew exhausted and despairing, so that he said, “it signified just nothing at all for me to strive and struggle any longer.” The gloom upon him was deep, and looking back upon his life he lamented that while he had not been such a sinner as some Indians, “he had never done one good thing.” At the same time he saw clearly that others about were in the same peril and difficulty, and in their present condition quite unable to save themselves. Thus in his trouble of heart he almost gave himself up for lost, when he said it was as if an audible voice spoke to him, “There is hope; there is hope!” And one day this hope passed into a happy possession, for he was filled with peace through believing in Jesus Christ, then he was able to go amongst the Indians with a zealous regard for their salvation, and the temptation of strong drink, “in divers places where it was moving free as water,” was.no allurement to him. Brainerd after describing this man’s happy state, says of him, “Upon a new and strict observation of his serious and savory conversation, his Christian temper and unblemished behavior for a considerable time, as well as his experience I have given account of, I think that I have good reason to hope that he is “created anew in Christ Jesus to good works.” His name is Moses Tinda Tantamy, he is about fifty years of age, and is pretty well acquainted with the pagan notions and customs of his countrymen, and so is the better able now to expose them. He has, I am persuaded, already been and I trust will yet be a blessing to the other Indians.”
Success at last began to cheer the heart of the missionary who had worked so hard without seeing much perceptible fruit. At the request of the Society he made the Indian town of Crossweeksung, in New Jersey, his station, and from there he constantly journeyed to the various Indian tribes scattered abroad. The power of the Holy Ghost was upon him, and as he preached the Indians were impressed in a wonderful manner. The changed demeanor of his hearers made a striking difference on his spirits, he no longer constantly yearns for death, but says that he “is willing to live, and in some respects desirous of it, that I might do something for the dear Kingdom of Jesus Christ.” The penitence of these poor Indians greatly affected him, he could not look upon them lamenting their sins and praying for mercy, with dry eyes. When they gathered for their evening meal in the wigwam they would wait until he came to bless the food; and once when he was in a place preaching, he noticed several weeping together, who came afterward with the question of the Philippian jailor, and received the apostolic reply and guidance. Upon his heart had been the burden, and in those midnight meetings with the Almighty, when no eye saw and no ear heard the strivings of the saint for the sinner’s good, his cry had been, “I will not let Thee go.” Prayer offered thus was a prevailing power with God, and He who will be inquired of, hearkened unto His suppliant’s desire. Light was breaking in the backwoods, and a presence, far more wonderful than the great Spirit whom they had ignorantly worshipped, was manifested in the hearts of these heathen. How often in the solitude of the night had Brainerd striven in prayer for these souls so precious to God. “My soul, my very soul, longed for the ingathering of the poor heathen, and I cried to God for them most willingly and heartily; I could not but cry.” The tarrying may be long, but it is only tarrying; the worker may toil, the disciple yearn in love, the sower sow in tears, but the time of the singing of birds must come, and the sunshine of God’s favor brings joyously His kingdom in the hearts of men.
“Soul, then know thy full salvation;
Rise o’er sin and fear and care;
Joy to find in every station
Something still to do or bear.
Think what spirit dwells within thee;
Think what Father’s smiles are thine;
Think what Jesus did to win thee;
Child of heaven, canst thou repine’
“Haste thee on from grace to glory,
Armed by faith, and winged by prayer,
Heaven’s eternal clays before thee;
God’s own hand shall guide thee there.
Soon shall close thine earthly mission;
Soon shall pass thy pilgrim days;
Hope shall change to full fruition,
Faith to sight, and prayer to praise.”
Lyle.
A Revival in Susquehannah.
Chapter 7.
“My prayer hath power with God; the grace
Unspeakable I now receive;
Through faith, I see Thee face to face,
I see Thee face to face and live;
In vain, I have not wept and strove;
Thy nature and Thy name is Love.” ―Wesley.
The angel has seemed of late to trouble the waters, “said Brainerd in the month of August, 1745, and the time had come when the multitude of his poor sin-stricken Indians should hasten down the steps of repentance to find restoration and salvation in the fountain open for sin and uncleanness. At last, the burden of so many prayers of strong crying’s after God in the darkness of the forest and of languishing longings for the souls of the benighted was answered abundantly, and the very windows of heaven opened to shower down the blessing of grace Divine. The servant had long to wait and, sometimes in the cloudy prospect of continued disappointment, Brainerd had felt need enough to pray for himself that his own faith fail not.” My rising hopes, respecting the conversion of the Indians, “he says,” have been so often dashed, that my spirit is as it were broken and courage wasted, and I dare hardly hope. “Not only so, his power in preaching sometimes showed a conscious droop, and perhaps because of the depression of his own heart, seeing so little fruit of his incessant labors, the liberty and zeal of his utterances flagged. Here we see how wonderfully God was educating him, and how in the right spirit he learned the lesson of discipline.” It pleased God to leave me very dry and barren, “he says in a note after preaching one day,” so I do not remember to have been so straitened for a whole twelvemonth past. God is just, and He has made my soul acquiesce in His will in this regard. It is contrary to flesh and blood to be cut off from all freedom in a large auditory, where their expectations are much raised, but so it was with me, and God helped me to say Amen to it― “Good is the will of the Lord.”
Now, however, the cloud lifts and the heart compelling light of the Spirit of the Lord scatters the darkness. The revival in Susquehannah will stand on record as one of the most remarkable events in the history of Christian enterprise. Suddenly upon the whole Indian population fell what Brainerd calls “a most surprising concern.” From all parts, the people came streaming in, holding his bridle and crowding round his horse to catch a few words of instruction, standing in speechless interest to hear his preaching, and falling down in frantic distress of soul. He stood among them and talked about those wondrous words, “Herein is love,” while the air was full of their cries for mercy. “Not three in forty,” he says, “were unaffected in this manner.” One of the striking features of this revival was the fact that the preaching to which they listened had nothing of the terrors of the law in it. Brainerd specially observes this, and is surprised to find the hearts of these Indians so melted by the story of the love of Jesus. He walks up to a group of men who are bitterly weeping, and asks them what they want God to do for them. They replied, “They wanted Christ should wipe their hearts quite clean, etc. Surprising were now the doings of the Lord, that I can say no less of this day―and I need say no more of it―than that the arm of the Lord was powerfully and marvelously revealed in it.” The cry of those penitents is well expressed by one who himself had preached the Gospel to the Indians in Georgia: ―
“O my God what must I do?
Thou alone the way canst show;
Thou canst save me in this hour,
I have neither will nor power;
God, if over all Thou art,
Greater than my sinful heart,
All Thy power on me be shown,
Take away the heart of stone.”
Here is a brief extract from Brainerd’s journal, describing in his own words at the time, some of these extraordinary scenes of spiritual awakening: ―
“In the afternoon I preached to the Indians, their number was now about sixty-five persons, men, women, and children. I discoursed from Luke 14:16-23, and was favored with uncommon freedom in my discourse. There was much visible concern among them while I was discoursing publicly, but afterward when I spoke to one and another more particularly, whom I perceived under much concern, the power of God seemed to descend upon the assembly like “a rushing mighty wind,” and with an astonishing energy bore down all before it.
“I stood amazed at the influence which seized the audience almost universally and could compare it to nothing more aptly than the irresistible force of a mighty torrent or swelling deluge, that with its insupportable weight and pressure bears down and sweeps before it whatever is in its way. Almost all persons of all ages were bowed down with concern together, and scarce one was able to withstand the shock of this surprising operation. Old men and women who had been drunken wretches for many years, and some little children, not more than six or seven years of age, appeared in distress for their souls, as well as persons of middle age. And it was apparent these children (some of them at least) were not merely frightened with seeing the general concern, but were made sensible of their danger, the badness of their hearts, and their misery without Christ, as some of them expressed it. The most stubborn hearts were now obliged to bow. A principal man among the Indians, who before was most secure and self-righteous, and thought his state good because he knew more than the generality of the Indians had formerly done, and who with a great degree of confidence the day before told me he had been a Christian more than ten years, was now brought under solemn concern for his soul and wept bitterly. Another man, advanced in years, who had been a murderer, a pow-wow (or conjuror), a notorious drunkard, was likewise brought now to cry for mercy with many tears, and to complain much that he could be no more concerned when he saw his danger so very great.
“They were almost universally praying and crying for mercy in every part of the house and many out of doors, and numbers could neither go nor stand. Their concern was so great, each one for himself, that none seemed to take any notice of those about them, but each praying freely for himself. And I am to think they were to their own apprehension as much retired as if they had been individually by themselves in the thickest desert, or believe rather that they thought nothing about any but themselves, and their own states and so here every one praying apart although all together.
“It seemed to me there was now an exact fulfillment of that prophecy, Zechariah 12 to, 11, 12 for there was now a great mourning like the mourning of Hadadrimmon, and each seemed to mourn apart. We thought this had a near resemblance to the day of God’s power mentioned, Joshua 10:14, for I must say I never saw any day like it in all respects; it was a day wherein I am persuaded, the Lord did much to destroy the kingdoms of darkness among this people.
“This concern in general was most rational and just, those who had been awakened any considerable time complained more especially of the badness of their hearts, and those newly awakened of the badness of their lives and actions past, and all were afraid of the anger of God, and of everlasting misery as the desert of their sins. Some of the white people who came out of curiosity to hear what this babbler would say to the poor ignorant Indians were much awakened, and some appeared to be wounded with a view of their perishing state.”
The picture of these poor children of the woods stretching out hands of faith to the Saviour, and weeping their way to forgiveness and peace, is full of spiritual beauty and interest. As Brainerd tells us, there were some white men who stood at a distance, possibly to criticize, of whom a few at any rate “who came to scoff remained to pray.” But others did as some do now, look on incredulously and with scarce concealed scorn at the sight of sinners finding salvation. They stand aside while as the great Master Himself said, “the publicans and the harlots” crowd into the kingdom, and the heathen who aforetime were afar off are now brought nigh by the blood of Jesus.
Human hearts in their bondage of misery and happy release by the atonement of Christ are still the same; there is a wonderful similarity between the three thousand who were pricked in their heart on the day of Pentecost, the crying Indians in Susquehannah, and those who gladly receive the Word to-day. This is evidenced by the following extract from Brainerd’s journal: ―
“A young Indian woman who I believe never knew before she had a soul, nor ever thought of any such thing, hearing that there was something strange among the Indians, came, it seems, to see what was the matter. On her way to the Indians she called at my lodgings, and when I told her I designed presently to preach to the Indians, laughed and seemed to mock; but went, however, to them. I had not proceeded far in my public discourse before she felt effectually that she had a soul, and before I had concluded my discourse, she was so convinced of her sin and misery and so distressed with concern for her soul’s salvation, that she seemed like one pierced through with a dart, and cried out incessantly. She could neither go, nor stand, nor sit on her seat without being held up. After public service was over she lay flat on the ground praying earnestly, and would take no notice of nor give any answer to any that spoke to her. I hearkened to know what she said, and perceived the burden of her prayer to be, Guttummaukalummeh weehaumeh Kineleh Ndah; that is Have mercy on me and help me to give you my heart.” And thus she continued praying incessantly for many hours together. This was, indeed, a surprising day of God’s power, and seemed enough to convince an atheist of the truth, importance, and power of God’s Word.
“I spent almost the whole day with the Indians, the former part of it in discoursing to many of them privately, and especially to some who had lately received comfort, and endeavoring to inquire into the grounds of it as well as to give them some proper instructions, cautions, and directions.
“In the afternoon I discoursed to them publicly. There were now present about seventy persons, old and young. I opened and applied the parable of the sower, Matthew 13. I was enabled to discourse with much plainness, and found afterward that this discourse was very instructive to them. There were many tears among them while I was discoursing publicly, but no considerable cry, yet some were much affected with a few words spoken from Matthew 11:28, “Come unto Me all ye that labor,” etc. with which I concluded my discourse. But while I was discoursing near night to two or three of the unknown persons a Divine influence seemed to attend what was spoken to them in a peaceful manner, which caused the persons to cry out in anguish of soul although I spoke not a word of terror, but on the contrary set before them the fullness and all suffering of Christ’s merits and His willingness to save all that came to Him, and therefore pressed them to come without delay.
“The cry of these was soon heard by others, who though scattered before, immediately gathered round. I then proceeded in the same strain of Gospel invitation, till they were all melted into tears and cried except two or three, and seemed in the greatest distress to find and secure an interest in the great Redeemer; some who had but little more than a ruffle made in their passions the day before, seemed now to be deeply affected and wounded at heart, and the concern in general appeared to us as prevalent as it was on the day before. There was indeed a very treat mourning among them, and yet everyone seemed to mourn apart. For so great was their concern that almost everyone was praying and crying for himself, as if none had been near; Guttummaukalummeh, guttummaukalummeh; that is, “Have mercy upon me, have mercy upon me,” was the common cry.
“It was very affecting to see the poor Indians, who the other day were hallooing and yelling in their idolatrous feasts and drunken frolics now crying to God with such importunity for an interest in His dear Son. I found two or three persons who I had reason to hope had taken comfort upon good grounds since the evening before, and these with others that had obtained comfort were together, and seemed to rejoice much that God was carrying on His work with such force upon others.”
Faith we know without works is dead, and the reality of this great spiritual stir among the Indians was proved by this thoroughness of their change of life. When they had received the inexpressible comfort of Christ’s peace, these converts asked Brainerd for instruction as to their mode of life, and were willing to do anything which would conform their conduct to the principles of the Christian religion. Questions of morality, of honesty in trading, of kindness to children, and duty to wives and husbands, were discussed freely with a desire to know the way of God in these matters. One chief who had deserted his wife was ready now to return to her, and behave as a good and faithful husband, and this he publicly promised. She being also a Christian convert did likewise solemnly vow to be faithful and forgiving to him. Brainerd is not far wrong in estimating this action at its proper value when he says, “There appeared a clear demonstration of the power of God’s Word upon their hearts. I suppose a few weeks before the whole world could not have persuaded this man to a compliance with Christian rules in this affair.”
Others seem to have caught the spirit of their teacher, and were so happy in their communion with God, that they cared not how soon the earthly house of this tabernacle be dissolved that they might be with Him for evermore. To them Brainerd explained the doctrine of the resurrection, and they evidently understood the glorious hope which lights the Christian’s grave with radiance from the other side.
Another simple incident very strikingly portrays the effect of the tenderness which the heart felt now under the power of Christ. An Indian squaw, who had been converted in those days of blessing, was found one morning weeping very bitterly. She had spoken in anger to her child the evening before, and the thought of it had made her so grieved and sorry that until daylight she wept over her misdoing. The poor woman with her enlightened conscience had reached a point of sensitiveness to which perhaps many of the more privileged mothers of to-day have not by any means attained.
As we have seen, these remarkable results of the work of Brainerd attracted the attention of his own countrymen, and he tells us on more than one occasion how his congregation was augmented by Presbyterians, Baptists, Quakers, etc. From these, however, he does not seem to have had much encouragement, and on one occasion makes a note of “There being a multitude of white people present, I made an address to them at the close of my discourse to the Indians, but could not so much as keep them orderly, for scores of them kept walking and gazing about, and behaved more indecently than any Indians I ever addressed, and a view of their abusive conduct so sunk my spirits that I could scarce go on with my work.”
But the love of his own people warmed his heart; and those for whose sake he had given up everything dear in life now clustered round the pale, young, missionary with gratitude and attachment. The sight of whole tribes of Indians hungering and thirsting after the righteousness which is in Christ Jesus, gave him comfort and joy beyond all expression, and compensated him for the weary waiting, the sufferings, bodily and mentally, the exposure, privations, and lonely distress he had endured, for at last he saw the work of the Lord prospering in his hands.
“There are no words like these words; how blessed they be!
How calming when Jesus says, Come unto Me.
O hear them, my heart, they were spoken to me,
And still they are calling thee― Come unto Me.”
“I will walk through the world with these words on my heart;
Through sorrow or sin they shall never depart;
And when dying I hope He will whisper to me,
I have loved thee, and saved thee, come, sinner, to Me.”
Paxton Hood.
The Light Spreads
Chapter 8.
“Before the Savior’s face
The ransom’d nations bow,
O’erwhelm’d at His Almighty grace
Forever now;
He shows His prints of Love,
They kindle to a flame,
And sound through all the worlds above
The slaughtered Lamb!” ―Oliver’s.
In the presence of a large assemblage of Indians, including some white men whose curiosity had brought them thither, Brainerd baptized a number of native converts, and by this rite received them after public profession into the Christian Church. After the spectators had gone he called these believers to him and gave them suitable counsels as to their future conduct, and pointed out to them how necessary it would be for them to be watchful in view of their responsibility before God. The little group appear to have been much softened by this address, and as the speaker proceeded they took hold of each other’s hands as a sign of the new covenant of Christian brotherhood into which they had now entered.
The affection of these people towards their friend and pastor was very significant. Feeling it to be his duty to go on a visit to some other Indians at a distance, Brainerd asked them not only to excuse him for the sake of others, but to pray earnestly that his words might be blessed with success. They cheerfully assented and spent the whole night in prayer, ceasing not until they went out and saw the morning star in the sky. His interpreter was one of this praying band, and he spoke of the time as a season of much spiritual profit. On that same day an old Indian, who had been an idolater, and one who practiced many cruel rites, came to Brainerd, and gave up voluntarily his rattles, which are a kind of musical instrument used in the festivals and dances, and these being handed over to the Christian natives were speedily destroyed. With great simplicity these people, although in the enjoyment of a sense of God’s favor, were frequently filled with intense sorrow at the sight of their own unworthiness.
“I asked one of them,” says Brainerd, “who had obtained comfort and given hopeful evidences of being truly religious, why he now cried? He replied, when he thought how Christ was slain like a lamb, and spilled His blood for sinners, he could not help crying when he was all alone, and thereupon burst out into tears and cried again. I then asked his wife who had likewise been abundantly comforted wherefore she cried? She answered, “She, was grieved that the Indians here would not come to Christ as well as those at Crossweeksung.” I asked her if she found a heart to pray for them, and whether Christ had seemed to be near to her of late in prayer as in time past (which is my usual method of expressing a sense of the Divine presence). She replied, Yes, He had been near to her, and that at some times when she had been praying alone, her heart loved to pray so, that she could not bear to leave the place, but wanted to stay and pray longer.”
In the midst of these precious encouragements there was of course vouchsafed to Brainerd and his converts the grievous trouble of persecution and scoffing. Some idolatrous Indians who had come from a distance continually mocked these penitents and gibed at their tears; these also persistently refused to hear the missionary preach. He visited the king of the Delaware Indians, receiving promise of an open door to the work of the Gospel and also gathered the chiefs together for conversation, that is when they were sober, for we are told that they were drunk with the white man’s fire-water day after day. His experiences among the Indians at Invocanta Islands cannot be better told than in his own words: ―
“I visited the Indians again at Invocanta Islands and found them almost universally very busy in making preparations for a great sacrifice and dance. I had no opportunity to get them together in order to discourse with them about Christianity by reason of their being so much engaged about their sacrifice. My spirits were much sunk with the prospect so very discouraging and especially seeing I had now no interpreter but a pagan who was as much attached to idolatry as any of them (my own interpreter having left me the day before, being obliged to attend upon some important business, and knowing that he could neither speak nor understand the language of these Indians) so that I was under the greatest disadvantages imaginable. However, I attempted to discourse privately with some of them, but without any appearance of success, notwithstanding I still tarried with them.
“In the evening they met together, near a hundred of them, and danced round a large fire, having prepared ten fat deer for the sacrifice, ―the fat of whose inwards they burned in the fire while they were dancing, and sometimes raised the flame to a prodigious height, at the same time yelling and shouting in such a manner that they might easily have been heard two miles or more. They continued their sacred dance all night near the altar; after which they ate the flesh of the sacrifice, and so retired each one to his lodging.
“I enjoyed little satisfaction this night, being entirely alone on the island (as to any Christian company) and in the midst of this idolatrous revel, and having walked to and fro till body and mind were pained and much oppressed, I at length crept into a little crib made for corn and there slept on the poles.
“Lord’s Day, 21St September, 1745.―I spent the day with the Indians on the island. As soon as they were well up in the morning I attempted to instruct them, and labored for that purpose to get them together, but quickly found they had something else to do, for near noon they gathered together all their pow-wows (or conjurors) and set about half-a-dozen of them to playing their juggling tricks and acting their frantic, distracted postures, in order to find out why they were then so sickly upon the island, numbers of them being at that time disordered by a fever and bloody flux. In this exercise they were engaged for several hours making all the wild, ridiculous and distracted motions imaginable, sometimes singing, sometimes howling, sometimes extending their hands to the utmost stretch, spreading all their fingers, and they seemed to push with them as if they designed to fright something away, or at least keep it off at arm’s end, sometimes stroking their faces with their hands, then spouting water as fine as mist; sometimes sitting flat on the earth, then bowing down their faces to the ground, wringing their sides as if in pain and anguish, twisting their faces, turning up their eyes, grunting, puffing, etc.
“Their monotonous actions tended to excite ideas of horror, and seemed to have something in them, as I thought, peculiarly suited to raise the devil, if he could be raised by anything odd, ridiculous, or frightful. Some of them I could observe were much more fervent and devout in the business than others, and seemed to chant, peep, and mutter, with a good degree of warmth and vigor, as if determined to awake and engage the powers below. I sat at a small distance, not more than thirty feet from them (though undiscovered), with my Bible in my hand, resolving, if possible, to spoil their sport, and prevent them receiving any answers from the infernal world, and there viewed the whole scene. They continued their hideous charms and incantations for more than three hours, until they had all wearied themselves; and although they had in that space of time taken sundry intervals of rest, at length broke up, I apprehend without receiving any answer at all.
“After they had done pow-wowing, I attempted to discuss with them about Christianity, but they soon scattered, and gave me no opportunity for anything of that nature. A view of these things, while I was entirely alone in the wilderness, destitute of the society of any one that so much as named ‘the name of Christ, greatly sunk my spirits, gave me the most gloomy turn of mind imaginable, almost stripping me of all resolution and hope respecting further attempts for propagating the Gospel and converting these pagans, and rendered this the most burdensome and disagreeable Sabbath that ever I saw. But nothing I can truly say sunk and distressed me like the loss of my hope respecting their conversion. This concern appeared so great, and seemed to be so much my own, that I seemed to have nothing to do on earth if this failed. A prospect of the greatest success in the saving conversion of souls under Gospel-light, would have done little or nothing towards compensating for the loss of my hope in this respect; and my spirits now were so damped and depressed, that I had no heart nor power to make any further attempts among them for that purpose, and could not possibly recover my hope, resolution, and courage, by the utmost of my endeavors.”
These Indians, amongst whom he was then visiting, were very different from those he had left behind, and their customs as well as their language proved this. They never buried their dead, but allowed them to decay in cribs, above ground, then after a time they would take the bones and carefully wash them, and bury them in the usual manner. During his wanderings among these people, he met with a remarkable priest or reformer, who had been all his life endeavoring to restore the ancient religion of the Indians. He met Brainerd, dressed in full pontificals of bearskins, and a great mask of wood, one-half painted black and the other brown; with a most hideous mouth drawn awry. He danced, clashing his rattle of tortoise-shell, but never allowed any part of his body, not even his fingers, to be seen. He was evidently very devout, and much above the ordinary intelligence of these Indians, and invited Brainerd to come into his house or temple to discuss Christianity. He lamented freely the degenerate condition of the Indians, and said that their ignorance and wickedness so troubled him sometimes, that he went to the woods and lived alone there for months. “At length,” he said, “God comforted his heart, and showed him what he should do, and since then he has known God and tried to serve Him, and loved all men, be they who they would, so as he never did before.” Brainerd thus concludes his account of the time spent with this earnest seeker after God: ― “It was manifest he had a set of religious notions that he had looked into for himself, and not taken for granted upon base traditions, and he relished or disrelished whatever was spoken of a religious nature, according as it either agreed or disagreed with his standard. And while I was discussing he would sometimes say, “Now that I like, so God taught me so,” and some of his sentiments seemed very just. Yet he utterly denied the being of a devil, and declared there was no such creature known among the Indians of old times, whose religion he supposed he was attempting to revive. He likewise told me that departed souls all went southward, and that the difference between the good and bad was this, that the former were admitted into a beautiful town, with spiritual walls, or walls agreeable to the nature of souls, and that the latter would forever hover near those walls and in vain attempt to get in. He seemed to be sincere, honest and conscientious in his own way and according to his own religious notions, which was more than I ever saw in any other pagan. I perceived he was looked upon and derided among most of the Indians as a precise zealot, that made a needless noise about religious matters; but I must say there was something in his temper and disposition, that looked more like true religion than anything I ever observed amongst other heathens.
“But, alas! how deplorable is the state of the Indians upon this river! The brief representation I have here given of their notions and manners is sufficient to show that they are led captive by Satan at his will, in the most quiescent manner, and methinks might likewise be sufficient to excite the compassion and engage the prayers of pious souls for these their fellow-men who sit in ‘the regions of the shadow of death.” Very significant is the remark Brainerd further makes upon the character and circumstances of these people. He has been speaking of the fruitlessness of his labor to convert them to Christianity, and seems to sorrowfully account for it in these words: ―
“They live so near the white people that they are always in the way of strong liquor as well as the ill examples of nominal Christians, which render it so unspeakably difficult to treat with them about Christianity.”
Brainerd was glad to get back to Crossweeksung, and to meet with his beloved people once more. “To be with those,” he said, “seemed like being banished from God and all His people; to be with these, like being admitted into His family and to the enjoyment of His Divine presence.” They received him with much rejoicing, and, after his first service among them, on his retiring, being weary with his journeyings, they continued in prayer for two hours by themselves. On another occasion, he gathered them together to partake with him of the Lord’s Supper; a service of real communion with Christ and His people.
One day, after he had been preaching to a large audience, an Indian woman, quite a stranger to him and who had heard his voice for the first time, came forward to ask for the prayers of the Christians on her behalf, and, when she was made happy in a sense of sins forgiven, she expressed anxiety to return at once to her home, forty miles distant, in order to take the good news of salvation to her husband, that he also might be a Christian. Thus the work prospered, and the heart of the worker was abundantly cheered in his toil. Preaching became a joy to him, and the services which he held among the Indians his chief delight. The fears which had oppressed him as to their conversion, disappeared before this evident manifestation of the outpouring of the Spirit. Everywhere were signs of awakening, the squaws coming forward with their children to hear the good news of salvation, and old men who had been foremost in superstitious rites, asking with tears for forgiveness of their sin.
“The Word of God,” he says, “at this time, seemed to fall upon the assembly with a Divine power and influence, especially towards the close of my discourse, there was both a soul melting and bitter mourning in the audience. The dear Christians were refreshed and comforted-convictions revived in others and sundry persons newly awakened who had never been with us before; and so much of the Divine presence appeared in the assembly that it seemed that This was no other than the house of God and the gate of heaven.”
“With joy, we now approve
The truth of Jew’s love,
God, the universal God,
He, the door hath opened wide,
Faith on heathens hath bestowed,
Washed them in His bleeding side.
“Purged from the stains of sin,
By faith, they enter in;
Purchased and redeemed of old,
Added to the chosen race,
Now received into the fold,
Heathens sing the Saviour’s praise.”
A Grateful Review.
Chapter 9
“Not from a stock of ours, but Thine,
Jesus Thy flock we feed.
Thy unexhausted grace Divine
Supplies their every need.
But if we trust Thy providence,
Thy power and will to save,
We have the treasure to dispense,
And shall forever have!”
―Charles Wesley.
Such remarkable fruits of his ministry among the Indians naturally impressed Brainerd greatly, and with the carefulness of judgment which always characterized his way of looking at things, he was in no haste to immediately accept every conversion as a spiritual fact, to be the cause, perhaps, of lamenting and disappointment afterward. In one case of a notorious drunkard he deferred the rite of baptism for several weeks, to prove the fruits of the Spirit, and he relates with great satisfaction that of all the adult Indians he had baptized, none afterward failed to give him “comfortable grounds to hope that God had wrought a special work of grace in their hearts.” He speaks very thankfully of forty-seven Indians at the Forks of the Delaware, “that through rich grace, none of them as yet have been left to disgrace their profession of Christianity, by any scandalous or unbecoming behavior.”
And now he sits down in his wigwam to review the work already done, and discern what special causes of thankfulness there were in the revival of true religion, which had just stirred the hearts of his Indians. This incident is of the deepest import, as showing the spirit of the man; here in his journal, written at this time, he lays bare unreservedly his heart, and with the sincerest humility disclaims for himself any credit in the success which had been achieved. He tells us that just before his strength was almost spent, and so far from thinking that a measure of encouragement was near at hand, he was, in face of the apparent futility of his prayers and labors, beginning to question whether he had not toiled in vain.
“I was ready to look upon myself as a burden to the honorable Society that employed and supported me in this mission, and began to entertain serious thoughts of giving up my mission, and almost resolved I would do so at the conclusion of the present year, if I had then no better prospect of special success in my work than I had hitherto had. I cannot say I entertained these thoughts because I was weary of the labors and fatigues that necessarily attended my present business, or because I had right and freedom in my own mind to turn any other way, but purely through dejection of spirit, pressing discouragement, and an apprehension of its being unjust to spend money consecrated to religious uses, only to civilize the Indians, and bring them to an external profession of Christianity. This was all I could then see any prospect of being effected, while God seemed, as I thought, evidently to frown upon the design of their saving conversion, by withholding the convincing and renewing influences of His blessed Spirit from attending the means I had hitherto used with them to that end.”
This then was his mood, the cloudy and dark day of a spiritual depression, like the two disciples who, with the pathos of a disappointed faith, told the Lord, “and we trusted;” so Brainerd had to sound the utmost depths of his weakness and inability until the manifestation of the power of God was spread before his eyes. “All hopes in human probabilities most evidently appeared to fail,” he said, and his first act of gratitude is to praise God that in His mercy He thus ordained strength out of weakness, that the glory might not be, the servant’s but the Master’s alone.
He marks how unaccountably, too, this concern seized the souls of these people. When he came first among them it was with difficulty he could get a single Indian man to come and hear the Gospel; his first congregation consisted of four women and a few little children, and yet, in the space of a few weeks, the crowds began to gather, and the people flocked, as we have seen, from all parts to listen to his words. The cry, “What must I do to be saved?” rang through every Indian settlement; “their coming to the place of our public worship was like Saul and his messengers coming among the prophets; they no sooner came than they prophesied.”
Brainerd, like many who have set about the Lord’s business in earnest since, had to work against the prejudices of his own people. It is very wonderful how history repeats itself. And we find this faithful man of God the subject of the criticisms of the lukewarm, and the denunciations of the evil-disposed. Perhaps these white men felt, that their craft was in danger, and their business, not it may be of a very creditable sort, would be endangered by the conversion of the natives. Just as the Anglo-Indians of Calcutta depreciated Henry Martyn with scoffing and scorn, so Brainerd found people objecting to his earnest and straightforward preaching of the Gospel. “The Indians were well enough already,” they said. “There was no need of all this noise about Christianity; they would be in no better, no safer, or happier state than they were already;” and so forth. This failing to impede the progress of Brainerd, they adopted bolder methods, outran him in the field, and told the Indians that he was a knave, a deceiver, daily teaching lies; and that his design was “to gather together as large a body of them as he possibly could, and then sell them to England for slaves.” They even plied them with strong drink that they might the better set them in savage prejudice against the young missionary. But against these opposers of the faith, its witness was armed by the might of Divine power, and exclaimed, on seeing how affectionately the Indians hurried to hear his word, “If God will work, who can hinder?”
Brainerd was not an expert linguist, and he very truly sets it down as an instance of the goodness of God that he was provided with a competent interpreter. For a time, certainly, this man, having no personal interest in the message he repeated, did not in any way express either the pathos or the power of the Gospel appeal, but after his conversion a wonderful change came in this respect. “It pleased God,” says Brainerd, “at this season to inspire his mind with longing desire for the conversion of the Indians, and to give him admirable zeal and fervency in addressing them in order thereto. And it is remarkable that when I was favored with special assistance in any work and enabled to speak with more than common freedom, fervency and power, under a lively and affecting sense of Divine things, he was usually affected in the same manner almost instantly, and seemed at once quickened and enabled to speak in the same pathetic language and under the same influence as I did. And a surprising energy often accompanied the Word at such seasons, so that the faces of the whole assembly would be apparently changed almost in an instant, and tears and sobs become common among them.” So that while Brainerd cannot claim, as he says, “any gift of tongues,” he had the immense advantage of an interpreter who had the heart and understanding to communicate the doctrines of Christianity.
Then, as now, there were in the minds of people strong prejudices against influencing the minds of the hearers by statements concerning the terrors of God’s wrath and indignation against sinners. “But God has left no room,” says Brainerd, “for this objection in the present case, this work of grace having been begun and carried on by almost one continued strain of Gospel invitation to perishing sinners.” Not that he hesitated to place before them “the exceeding sinfulness of sin,” and the consequences thereof if unrepented of. These old Puritans had a habit of calling a spade a spade, and believed in a real hell and a real devil just as truly as they proclaimed a real Christ and a real heaven. But still, to the disappointment of many carping lookers on, the extraordinary spiritual awakening of these Indians was clearly not due to any terrifying teaching. The remark Brainerd makes upon this is very true and frank.
“This great awakening, this surprising concern was never excited by any harangues of terror, but always appeared most remarkable when I insisted upon the compassion of a dying Savior, the plentiful provisions of the Gospels, and the free offers of Divine grace to needy distressed sinners. Nor would I be understood to insinuate that such religious concern might be justly suspected as not being genuine and from a Divine influence, because produced by the preaching of terror, for this is, perhaps, God’s more usual way of awakening sinners, and appears entirely agreeable to Scripture and sound reason; but what I meant here to observe is, that God saw fit to employ and bless milder means for the effectual awakening of these Indians, and thereby obviated the fore-mentioned objection, which the world might otherwise have had a more plausible color of making.” He notes the absence of undue excitement in the meetings, and, although many have trembled and some been stricken speechless under the power of the Word, there were no convulsions and bodily agonies which, at that time at least, were common to great religious revivals. There was a marked reality and thoroughness in these convictions of sin.
Across the wide interval of a century and a-half we hear Brainerd thanking God that in his work the drink, “their darling vice,” the sin that easily besets them, is losing its master hood over the souls and bodies of the people by the progress of Christian principle. They began to pay their debts, to lay aside all censoriousness of manner, to live with each other in brotherly love, and, above all, to put on charity. “A conquest of sin by the working of the Holy Ghost, and the cultivation of those Christian graces which make up the character of the Scriptural Christian, these things they followed after with great joy. Their consolations did not incline them to lighten, but, on the contrary, were attended by solemnity, and oftentimes with tears, and an apparent brokenness of heart. In some respects some of them have been surprised themselves, and have with concern observed to me, When their hearts have been glad (which is a phrase they commonly make use of to express spiritual joy) they could not help crying for all.”
Thus in this brief retrospect Brainerd finds place for abundant gratitude. Up to this point he had ridden over three thousand miles, and passed through hardships and trials of faith and patience, which are but faintly hinted at in his journal. He tells us how he had constantly to go away from his people in order to reach the towns where he might represent the work, and ask for it financial support.
For a long time Brainerd felt that he must have another worker with him, but failed to meet with the man of his choice. He then again set his mind upon obtaining sufficient funds to build a school and get the children in.
In one of these journeys he informs us that he reached a ferry just too late to cross on account of the tempestuous wind and waves, and had to spend the night in the ferry-house amid drinking people, who freely used the most profane language. He sat down and began to write in spite of the disturbances, and his mind was filled with calm, but he “thanked God that he was not likely to spend an eternity in such company.”
And now, possibly writing the very words under such untoward circumstances, he commits his thoughts to paper as to the work in which he was engaged.
“As these poor pagans stood in need of having line upon line and precept upon precept, in order to their being instructed and grounded in the principles of Christianity, so I preached publicly, and taught from house to house almost every day for whole weeks together when I was with them. My public discourses did not then make up one-half of my work, while there were so many constantly coming to me with that important inquiry, ‘What must we do to be saved? and opening to me the various exercises of their minds. And yet I can say (to the praise of rich grace) that the apparent success with which my labors were crowned has unspeakably more than compensated for the labor itself, and was likewise a good means of supporting and carrying me through business and fatigues which it seems my nature would have sunk under without such an encouraging prospect. But although this success has afforded unaltering support, comfort and thankfulness, yet in this season I have found great need of assistance in my work, and have been much oppressed for want of one to bear a part of my labors and hardships. ‘May the Lord of the harvest send forth other laborers into this part of His harvest, that those who sit in darkness may see great light, and that the whole earth may be filled with the knowledge of Himself!”
“O Lord of life and glory,
Have we not ears to hear
The sounds that rise before Thee,
To mock Thy love and tears?
Do we not hear the crying
For help from hearts and homes,
And can we sit denying
The help our Savior owns?
“O Lord of life and glory,
Our minds are at Thy feet,
That we may grasp the meaning
Of Calvary’s wondrous feat.
To nations now in slumber
We have to take the light,
Before the judgment thunder
Shall end our war for right.”
Herbert Booth.
The Sands Running Out.
Chapter 10.
“With force of arms we nothing can,
Full soon were we down-ridden;
But for us fights the proper Man,
Whom God Himself hath bidden.
Ask ye, who is this same?
Christ Jesus is His name,
The Lord Sabaoth’s Son;
He and no other one
Shall conquer in the battle.
” ―Luther.
The opening of the new year of grace one thousand seven hundred and forty-six brought to the heart of Brainerd much self-examination, and led him to consecrate himself afresh to God and His service. What he had done already began to tell upon him, and, while the happy manifestation of a blessing on his work had inspired him with new hope, it was only too evident to him that the end must soon come. Living as one whose span of life was speedily shortening, his mind was filled with solicitude for the souls of his Indians, and a desire to expend every remaining hour in labor for them. While many would have recognized in signs of physical break — up a sufficient reason for retiring from the field, Brainerd urged himself on to increasing effort. The toils of the past gave him little satisfaction; he was always depreciating anything he had done or suffered in the cause. “God has carried me through numerous Hats and labors in the past,” he writes in his diary. “He has amazingly supported my feeble frame, for having obtained help of God I continue to this day. O that I might live nearer to God this year than I did the last! The business to which I have been called, and which I have been enabled to go through, I know has been as great as nature could bear up under, and what would have sunk and overcome me quite, without special support. But alas! alas! though I have done the labors and endured the trials, with what spirit have I done the one and borne the other? How cold has been the frame of my heart oftentimes and how little have I sensibly eyed the glory of God in all my doings and sufferings! I have found that I could have no peace without filling up all my time with labors, and thus necessity has been laid upon me. Yea, in that respect, I have loved to labor, but the misery is, I could not sensibly labor for God as I could have done. May I, for the future, be enabled more sensibly to make the glory of God my all!”
Once again his enemies came about him, and Brainerd was in danger from those of his own nation. Occasionally news from the outer world reached him, and from this he found that his aims were deliberately perverted, and many were making mischief so that they might hinder him in his work.
One day he tells us how, coming away from public worship, tidings greatly distressed him, for he was informed that he was represented to be a Roman Catholic in disguise, and that he was only instigating the Indians to rise against the English. This rumor made some immediately hold aloof, and others were quite willing for proper steps being taken to arrest him for punishment. His answer was clear upon the point; he had strictly “minded his own business,” he says, “and had nothing to do with parties and sects, preaching Christianity pure and simple,” neither inviting to nor excluding from any meeting any, of any sort or persuasion whatsoever. Again he finds refuge in prayer, and quiets himself with the consolations of God’s Word. He is much refreshed in his own soul during his expositions to the Indians, and on opening the forty-sixth Psalm he felt that he could confide in the power and protection of the Almighty, even though his enemies should slander his character and seek to put him to death as a traitor to his earthly king. His feelings under this reproach are vividly expressed in the notes he wrote at the time, and he there threw a gleam of light upon the probable causes which have led him into such a path of persecution. He closely examines himself, and is jealous for the honor of God, and the success of His work among those poor heathen. “My spirits were still much sunk with what I heard the day before of my being suspected to be engaged in the Pretender’s interest, it grieved me that after there had been so much evidence of a glorious work of grace among these poor Indians, as that the most carnal man could not but take notice of the great change made among them, so many poor souls should still suspect the whole to be only a Popish plot, and so cast an awful reproach on this blessed work of the Divine Spirit, and at the same time wholly exclude themselves from receiving any benefit by this Divine influence. This put me upon searching whether I had ever dropped anything inadvertently that might give occasion to any to suspect that I was stirring up the Indians against the English; and could think of nothing unless it was my attempting sometimes to vindicate the rights of the Indians, and complaining of the horrid practice of making the Indians drunk, and then cheating them out of their lands and other properties; and now I remember I had done this with too much warmth of spirit, which much distressed me; thinking that it might possibly prejudice them against this work of grace, to their everlasting destruction. God, I believe, did me good by this trial, which seemed to humble me, and show me the necessity of watchfulness, and of being wise as a serpent, as well as harmless as a dove. This exercise led me often to the throne of grace, and there I found some support, though I could not get the burden wholly removed.”
In his intercourse with the Indians he was constantly cheered with finding that his words had been a comfort and help to this people. One poor woman came to tell him in her broken English how she obtained release from all her fears, and was able to rejoice in being by Christ delivered from all her sins. Here is the substance of the conversation between the missionary and this simple and believing soul.
“Me try, me try save myself, but my strength be all gone, could not let me stir bit further. Den last, me forced let Jesus Christ alone, send me hell if He please.”
“But you were not willing to go to hell, were you?
“Could not me help it. My heart becomed wicked for all. Could not me make her good?
“I asked her how she got out of this case.
“By-by my heart be grad desperately.
“I asked her why her heart was glad.
“Grad my heart Jesus Christ do what He please with me. Den me tink, grad my heart Jesus Christ send me to hell. Did not me care where He put me, me to be Him for all.”
Brainerd explains that this poor woman held to it that if it was the will of the Lord that she should go anywhere, to suffer anything, however terrible, she was satisfied. Some days afterward, however, she obtained a clearer light on the will of God, and while quite ready still to rejoice in affliction, she entered into the joy of those who know Christ as a perfect and sufficient Savior from all sin. On the day of her baptism she expressed her gratitude to the kind Christians in Scotland who had sent Mr. Brainerd to preach to the Indians; she said, “her heart loved these good people so that she could scarce help praying for them all night.”
One of the most interesting cases of conversion which Brainerd notes in his journal is that of a very aged woman, who appeared childish and broken in strength, and who came to him for spiritual advice. From such a one he was not prepared to hear anything like a rational idea on the subject of religion. But in this he was disappointed. After being led by the hand into his room, she tried to make him understand the anguish of her soul. Her chief distress was, she told Brainerd, that she should never find Christ. As he knew she had never been instructed in Christian doctrine he pressed her with questions in order to find out the real cause of her distress. Her answer was to this effect: ―
“She had heard me preach many times, but never knew anything about it, never felt it in her heart, till the last Sabbath, and then it came, she said, all in, as if a needle had been thrust into her heart, since which time she had had no rest day or night. She added that on the evening before Christmas, a number of Indians being together at the house where she was, and discoursing about Christ, their talk pricked her heart, so that she could not sit up, but fell down on her bed, at which time she went away (as she expressed it) and felt as if she dreamed, and yet is confident she did not dream. When she was thus gone she saw two paths, one appeared very broad and crooked, and that turned to the left hand. The other appeared straight and very narrow, and that went up the hill to the right hand. She traveled, she said, for some time up the narrow right-hand path till at length something seemed to obstruct her journey. She sometimes called it darkness, and then described it otherwise, and seemed to compare it to a block or bar. She then remembered what she had heard me say about striving to enter in at the strait gate (although she took little notice of it at the time when she heard me discourse on the subject), and thought she would climb over this bar. But just as she was thinking of this she came back again, as she termed it, meaning that she came to herself, whereupon her soul was exceedingly distressed, apprehending that she had since turned back and forsaken Christ, and that, therefore, there was no hope of mercy for her.”
This remarkable statement, by one evidently sincere, led Brainerd to ask further questions, believing as he did that it was one of the devices of Satan to deceive her and make her believe that she was under real conviction of sin. But ere long he was satisfied that this Indian mother, bowed down with the weight of fourscore years, really and truly was under the strivings of the Holy Ghost, and had been thus divinely taught as to her way of salvation. Before long she, too, was able to enter the strait gate, and become a pilgrim to the heavenly mansions thus late in life.
Cries and lamentations met him at every turn as he talked to the people about the love of God and Christ Jesus. “It was an amazing season of power amongst them,” he says, “and seemed as if God had “bowed the heavens and come down.” So astonishingly prevalent was the operation upon old as well as young, that it seemed as if none would be left in a secure and natural state, but that God was now about to convert all the world. And I was ready to think then that I should never again despair of the conversion of any man or woman living, be they who or what they would. It is impossible to give a just and lively description of the appearance of things at this season, at least such as to convey a bright and adequate idea of the effects of this influence. A number might have been seen rejoicing that God had not taken away the principal influence of His blessed Spirit from this place. Refreshed to see so many striving to enter in at the strait gate, and animated with such concern for them, they wanted to push them forward, as some of them expressed it. At the same time numbers, both of men and women, old and young, might be seen in tears, and some in anguish of spirit, appearing in their very countenances, like condemned malefactors turned towards the place of execution with a heavy solicitude sitting on their faces; so that there seemed here (as I thought) a lively emblem of the solemn day of accounts, mixture of heaven and hell, of joy and anguish inexpressible. The concern and religious affection was such that I could not pretend to have any formal religious exercise among them, but spent the time in discoursing to one and another, as I thought most proper and seasonable for each, and sometimes addressed them all together, and finally concluded with prayer. Such were their circumstances at this season that I could scarce have half-an-hour’s rest from speaking from about half-an-hour before twelve o’clock (at which time I began public worship) till past seven at night.”
He made at this time several visits to Elizabethtown to see the “correspondents,” as the representatives of the Missionary Society were called. Here he discussed many plans for the enlargement of the work, and particularly his desire to establish Indian towns or settlements, to found a little colony, which should be a “mountain of holiness,” but we have no record that in this aim he was successful. He had an unexpected trouble at the end of March of this year, in the sudden illness of his schoolmaster with pleurisy. Far away from medical assistance, the burden of nursing and tending the sick man fell upon him, and this duty he performed with infinite tenderness and self-sacrifice. He watched him constantly, sleeping on the floor at night that he might be ready if wanted. His own health began again to fail as a consequence, and his only solace was to snatch a few moments of the night in communion amid the silence of the woods.
“Alas, my days pass away as chaff!” he cries in one of these meditations, “it is but little I do or can do that turns to any account, and it is my constant misery and burden that I am so fruitless in the vineyard of the Lord. O that I were spirit, that I might be active for God! This (I think) more than anything else makes me long that this corruptible might put on incorruption, and this mortal put on immortality. God deliver me from clogs, fetters, and a body of death that impede my service for Him.”
This desire to fly away, not for rest but for increased activity, was to be satisfied ere long. The frail tenement was not to abide much longer, and for Brainerd the day of deliverance was not far off. Somewhat wearied with incessant traveling, he expresses a wish at this time to settle among his people at the Indian territory. This he felt he might be justified in desiring, seeing that the congregations gathered from time to time consisted of those who by his ministry had been called from darkness to light.
“I never, since I began to preach,” he says, “could feel any freedom to enter into other men’s labors, and settle down in the ministry where the Gospel was preached before. I never could make that appear to be my province; when I felt any disposition to consult my ease and comfort, God has never given me any liberty in that respect, either since or for some years before I began to preach. But God having increased my labors, and made me instrumental in gathering a church for Him among the Indians, I was ready to think it might be His design to give me a quiet settlement and a stated home of my own.”
This is perhaps the only time in his journal where he mentions a personal preference; but this perfectly natural desire was not to be fulfilled, and he again quite patiently and willingly accepted the providential working out of the Divine plan, however much human nature was contradicted thereby. He considered it clear that he was marked out for solitariness and hardship, and should be destitute of house and home comforts, which he was delighted to see others enjoy, calling himself by Divine grace a “pilgrim hermit,” and says, that although as quick as any in the appreciation of the joys of human companionship, yet all these, “compared with the value and preciousness of an enlargement of Christ’s kingdom, vanished like the stars before the rising sun.” Falling on his knees in presence of this disappointment he once more utterly resigns himself and all that he counts dear to the will of God. “Farewell!” he cries, “farewell friends and earthly comforts, the dearest of them all, the very dearest, if the Lord calls for it; adieu, adieu, I will spend my life to my latest moments in caves and dens of the earth if the kingdom of Christ may be thereby advanced.”
In this complete consecration there was doubtless a human love laid on the altar, “the very dearest” may have referred to a secret attachment with the daughter of his great friend and literary executor, Rev. Jonathan Edwards. This Jerusha was a young girl, ripe in Christian experience and full of a similar spirit to that of Brainerd. Not even her name appears in any of his private diaries or papers, but we have the evidence of her father for the fact of their mutual love for each other. We shall meet her at his deathbed, to which sacred spot,
“Blessed beyond the common walk of men,
Quite on the verge of home,”
we shall now speedily pass with hushed footsteps and reverent feeling.
“Oh, lightest burden, sweetest yoke!
It lifts, it bears my happy soul,
It giveth wings to this poor heart;
My freedom is Thy grand control.
“Upon God’s will I lay me down,
As child upon its mother’s breast;
No silken couch or softest bed,
Could ever give me such deep rest.”
Madame Guyon.
The Day Draws to a Close.
Chapter 11.
“Christ hath the foundation laid,
And Christ shall build me up;
Surely I shall soon be made
Partaker of my hope;
Author of my faith He is,
He its finisher shall be;
Perfect love shall seal me His,
To all eternity.” ―
Wesley.
It will have been observed that Brainerd, while so fully engrossed with his spiritual interest in the Indians, was also ready to stand as their practical friend whenever help was needed. His unvarying immunity from any personal danger, even when alone and unarmed he wandered at midnight through the solitary woods, may be accounted for partly by the fact that he was felt to be, throughout all the tribes, their friend. All this loyalty to his poor clients aroused the jealousy of the whites, but still the young missionary stood by the redskin and sheltered him from oppression and wrong.
An instance of this is seen in his action where he found the Indian communities had run into grievous debt with the white man on account of the strong drink which he, alas! all too liberally supplied to them. The defaulters were in many cases speedily arrested, and an attempt was made to take from them their hunting grounds to release the debt. Brainerd knew that this must mean their ruin, and immediately conferred with the representatives of the Society which employed him, in order to advance the Indians some funds so that their lands might not pass out of their possession. Another reason which impelled Brainerd to bring help in this direction was the long hoped for establishment of a Christian Indian congregation or town. He tells us that on one occasion the sum he disbursed for this purpose was eighty-five pounds, five shillings, which seems ridiculously small now-a-days but was a considerable sum in the times in which he lived.
His schoolmaster having now recovered we note that thirty children or young persons are found under tuition every day, and in the evening fifteen married people are only too glad to avail themselves of a little free education. Brainerd seems to have paid considerable attention to this branch of the work; one day he tells us that he distributed a dozen primers among his people, and it was his custom to frequently catechize them upon their progress in study.
The spiritual work, which of course was his chief concern, continued to show signs of a real living success. He adopted the wise method of taking with him on his missionary journeys half-a-dozen of his more earnest and capable Christian converts, and these were of great assistance. But in those Indian forests, in the midst of those clusters of wigwams, Brainerd found just the same variety of reception of the truth as St. Paul in the classic and philosophic Athens. “Some of them,” says he, “who had, in times past, been extremely averse to Christians now behaved soberly, and some others laughed and mocked. However, the Word of God fell with such weight and, power that sundry seemed to be stunned, and expressed a willingness to “hear me again on these matters.” Afterward prayed with and made an address to the white people present, and could not but observe some visible effects of the word, such as tears and sobs, among them. After public worship spent some time and took pains to answer those that mocked, of the truth and importance of what I had been insisting upon, and so endeavored to awaken their attention to Divine truths. And had reason to think, from what I observed then and afterward, that my endeavors took considerable effect upon one of the worst of them. Those few Indians then present, who used to be my hearers in these parts (some having removed from hence to Crossweeksung), seemed more kindly disposed toward and glad to see me again: they had been so much attacked by some of the opposing pagans that they were almost ashamed or afraid to manifest their friendship.”
Of his own people Brainerd speaks with evident encouragement. “I know of no assembly of Christians where there seems to be so much of the presence of God, where brotherly love so much prevails, and where I take so much delight in the public worship of God, in the general as in my own congregation, although not more than nine months ago they were worshipping devils and dumb idols, under the power of pagan darkness and superstition. Amazing change this! effected by nothing less than Divine power and grace! This is the doing of the Lord, and it is justly marvelous in our eyes!”
Nothing rejoiced the heart of this good and faithful servant more than to see in his people the beautiful fruit of a new heart and redeemed nature. He was ready at any time to listen to the yearning of these poor Indians for instruction, and literally carried out the Scripture admonition, “Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.” With penitents he was patient and affectionate; knowing in his own heart what self-abasement was, he could enter into the experience of those, who, awakened to a sense of their own unworthiness, were seeking the Savior of sinners. One day after public worship had concluded, Brainerd was accompanied homewards by a large concourse of anxious people who filled his house and prayed for more of his prayers and teaching. He was then greatly filled with gladness at the sight of one poor Indian woman who had found Christ, and was “filled with joy unspeakable, and full of glory.” In the midst of the people she continually broke out in crying for very joy and praising God, sometimes in English, sometimes in Indian, but always with fervor. She longed to be gone, to depart and be with Jesus, which she felt would be far better. “O blessed Lord,” she cried aloud, “do come, do come! O do take me away, do let me die and go to Jesus Christ! I am afraid if I live I shall sin again! O do let me die now! O dear Jesus do come! I cannot stay, I cannot stay!” The longing to be “absent from the body” which this Indian woman expressed with such fervor, arose from such a dread of sin, that she felt her safety against grieving her Saviour was in freedom from the temptations of life and mortality. After a time Brainerd spoke to her with words of encouragement and tenderness, asking whether Christ was not now sweet to her soul.
She turned upon him eyes brimming with happy tears, and yet speaking in tones of lowliness and humility, said: “I have many times heard you speak of the goodness and sweetness of Christ, that He was better than all the world. But O! I knew nothing what you meant, I never believed you! I never believed you! But now I know it is true!”
“Do you see,”said Brainerd, “enough in Christ for the greatest of sinners?”
With an ecstasy of emotion the woman answered: “O! enough, enough! for all the sinners of the world if they would but come.”
Then at his request, she turned round to the Indian men and women in the crowd who had been listening to her words with much interest and weeping. “Oh! there is enough,” she cried, “enough in Christ for you if you would but come! O strive, strive to give up your hearts to Him!”
About this convert Brainerd makes some very interesting and instructive notes in his journal, which are well worth quotation.
“Of all the persons I have seen under spiritual exercise I scarce ever saw one so bowed and broken under convictions of sin and misery (or what is usually called a preparatory work), than this woman. Nor scarce any who seemed to have a greater acquaintance with her own heart than she had. She would frequently complain to me of the hardness and rebellion of her heart. Would tell me her heart rose and quarreled with God, when she thought He would do with her as He pleased, and send her to hell notwithstanding her prayers, good graces, etc.; that her heart was not willing to come to Christ for salvation, but tried everywhere else to help.
“And as she seemed to be remarkably sensible of her stubbornness and contrariety to God, under conviction, so she appeared to be no less remarkably bowed and reconciled to Divine sovereignty before she obtained any relief or comfort. Since which time she has seemed constantly to breathe the spirit and temper of the new creature, crying after Christ, not through fear of hell as before, but with strong desire after Him as her only satisfying portion, and has many times wept and sobbed bitterly, because (as she apprehended) she did not, and could not, love Him. When I have sometimes asked her why she appeared so sorrowful, and whether she thought it was because she was afraid of hell? she would answer, No, I am not distressed about that, but my heart is so wicked that I cannot love Christ, and thereupon burst into tears. But though this has been the habitual frame of her mind for several weeks together, so that the exercise of grace appeared evident to others, yet she seemed wholly insensible of it herself, and never had any remarkable comfort and sensible satisfaction till this evening.
“This sweet and surprising ecstasy appeared to spring from a true spiritual discovery of the glory, ravishing beauty and excellency of Christ, and not from any gross imaginary notions of His human nature, such as that of seeing Him in such place or posture, as hanging on the cross, as bleeding, dying, as gently smiling and the like; which delusions some have been carried away with. Nor did it rise from sordid, selfish apprehensions of her having any benefit whatsoever conferred on her, but from a view of His personal excellency and transcendent loveliness, which drew forth those vehement desires of enjoying Him she now manifested, and made her long to be absent from the body and present with the Lord. The attendants of this ravishing comfort were such as abundantly discerned its spring to be Divine, and that it was truly a joy in the Holy Ghost. Now she received Divine truths as living realities, and could say, I know these things are so, I feel they are true. Now her soul was resigned to the Divine will in the most tender points, so that when I said to her, what if God should take away your husband from you (who was very sick) how do you think you could bear that? She replied, He belongs to God and not to me, He may do with him just as He pleases. Now she had the most tender sense of the evil of sin, and discovered the utmost aversion to it, longing to die that she might be delivered from it. Now she could freely trust her all with God for time and eternity.
And when I questioned her how she could be wishing to die and leave her little infant, and what she thought would become of it in that case, she answered, ‘God will take care of it. It belongs to Him, He will take care of it.’ Now she appeared to have the most humbling sense of her own meanness and unworthiness, her weakness and inability to preserve herself from sin and to persevere in the way of holiness, crying, If I live I shall sin.”
Changes have taken place in Christian theology since those Puritan days and the old paths are some of them quite grass grown, but this brief page of a spiritual history shows that the power of the Gospel was efficacious then, as it is now, for changing the heart and revivifying the life, so that “old things are passed away and all things have become new.” David Brainerd was not the man to be satisfied with an external and emotional phase of religion, he catechized his converts with a view to finding how much and how deep was the real spiritual knowledge they possessed. Mere religious concern, he observes, is not true religion. He notes with satisfaction that the pagans awakened by the preaching of Christ and Him crucified, “seemed at once to put off their savage rudeness and pagan manners, and become sociable, orderly, and humane in their carriage.”
When once the light of a Christian faith was kindled in their hearts, they seem to have had a perfect fear of lapsing back into their old state of sin. An instance of this is seen in their conduct one afternoon, when Brainerd had been explaining to his little flock of Christians what was the discipline enjoined by the New Testament in treating offenders in the Church. Upon his showing them that after repeated effort on the part of the brethren to restore one who had been a castaway, he must be treated as a heathen man or pagan without part or lot in the matter, they were much affected, even alarmed. Of this, they seemed to have the most awful apprehensions; a state of heathenism out of which they were so lately brought appearing very dreadful to them. They frequently met together for worship amongst themselves, when an old chief, who had received the light, spoke earnestly of Christ’s power to save.
On another occasion, he brought his people together for the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper, having previously set apart a whole day for fasting and prayer. He spoke to them of the obligations of Christian fellowship, besought them to be humble in their walk before God and avoid the careless indifference which crept over some who had stood with them once and seemed at that time deeply impressed, praying earnestly that God would preserve them from the evil attempts of their enemies to disperse them. Brainerd bade them join him in partaking of the symbols of the passion of the Lord. It seems to have been a season of peculiar blessing, for he tells us―
“This solemn transaction was attended with much gravity and seriousness, and, at the same time, with utmost readiness, freedom, and cheerfulness, and a religious union and harmony of soul seemed to crown the whole solemnity.”
In the month of May, 1747, Brainerd visited Northampton, and, in consequence of some graver symptoms in his disease, pushed on to the house of his friend, Jonathan Edwards, where one Dr. Mather was called in to see him. The physician, after examination, told him frankly of his condition, that he was in a confirmed consumption from which he had not the least chance of recovery. Such a statement to most men would mean a startled fear and deep depression, but to this man of God, it brought no discomposure nor interfered with the cheerfulness of his heart and conversation. Opening his diary a few days afterward, he makes the following comment upon his condition: ―
“My attention was greatly engaged and my soul so drawn forth, this day, by what I heard of the exceeding preciousness of the saving grace of God’s Spirit, that it almost overcame my body in my weak state. I saw that true grace is exceeding precious indeed, that it is very rare, and that there is but a very small degree of it, even where the reality of it is to be found; at least, I saw this to be my case. In the preceding week, I enjoyed some comfortable seasons of meditation. One morning, the cause of God appeared exceeding precious to me, the Redeemer’s kingdom is all that is valuable to me on earth, and I could not but long for the promotion of it in the world. I saw also that this cause is God’s, that He has an infinitely greater regard and concern for it than I could possibly have, that if I have any true love to His blessed interest, it is only a drop derived from the ocean; hence, I was ready to lift up my heart with joy, and conclude, Well, if God’s cause be so dear and precious to Him, He will promote it. And thus I did, as it were, rest in God; that surely He would promote that which was agreeable to His own will, though the time when must still be left to His sovereign pleasure.”
His physicians, possibly recognizing that his habit of incessant activity was a necessity of his life, now gave him the somewhat strange advice that, if he would continue riding as much as possible, it would tend to prolong his life. This recommendation he acted upon most literally; from that moment till his death he was constantly in the saddle, and swiftly passing from place to place. One would have thought that rest and quiet would have been much more beneficial to the over-strung, over-wearied missionary; but as he felt the light of life gradually burning low, he redoubled his exertion to proclaim the Gospel far and wide before the call came. But the effort caused him exquisite suffering. “There is no rest,” he cries, “but in God, fatigues of body and anxieties of mind attend us both in town and country; no place is exempted.”
Here is his record of an incident in his travels, which nearly made him speedily “finish his course with joy.”
“On Thursday, 18th June, I was taken exceeding ill, and brought to the gates of death, by the breaking of small ulcers in my lungs, as my physicians supposed. In this extreme weak state I continued for several weeks, and was frequently reduced so low as to be utterly speechless and not able so much as to whisper a word; and, even after I had so far revived as to walk about the house, and to step out of doors, I was exercised every day with a faint turn, which continued usually four or five hours, at which times, though I was not so utterly speechless but that I could say Yes or No, yet I could not converse at all, nor speak one sentence, without making stops for breath; and divers times in this season my friends gathered round my bed, to see me breathe my last, which they looked for every moment as I myself did.
“How I was the first day or two of my illness, with regard to the exercise of reason, I scarcely know, I believe I was somewhat shattered by the violence of the fever at times, but the third day of my illness, and constantly afterward for four or five weeks together, I enjoyed as much serenity of mind and clearness of thought as perhaps I ever did in my life, and I think my mind never penetrated with so much ease and freedom into Divine things as at this time, and I never felt so capable of demonstrating the truth of many important doctrines of the Gospel as now.”
Thus, in the midst of great physical weakness and pain, Brainerd’s soul held communion with his God. It was natural that, when no longer running from place to place, his mind, so set on the work of the Lord, should outrun him, and that his thoughts and prayers should be constantly with his beloved flock in the Indian forests, at the Forks of the Delaware. He thought much of a man, who had been a very popular conjuror and pow-wow, and who, after following his juggling tricks and charming the people with his superstitions, had heard the Word under the ministry of Brainerd, and become perfectly unhappy on account of his sins. His power of conjuration suddenly left him, he could no longer perform the tricks and juggling which had made him such an attraction to the people, and with a wounded spirit was forever crying, “I can never do any more to save myself, all done forever, I can do no more; my heart is dead, I can never help myself, I must go to hell.” After being thus dejected for a long space, he came to Brainerd with the eager inquiry, “When would I preach again?” for he wanted to hear the Word of God every day. “But,” said the Missionary, “I thought you said your heart was dead, and all was done?” His reply was, “I love to hear you speak about Christ for all.” Although miserable and uncomforted himself, he had a strange desire to see others converted. “I would have others come to Christ, if I go to hell myself,” was his remark, as for himself, he still persisted that all that he did signified nothing at all.
“But,” says Brainerd, “after he had continued in this frame of mind more than a week, while I was discoursing publicly, he seemed to have a lively soul-refreshing view of the excellency of Christ and the way of salvation by Him, which melted him to tears and filled him with admiration, comfort, satisfaction and praise to God. Since, he has offered to be a humble, devout and affectionate Christian, serious and exemplary in his conversation, frequently complaining of his barrenness, his want of spiritual warmth, life and activity, and yet frequently favored with quickening and refreshing influences. In all respects as far as I am able to judge, he bore the marks and characters of one created anew in Christ to good works.”
Many of the thoughts which shone out so luminously in the mind of Brainerd during this time of prostration, are quite as applicable to the experiences of the Christians of to-day. He passed in review the constant strife between good and evil in the world, and asked himself why the Church was so powerless and inactive. He trembled for the fate of those whose self-confidence was the chief characteristic of their religion.
“These things I saw,” he writes, “with great clearness, when I was thought to be dying, and God gave me great concern for His Church and interest in the world at this time; not so much because the late remarkable influence upon the minds of the people was abated, as because that false religion those hearts of imaginations and wild and selfish commotions of the animal affections which attended the work of grace, had prevailed so far. This was that which my mind dwelt upon, almost day and night, and this to me was the darkest appearance respecting religion in the land, for it was this chiefly that had prejudiced the world against inward religion. And I saw the great misery of all was, that so few saw any manner of difference between those exercises that are spiritual and holy, and these which have self-love only for their beginning, center and end.”
Thus lying on a bed of sickness, but supported by the grace of God, he longed for the time when he should again revisit his Indians. This honor was not to be, his race was nearly run, and his work almost accomplished.
“I long to see this excellence
Which at such distance strikes my sense
My impatient soul struggles to disengage
Her wings from the confinement of her cage,
Wouldst Thou great Love this prisoner once set free
How would she hasten to be linked with Thee!
She’d for no angel conduct stay
But fly and love on all the way.”
J. Norris.
Sweeping Through the Gates.
Chapter 12.
“Lord, Thou hast joined my soul to Thine
In bonds no power can sever;
Grafted in Thee, the living Vine,
I shall be Thine forever.
Lord, when I die, I die to Thee,
Thy precious death hath won for me
A life that never endeth.”
―Hermann.
Although Brainerd was never to go amongst his Indians again, the severity of his illness relaxed for a few weeks, and he was able to receive his friends, and even make short visits out of doors. This brief stay in Beulah land within sight of the golden city, was a special happiness, both to the invalid and his friends. It was a constant source of thankfulness to him, and afterward much commented upon by those he left behind, that a Providence seems to have most wisely ordered the arrangements of these final days. He had been spared to see in the wonderful revival of religion among the Indians the salvation of God ere he was laid aside, Unlike his brave predecessor, John Eliot, he had the joy of seeing a Christian church established among the Indians, with the reverent institutions and preachers of the ordinances; to know that the old vagrant life of these people had been abandoned, their idolatries given up, the habits of murderous war exchanged for the peaceful pursuits of husbandry. When he left their settlement at the Forks of Delaware, the children were in school, and giving promise of a useful future. Not only this was a matter of real encouragement, but the publication of the former part of his journal had awakened a new impulse of interest for missions among the Indians, and in distant parts of America people were coming forward, not only with money, but offering themselves for a work which God had so highly forwarded in the hands of Brainerd. He did not, in fact, leave the field until his own brother, who had been greatly stimulated with the same devotion to the cause, had just finished his college course, and was ready to enter upon the work as his coadjutor and successor.
He had been taken ill while staying with his friend, Mr. Dickinson, at Elizabethtown, and for a time his life was then despaired of; but from this he recovered sufficiently to reach Boston at a time when it seemed providentially most suitable. The “Honorable Commissioners” of the Society, under whose direction he worked, had just reached Boston for the purpose of examining into the work, and appropriating at once, under the recent legacy of Dr. Williams, a sum of money for the support of two new missionaries to the Indians of the Six Nations. These candidates Brainerd was able to see himself, and instruct them in the best means of advancing the work which lay before them. Not the least of the works of Providence at this time was in the fact that he went to die under the roof of his friend and biographer, Jonathan Edwards, who happily dissuaded him from suppressing or destroying the whole of his journal and papers.
Had these never seen the light, one of the most interesting and stimulating works in missionary literature would have been lost to the world. Instead of doing that, however, he carefully prepared his diary and journal for the press, and had only just finished this important duty when death snatched the pen.
Brainerd was an excellent if not a considerable letter writer, and some few of his epistles are still preserved. Here and there we have a few lines written to his brother at Yale College (who succeeded him), describing his own labors, and disclosing many of the privations and adventures which it was his lot to endure. In one sentence of a letter, written from Crossweeksung in December, 1745, he shows how the burden of the Lord was upon him, and with a restless anxiety, he was ever pushing on.
“I am in one continual, perpetual, and uninterrupted hurry, and Divine providence throws so much upon me that I do not see that it will ever be otherwise. May I obtain mercy of God to be faithful unto the death! I cannot say I am weary of my hurry; I only want strength and grace to do more for God than I have ever yet done.”
To another brother he finds time to write while still ill at Boston, when, indeed, he thought his end was very nigh. At the time of writing this letter he was by no means satisfied as to the spiritual condition of this brother, Israel, and, therefore, he implores him with dying intensity to give himself to God, and follow in his steps to do His glory, and further His kingdom. What weight and directness are in these closing words: ―
“You, my dear brother, I have been particularly concerned for, and have wondered I so much neglected conversing with you about your spiritual state at our last meeting. O, my brother, let me then beseech you now to examine whether you are indeed a new creature? Whether you have ever acted above self? Whether the glory of God has ever been the sweetest and highest concern with you? Whether you have ever been reconciled to all the perfections of God? In a word―whether God has been your portion and a holy conformity to Him your chief delight? If you cannot answer positively, consider seriously the frequent breathings of your soul, but do not, however, put yourself off with a slight answer. If you have reason to think you are graceless, O, give yourself and the Throne of Grace no rest till God arise and save. But if the case should be otherwise, bless God for His grace, and press after holiness.
“My soul longs that you should be fitted for, and in due time go into the work of the ministry. I cannot bear to think of you going into any other business in life. Do not be discouraged because you see your elder brothers in the ministry die early one after the other. I declare, now I am dying, I would not have spent my life otherwise for the whole world.”
The young brother to whom the foregoing was written was able to reach his bedside sometime before he died, and gave, to, the inexpressible joy of the departing saint, real evidence of being a Christian.
His brother John, who became his successor in the work, was much upon his mind at this closing season of his life, and to him far away among the Christian Indians, fighting the good fight of faith as his brother had done, one very precious letter was sent. He speaks of himself as “just on the verge of eternity, expecting very speedily to appear in the unseen world.” With many warm and earnest words he glorifies God for His mercy and the grace which has sustained him amid many trials. And he wants, as a departing legacy, to warn, exhort, and instruct his brother in the Divine life. His words are solemn, and he speaks as one whose hand is already upon the latch of that door from whence there is no return till the trumpet of God shall sound.
“And now, my dear brother, as I must press you to pursue after personal holiness, to be as much in fasting and prayer as your health will allow, and to live above the rate of common Christians; so I must entreat you solemnly to attend to your public work; labor to distinguish between true and false religion, and to that end watch the motions of God’s Spirit upon your own heart. Look to Him for help, and impartially compare your affections with His Word.
Read Mr. Edwards on the Affections, where the essence; and soul of religion is clearly distinguished from false affection. Value religious joys according to the subject-matter of them; there are many who rejoice in their supposed justification―but what do these joys argue but only that they love themselves? Whereas in true spiritual joys the soul rejoices in God for what He is in Himself; blesses God for His holiness, sovereignty, power, faithfulness, and all His perfections; adores God that He is what He is; that He is unchangeably possessed of infinite glory and happiness. Now, when men thus rejoice in the perfections of God, and in the infinite excellency of the way of salvation by Christ, and in the holy commands of God, which are a transcript of His holy nature, these joys are Divine and spiritual. Our joys will stand by us at the hour of death, if we can be then satisfied that we have thus acted above self, and in a disinterested manner, if I may so express it, rejoiced in the glory of the blessed God. I fear you are not sufficiently aware how much false religion there is in the world; many serious Christians and valuable ministers are too easily imposed upon by this false blaze. I likewise fear you are not sensible of the dreadful effects and consequences of this false religion. Let me tell you it is the devil transformed into an angel of light; it is a brat of hell, and always springs up with every revival of religion, and stabs and murders the cause of God, while it passes current with multitudes of well-meaning people for the height of religion. Set yourself, my brother, to crush all appearances of this nature among the Indians, and never encourage any degrees of heat without light. Charge my people in the name of their dying minister-yea, in the name of Him who was dead and is alive, to live and walk as becomes the Gospel. Tell them how great the expectations of God and His people are from them, and how awfully they will wound God’s cause if they fall into vice, as well as fatally prejudice other poor Indians. Always insist that their experiences are rotten, that their joys are delusive, although they may have been rapt up into the third heaven in their own conceit by them, unless the main tenour of their lives be spiritual, watchful, and holy. In pressing these things ‘thou shalt save thyself and those that hear thee.
“God knows I was heartily willing to have served Him longer in the work of the ministry, although it had still been attended with the labors and hardships of past years, if He had seen fit that it should be so; but as His will now appears otherwise, I am fully content, and can, with utmost freedom, say, The will of the Lord be done. It affects me to think of leaving you in a world of sin, my heart pities you, that these storms and tempests are yet before you, which I trust, through grace, I am delivered from. But God lives, and blessed be my Rock. He is the same Almighty Friend; and will, I trust, be your Guide and Helper, as He has been mine.”
Besides writing these letters, he was able, during these hours of weakness, to converse with many who were attracted to his bedside either by a desire to hear of the wonderful work accomplished by him among the Indians, or by an anxiety about their own spiritual state. His heart was with his Indians, and their faces and feathered hair were constantly before his mind. From distant parts of the country, people came to where he lay at Boston, many ministers of every denomination, and laymen of influence and position. To these, one theme was the paramount subject of his conversation―that of vital and sound religion, and the blessed experience of delighting in God. His soul, rapidly ripening for the garner of the Lord, was set upon heavenly things, and now that, for a brief space, he could no longer labor, he felt that he must wait patiently, and testify to all of the goodness of God. Brainerd seems to have had an increasing dread of people having a mere form of godliness, holding with firm allegiance to doctrines which, true in themselves, have no effect whatever upon their outward life, or the principles which move their actions and words. He was also jealous for Scripture teaching, as distinguished from the fantastic ideas which characterized the theology of that far-off time, as they do our own.
“I always conversed of the things of religion,” he says, in later notes referring to the present time, “and was peculiarly disposed and assisted in distinguishing between the true and false religions of the times. There was scarce any subject, that has been matter of debate in the later day, but what I was, at one time or other, brought to a sort of necessity to discourse upon, and state my opinions, and that frequently before numbers of people; and especially I discoursed repeatedly on the nature and necessity of that humiliation, self-emptiness, and full conviction of a person’s being utterly undone in himself, which is necessary to a saving faith, and the extreme difficulty of being brought to this, and the great danger there is of persons taking up with self-righteous appearances of it. The danger of this I especially dwelt upon, being persuaded that multitudes perish in this hidden way; and because so little is said from most pulpits to discover any danger here, so that persons being never effectually brought to die in themselves, are never truly united to Christ, and so perish. I also discoursed much on what I take to be the essence of true religion, endeavoring plainly to describe that God-like temper and disposition of soul, and that holy conversation and behavior, that may justly claim the honor of having God for its original and patron. And I have reason to hope God blessed my way of discoursing and distinguishing to some, both ministers and people, so that my time was not wholly lost.”
One result of these visits was that some generous souls, being deeply interested in the accounts he gave them of his work at the Forks of Delaware, sent three dozen Bibles for his school (no mean or inexpensive gift in those days), and fourteen pounds in money, to be expended for the good of the cause there.
After being so near death’s door, there came a marvelous rally, and Brainerd, to the astonishment of his friends, began to show some amendment in strength. How bad he had been may be seen by an account given by the faithful Jerusha, who was his constant nurse until the very last. She speaks of his delirious fever, and how one Saturday evening they all sat up with him during the night, fearing any moment might prove his last. His lungs were so diseased that the physician said he had no hopes of his life, and that in one of his hours of extreme debility he must pass away. This he thought himself, and told one of his friends that he was as certainly a dead man as if he had been shot through the heart. But he was not yet to go. Just as he began to revive, his young brother Israel hastened with alarm to his bedside, and this gave him much pleasure, although it was dashed with the intelligence of his sister’s sudden death at Haddam, his native place. As soon as he was sufficiently recovered, we find him leaving Boston one cool afternoon, accompanied by many friends, and after a week’s travel, doing sixteen miles horseback each day, he reached Northampton. The effort cost him much, and from that moment he began to diminish in strength every day. But his heart was strong and his faith unfailing. He makes this note in his diary under date Lord’s Day, the 26th of July, 1747, “This day I saw clearly that I should never be happy; yea, that God Himself could not make me happy, unless I could be in a capacity to please and glorify Him forever. Take away this, and admit me into all the fine heavens that can be conceived of by men or angels, and I should still be miserable forever.”
Here, as at Boston, many visited him, and to some he gave most interesting details of his own spiritual experiences, but so averse was he to any show or fussy talk about religion that he bade those to whom he had confided these matters make no mention of them until after his death.
On the 16th of August, 1747, he was able to attend public worship for the last time, and a week later when he could not leave his room, he made a reference in his diary as follows:― “This morning I was considerably refreshed with the thought, yea, the hope and expectation of the enlargement of Christ’s kingdom; and I could not but hope the time was at hand when Babylon the Great would fall and rise no more. This led me to some spiritual meditation that was very refreshing to me. I was unable to attend public worship either part of the day, but God was pleased to afford me fixedness and satisfaction in Divine thoughts. Nothing so refreshes my soul as when I can go to God, yea, to God my exceeding joy.”
Once more confined to his room, and this for the last time, he again busied himself with his Indian affairs; wrote at large to the Commissioners at Boston respecting the projected development of the work, and recommended two young men to be sent into the field without delay. Just then, to his great joy, his brother John, who had taken up his work in New Jersey, came unexpectedly to see him, bringing him loving messages from his people and good news of their progress. One of the most noteworthy incidents of this visit was that his brother brought with him many manuscripts which had been left behind, amongst others, this precious diary which has since been such a faithful memorial of him.
A little over-exertion a few days later laid him prostrate, and those who watched him thought they discerned signs of approaching death. Observing their anxiety he called out, “O the glorious time is coming! I have longed to serve God perfectly, now God will gratify these desires!”
He was not to die then, but it is on record that his spirits rose with every intimation of the coming release, and only fell when it seemed as if he must linger longer still outside the gates. His talk, as he looked upon the faces of his friends, was full of intense love and devotion to God, yearning with an inexpressible ardor to be useful, to promote by every means His glory. We have few memorials of the triumphant end of any saint of God so rich in the glorious foretaste of the “abundant entrance” to the city of light. His mind was perfectly clear, and his eyes glistened with Divine rapture, as he told his watchers: ―
“My heaven is to please God and glorify Him, and to give all to Him, and to be wholly devoted to His day; that is the heaven I long for; that is my religion, and that is my happiness, and always was ever since, I suppose, I had any true religion; and all those that are of that religion shall meet me in heaven. I do not go to heaven to be advanced but to give honor to God. It is no matter where I shall be stationed in heaven, whether I have a high or a low seat there, but to love, and please, and glorify God is all. Had I a thousand souls, if they were worth anything, I would give them all to God, but I have nothing to give when all is done. It is impossible for any rational creature to be happy without acting all for God. God Himself could not make him happy any other way. I long to be in heaven praising and glorifying God with the holy angels, all my desire is to glorify God. My heart goes out to this burying-place, it seems to me a desirable place, but oh! to glorify God! that is it, that is above all. It is a great comfort for me to think that I have done a little for God and the world. Oh! it is but a very small matter, yet I have done a little, and I lament it that I have not done more for Him. There is nothing in the world worth living for but doing good and finishing God’s work, doing the work that Christ did. I see nothing else in the world that can yield any satisfaction besides living to God, pleasing Him, and doing His whole will. My greatest joy and comfort has been to do something for promoting the interests of religion, and the souls of particular persons, and now, in my illness, while I am full of pain and distress, from day to day, all the comfort I have is in being able to do some little char (or small piece of work) for God, either by something that I say, or by writing, or by some other way.”
When he refers to his physical condition as full of pain and distress, it is no exaggeration, for we have glimpses in his private diary of what sufferings he patiently bore. The words just quoted were not those of one quietly and painlessly passing away, but were uttered often when the fever consumed his vitals, and every nerve seemed a vehicle of pain. If the spirit chafed at all, it chafed like the imprisoned bird of liberty. “Oh my dear Lord, I am speedily coming to Thee, I hope,” was his ejaculation when the agony was fiercest.
He had little strength to write now, but a few scrawled entries appear in his diary, such as: ― “Lord’s Day, September 27th. ―This was a very comfortable day to my soul; I think I awoke with God. I was enabled to lift up my soul to God early this morning, and while I had little bodily strength, I found freedom to lift up my heart to God for myself and others. Afterward was pleased with the thoughts of speedily entering into the unseen world.” On that particular morning it was observed how much exhilarated he was, and, greeting his friends as they came into his room with exceeding pleasure, he said:―
“I was born on a Sabbath Day; I have reason to think I was new horn on a Sabbath Day; and I hope I shall die on this Sabbath Day. I shall look upon it as a favor if it may be the will of God that it should be so; I long for the time. O why is His chariot so long in coming? Why tarry the wheels of His chariot?” The end was now not far off. His desire that the liberating angel should come and set him free on that day was not granted. For more than a week he lay waiting, blaming himself ofttimes for his impatience; and at one time he lay so long speechless that those who loved him bent their ear to his lips, thinking he was really gone, but could still catch the whispered prayer, “Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly.”
Reviving again, he asked them to sing the 102nd Psalm, and with full hearts those sacred words of David’s cry in his affliction were uttered again in the ears of the God of Sabaoth, “Hear my prayer, O Lord, and let my cry come unto Thee. Hide not Thy face from me in the day when I am in trouble; incline Thine ear unto me: in the day when I call answer me speedily.”
Listening to these words, he seemed to gain fresh strength, and began to speak again of his departure, and express the desire that his funeral should be of the quietest and simplest sort. He thanked God that he was not now in Boston, where he had seen mourning performed with much pomp and outward show. He was always most averse to anything which could be construed as self-gratification, whether of the living or the dead, and treasured the old Puritanical simplicity of taste and order.
His brother John had found it necessary to return for a few days to New Jersey, and the dying missionary looked in vain for his coming back, as promised, before he passed away. The daughter of his friend, Mr. Edwards, who had been his faithful and patient nurse all through his illness, and to whom he had been for some time much attached, came into his room, and he said farewell to her.
Her father says of her that it pleased “God to take away this my dear child by death on the 14th of February next following, after a short illness of five days, in the 18th year of her age. She was a person of much the same spirit with Mr. Brainerd. She had constantly taken care of and attended him in his sickness for nineteen weeks before his death, devoting herself to it with great delight because she looked on him as an eminent servant of Jesus Christ. In this time he had much conversation with her on the things of religion; and in his dying state often expressed to us, her parents, his great satisfaction concerning her true piety, and his confidence that he should meet her in heaven, and his high opinion of her, not only as a true Christian but as a very eminent saint; one whose soul was uncommonly fed and entertained with things that appertain to the most spiritual, experimental, and distinguishing parts of religion; and one who by the temper of her mind was fitted to deny herself for God, and to do good beyond any young woman whatsoever that he knew of. She had manifested a heart uncommonly devoted to God in the course of her life, many years before her death, and said on her deathbed that ‘she had not seen one minute for several years wherein she desired to live one minute longer for the sake of any other good in life but doing good, living to God, and doing what might be for His glory.”
To her, in his fast-ebbing moments, Brainerd turned with love and said: “Dear Jerusha, are you willing to part with me? I am quite willing to part with you; I am willing to part with all my friends; I am willing to part with my dear brother John, although I love him the best of any creature living; I have committed him and all my friends to God, and can leave them with God. Though, if I thought I should not see you, and be happy with you in another world, I could not bear to part with you. But we shall spend a happy eternity together!”
Brainerd fell into a stupor, and did not revive again until his brother came in, and soon after the silver cord was loosed, the pitcher broken at the fountain, and murmuring, “He will come, He will not tarry, I shall soon be in glory, I shall soon glorify God with the angels,” he fell asleep in Jesus, on Friday, the 9th of October, 1747. David Brainerd, with the language of the faithful and beloved, had reached at last the celestial city, which the glorious dreamer saw: ―
“Now I saw in my dream that these two men went in at the gate; and, lo, as they entered, they were transfigured, and they had raiment put on them which shone like gold. There were also that met them with harps and crowns, and gave them to them―the harps to praise, and the crowns a token of honor. Then I heard in my dream that all the bells in the city rang again for joy, and it was said unto them, Enter ye into the joy of your Lord. I also heard the men themselves, that they sang with a loud voice, saying, Blessing and honor and glory and power be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever.”
“Now, just as the gates were opened to let in the men, I looked in after them, and, behold, the city shone like the sun, the streets also were paved with gold, and in them walked many men with crowns on their heads, palms in their hands, and golden harps to sing praises withal.
“There were also of them that had wings, and they answered one another without intermission, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord.”
“And after that they shut up the gates, which, when I had seen, I wished myself among them.”
“O sweet and blessed country,
Shall I ever see thy face?
O sweet and blessed country,
Shall I ever win thy grace?
I have the hope within me
To comfort and to bless!
Shall I ever win the prize itself?
O tell me, tell me, Yes!
“Strive, man, to win that glory;
Toil man, to gain that light;
Send hope before to grasp it,
Till hope be lost in sight.
Exult, O dust and ashes,
The Lord shall be thy part;
His only, His forever,
Thou shalt be, and thou art.”
Bernard of Cluny.
The Work Done and Being Done.
Chapter 13.
“Shall we whose souls are lighted
With wisdom from on high―
Shall we to men benighted
The lamp of life deny?
Salvation, O Salvation!
The joyful sound proclaim,
Till each remotest nation
Has learned Messiah’s name.”
―Heber.
Who besides Brainerd have labored for the Indians good? What in the past has been the history of mission work to these tribes of Red men, and how far and with what measure of success is this noble toil pursued in our own day? Such questions as these naturally may arise in the minds of those, who, from reading the preceding record of a good and faithful servant, may be inspired with a deeper interest in the race for whom he gave away his life. The history of Indian Missions is itself worthy of a volume, alive as it is with exciting episode, and rich in a martyrology which is not surpassed by any similar work for Christ anywhere in the world. But it may not be out of place in anticipation of the questions just put to briefly narrate something of what has been done, and in these later days is being achieved for the salvation of these people.
To go back very far, even to the fifteenth century, we find the Jesuits first in the field. They followed closely in the wake of the haughty Spaniard, who, by the galleons of his then unsurpassed navy, made for himself a footing on the shores of the West. It would be unjust to refuse a recognition of the heroic devotion and self-sacrifice of these missionary priests. The Gospel which they carried may have been a sadly corrupted message of God’s mercy, but its propagation inspired these men with a zeal and self renunciation which is worthy of all praise. When the great Catholic Queen, Isabella, gave special commands that “great care should be taken of the religious instruction of the Indians, “many there were who in the name of the Church leapt forward to do her bidding.
England, the great religious as well as political antagonist of Spain, was equally alive to the spiritual needs of the Indians, and in the gallant ships which hunted for the Spanish fleet in distant waters were brave, good soldiers of the Cross, whose mission was to fight not carnal but spiritual foes. Thus we find on the deck with the Sir Richard Grenville, of that famous little craft The Revenge, one Thomas Hariot, of goodly memory, who stepping ashore among the Indians preached faithfully the Word of God. “Many times,” says he in his notes, which have come down to us, “and in every town where I came, according as I was able, I made declaration of the contents of the Bible; that therein was set forth the true only God and His mighty works, that therein was contained the true doctrine of salvation through Christ, with many particularities of miracles and chief points of religion as I was able then to utter and thought fit for the time.”
Doubtless in those far off days as in these present with us, the Protestant missionary found a double foe to fight in the united errors of Pagan and Romish superstition. With the Pilgrim Fathers came the first definite endeavor to speak amongst the Indian aborigines the saving truths of the Christian religion. When they landed and began to found their Plymouth colony, it was immediately declared that their aim was “a desire to advance the Gospel in these remote parts of the world, even if they should be but as stepping stones to those who were to follow them.” In Massachusetts they adopted as a state emblem the figure of an Indian with a label from his mouth saying, “Come over and help us.” Thus it has been truly said, “These Pilgrims and Puritans were the pioneers of the Protestant world in attempts to convert the heathen to Christ. There were missionary colleges-self-supporting missions-composed of men who went on their own responsibility and at their own expense to establish their posterity among the heathen whose salvation they sought.” In the first chapter of this book a sketch is given of John Eliot, a famous and successful missionary of that day, one whose name and work is deserving of a more complete and worthier memorial in these present times of missionary interest. His Indian Bible published at Cambridge, near Boston, was the first and for many years the only edition of the Holy Scriptures in the vernacular. The work of Eliot and Mayhew and their praying Indians on the Island of Martha’s Vineyard is a most interesting page in the history of these early missions in New England.
The opening of the eighteenth century brings David Brainerd into view, taking up the noble labors of his Puritan predecessors. What manner of man he was, and what through the grace of God he was enabled to do, is set forth in this book; it need only be affirmed that evidently upon him descended the prophet’s mantle, and a double portion of the spirit of devotion and power.
We now come to the time when General Oglethorpe laid the foundations of the colony of Georgia, and took with him a pioneer band of Moravian missionaries, who were destined to make history and inscribe their names indelibly in the record of distinguished service for Christ. One of this number was David Zeisberger, a man of apostolic character, who seemed to have had a charmed life, so wonderfully was he preserved amid a perilous career. In common with all the Brethren he was a man of peace, refusing to bear arms, and having the rare courage to accept the doctrines of the Sermon on the Mount as his rule of conduct, for which godly offense he became the butt of the white man’s jealousy and spite, who, indeed, seems to have done his utmost to undermine the confidence of the Indians in their meek and devoted friend. He mastered the languages of the Six Nations, and when by persecution his Christian Indians were driven forth from Shekomeko, he founded the settlement of Gnadenhütten or the “Tents of Grace.” Everywhere the influence of his teaching was felt, and the Christian natives began to flock around him, and fresh settlements were formed, notably Friendenstadt, or the “Town of Peace,” among the Iroquois; and Schönbrunn, or “The Beautiful Spring,”near Lake Erie. Soon afterward the American War of Independence began, and the Moravian Brethren, staunchly refusing to take part with either side, were caught in the fiery storm, and suffered by the inroads and attacks of both whites and Indians. Drink had made the red men lawless and thirsty for outrage, and the Christian settlements were being constantly invaded, and the lives of the missionaries openly threatened. In vain did the friends of Zeisberger urge him to fly. He determined, even if it cost him his life, to remain loyally with his converts. “My heart does not allow me,” says he in reply, “even so much as to think of leaving. Where the Christians stay I will stay. It is impossible for me to forsake them. If Edwards and I were to go they would be without a guide and would disperse. Our presence gives authority to the national assistants, and the Lord gives authority to us. He will not look upon our remaining here as foolhardiness. I make no pretensions to heroism; but am by nature as timid as a dove. My trust is altogether in God. Never has He put me to shame, but always granted me the courage and the comfort I needed. I am about my duty, and even if I should be murdered it will not be my loss but my gain.” He lived long beyond the allotted three-score years and ten, and, like Eliot, saw in his last days the cruel obliteration of that work among the Indians, which he had given the energy of his lifetime to accomplish.
Besides Ziesberger many others might be quoted, as for instance, Christian Rauch, who inspired the Indians with confidence and respect. One of them once seeing him peacefully sleeping in a hut amongst them, remarked, “This man cannot be a bad man. He fears no evil. He does not fear us who are so fierce, but he sleeps in peace, and puts his life in our hands.”
Among the Moravian missionaries who came out with General Oglethorpe was a young English clergyman, who with considerable High-Church notions began to preach the Gospel to the Indians in Georgia. This was John Wesley, whose mission to Georgia was the means of bringing him in contact with the Brethren, and resulted in his own conversion and that glorious revival of religion in his own country, the fruits of which are being gathered in every part of the world to-day.
The commencement of American missions to the Indians dates from a little gathering of students of Williams College, under a haystack in the rain, to pray for the heathen and devote themselves to the work of their salvation. The outcome of this first missionary meeting was the establishment of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. The New York Missionary Society had already, in 1801, sent Mr. Holmes to work among the Tuscaroras at the Falls of Niagara, to whom came the pitiful appeal from some chiefs: ― “We cry to you from the wilderness, our hearts ache while we speak to your ears.... Think, poor Indians must die as well as white men. We pray you, therefore, never to give over and leave poor Indians, but follow them in their dark times, and let our children always find you to be their friends when we are dead and no more.”
In 1818 the American Board sent missionaries to the Cherokees and Choctaws; schools were founded, and there seemed every prospect of permanent success, when the Indians were driven back beyond the Mississippi, and in despair many became slaves to drink, and fell away. In 1836 three missionaries, Mr. Spalding, Mr. Gray, and Dr. Whitman, traversed three thousand miles to reach the Kayuses and Nez Perces Indians, and found them remarkably ready to receive the truth. During ten years great progress was made; schools, printing presses, and a Christian church were founded; but suddenly the unchristian natives burst upon the little mission house, treacherously murdered the doctor, his wife, and his friends, and the whole community were brutally treated and dispersed. After this Mr. Stephen R. Riggs, and his wife, began work among the Dakotas and Sioux, and after much patient endurance, God gave these faithful witnesses great success, and, like Brainerd, they saw a remarkable revival of religion among the Indians. “A Dakota now began to think as an Englishman, Christ came into the language, the Holy Spirit began to pour sweetness and power into it.” But upon this glad time there waited a season of persecution and distress; and murderous outrage destroyed the workers, and dispersed the converts. Here seems to have followed a time when, on every hand, a policy of retreat and discomfiture seized the mission societies. The mission to the Chickasees was abandoned in 1834; that to the Osages in 1836; to the Stockbridge tribe in 1848; to the Choctaws in 1859; to the Tuscaroras and Cherokees in 1860―twelve missions, and forty-five churches, which reached about one hundred thousand Indians, abandoned in twenty-six years! Dr. Beard, of America, who vouches for these facts, says, “The question now asks itself, Why were not these hopeful missionary efforts to these pagan tribes more permanent? What turned the tide of success, and left the missions stranded? Here comes the story of dishonor.... Unscrupulous greed has hovered about the Indian reservations as waiting buzzards hover near the wounded creature upon whose flesh they would fatten. Lands granted to the Indians were encroached upon by the white people. These encroachments resisted led to war. Savage nature, wrought up with a sense of injustice, and burning for revenge, swept down upon the guilty intruder and settler alike with indiscriminate massacre.”
One of the most conspicuous instances of the mission work among the Indians being injured by the unchristian aggression of the white man was that of the treatment of the peaceful and enlightened Cherokee tribe, who had so far embraced civilized ideas as to found the town of Brainerd in Georgia. The efforts of the missionaries there had been crowned with much success; but the State authorities were jealous of their influence with the natives, and at one time imprisoned two of them until the pressure of the Supreme Court, to which the missionaries appealed, enforced their release. The Indians were oppressed, deprived of their native government, and treated with the greatest injustice. Finally, a treaty was agreed upon, and for a consideration, wholly insufficient, the Cherokees were to be exported wholesale beyond the Mississippi. The way in which this was enforced, and its miserable results, is thus well described by one of the best and most impartial works of missionary history. “This treaty was bitterly opposed by the majority of the nation. They said, We feel it due to ourselves frankly to state that the Cherokee people do not and will not recognize the obligation of the instrument of December, 1835. We reject all its terms; we will receive none of its benefits. If it is to be enforced upon us, it will be by your superior strength. We shall offer no resistance, but our voluntary assent will never be yielded. We are aware of the consequences; but, while suffering them in all their bitterness, we shall submit our cause to an all-wise and just God, in whose Providence it is to maintain the cause of suffering innocence and unprotected feebleness.
“On the strength of the treaty, however, preparations were made for their removal, and forts were built to guard against any opposition that might arise. The 23rd of May, 1838, was fixed upon as the day when the troops were to commence operations. When the day arrived few had made any preparations, and families were turned out wholesale from their houses and farms, and collected into bodies ready for their long march to the Arkansas country.
“For a period of ten months the work of emigration went on, and during this period m000 people, divided into fourteen companies, traveled a distance of six or seven hundred miles, old and young, male and female, sick and healthy, none were spared, all were compelled to seek a new home away in the west. Before starting some of the companies were detained for a considerable time in their encampments, during which they remained idle, and were exposed to every kind of evil and temptation which proximity to the whites afforded. Often without sufficient tent accommodation they were greatly exposed to the inclemency of the severe winter of 1838-39, and many besides were very inadequately clothed. The result was a terrible mortality among them, not less than one-fourth of the whole dying on the journey, this being on an average twelve deaths a-day.
“The work of the mission was greatly deranged by the embarrassed state of the political affairs of the Indians; and when the missionaries were arrested and imprisoned, some of the stations became neglected and abandoned. Under the system of lottery by which the land was distributed, the premises of two of the mission stations were taken possession of by the men who had drawn the lots containing them, and the Board suffered considerable loss therefrom. The Cherokees, too, now imbibed a deep prejudice against the Christian religion. They found themselves robbed and despoiled of their most sacred and undisputed rights by a nation professing to be Christian! They saw that those who taught them were themselves American citizens, and as such were partly responsible for those injuries done to them. The result was that a spirit of laxity grew up among the church members, and caused many to fall back into heathenism and superstition. Their own political condition occupied attention to such an engrossing extent that little heed was paid to religion, and the morals of the people suffered accordingly.”
One of the most celebrated missionaries to the Indians in the present century was Peter Cartwright, the Methodist backwoods preacher. His own conversion from a life of gaiety and gambling, and his subsequent call to go forth to preach to the Indians is full of interest. He married an excellent woman, who became his brave and faithful helpmeet, and with their little children they traveled hundreds of miles through roadless swamps and forests and swiftly flowing rivers. The influence of his preaching was almost as striking as that of Brainerd, at one revival service we are told three hundred people lay upon the ground under conviction of sin. He stoutly opposed slavery, and, after enduring the discredit of emancipation principles, lived to see, at fourscore, the black man free. Others nobly followed up the work.
Space fails to recount the remarkable missionary experiences of those who, during the past half-century, have given themselves freely for the salvation of the Indians. Each name, of which a bare mention can alone be given here, deserves a record in the annals of holy enterprise. How nobly Riggs and his devoted wife labored among the Dakotas, how he compiled an invaluable dictionary of 16,000 native words, and how, with a party of sixty Christian men and women, they retreated a hundred miles across the prairie from the fury of the Indians maddened rage. How Finley formed a Church among the Wyandotts, and had a grand helper in a converted chief, by name “Summun-de-wet,” how Breck spent nearly forty years amongst the Chippewas, how Jackson and Mrs. MacFarland preached the Gospel in Alaska, how Wilson and his wife founded the native community at Sarnia, on the Garden River, what Case and Copway did in the midst of the Ojibways, the faithful service of Macdonald and Kirby in the Youkan district, and of Duncan at Fort Simpson. Besides these, mention must be made of three native Indian missionaries, Peter Jones, John Sunday, and Henry Sternheur, who were called upon to “hold the fort” for Christ among their brethren, and were much blessed in their work. Amongst missionaries of our own time, perhaps the name of the Rev. Egerton R. Young is most distinguished, one who has described his work among the Cree and Salteaux Indians in a volume of charming interest.
Nearly all branches of the Christian Church have been and are represented in this work of spreading the good news of salvation among the denizens of the wigwams. The New England Company, which, founded so far back as 1649, may be deemed the parent Society, does still a great work among the Mohawks on the Grand River, and has there and elsewhere educational establishments for the young Indians. The Church Missionary Society established a mission station in 1822, and are now doing excellent work in the district of Saskatchewan, among the Plain Crees, Sioux, and Blackfeet. The missions of the Unitas Fratrum or Moravians with its honorable history is still doing good among the Alaska Indians and Eskimos and Greenlanders. Societies which are indigenous to American soil do not forget the claims of the red man, the American Board, Baptist Union, Methodist Episcopal, Reformed Episcopal, Presbyterian Board, Mennonites, Bible Society and Society of Friends, are all more or less engaged in this work. The dispersal of the tribes, and the recent conflict at the Pine Ridge Agency, has, however, affected the progress of these efforts. In all his troubles and vicissitudes, the redskin is not forgotten by many who still believe that he has an immortal soul to be won for Christ.
One of the most intelligent and famous of North American Indians, the chief Sitting Bull, who perished recently in a conflict with the whites, once said, “There is not one white man who loves an Indian, and not a true Indian but hates a white man.” The bitterness of this declaration cannot be measured. But it is hoped that the perusal of the preceding pages will show that in the case of David Brainerd and many others since his day, it is happily possible for a white man to have a heart full of Christlike affection for his red brother, who, on his part, is not slow in reciprocating the fellowship of a common salvation.