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THE

Evangelical Magazine,

FOR DECEMBER, 1796.
DECEMBE

BIOGRAPHY.

LIFE OF THE LATE REV. DAVID BRAINERD, OF NEW-ENGLAND,

MISSIONARY TO THE AMERICAN INDIANS.

PART II.

[From bis entrance on the Ministry, to the successful period of bis labours.]

BL

LESSED with peculiar talents, favoured with the most intimate communion with God, and humbled in the dust under a sense of his own depravity, Mr. Brainerd entered upon the arduous work of the ministry, preaching occasionally in the pulpits of his friends from the day he was licensed, till the providence of God opened for him a door of utterance among the heathen.

The day after he was licensed, he rode to Southbury, and preached, where he enjoyed much of the comfortable presence of God, both in his prayer and sermon; and for several days he continued in a sweet tranquillity of mind, being sometimes refreshed with the hope of seeing the heathen coming to Christ. But on the 12th of August, while he was at a place near Kent, in the western borders of Connecticut, where there was a number of Indians, his soui was exercised with the most severe conflict. He had no power to pray; his hopes, that God would send him afar off among the heathen, vanished; his spirit was so exceedingly depressed with a sense of his vileness, that he seemed in his own eyes worse than any devil. He could not conceive why God permitted him to live, and wondered the people did not stone him, much more that they would hear him preach. The trial had lasted all that morning and the preceding night. About ten o'clock the people assembled, and he was forced VOL. IV. 3 Y

to

to ascend the pulpit. Contrary to his expectations, the Lord so favoured him with his presence, and assisted him in praying and preaching, that he spake with power; some of the Indians present crying out in deep distress, and all appearing greatly affected. This revived his hopes, and probably induced him to hire a woman to keep a school for their instruction.

However strongly his mind was impressed with a sense of his insufficiency and unworthiness, all who heard him were persuaded God had raised him up for great usefulness. His remarkable concern for the conversion of the heathen could not be concealed; and on the 19th of November, 1742, he received a pressing invitation from the Rev. Mr. Pemberton, of New-York, to come there as soon as possible, and meet the correspondents of the Society in Scotland, for propagating Christian knowledge, and consult with them about the affairs of the neighbouring Indians.

This was a solemn message. He felt more than ever the weight of the important subject for which the interview was desired; but was enabled to cast his burden upon the Lord, earnestly requesting his help and direction. The correspondents, highly satisfied with his Christian experience and acquaintance with divinity, engaged him as a missionary.

Their design was to send him to the Indians, at the Forks of Delaware. But as the winter season was then approaching, which in that part of America is remarkably cold, it was thought expedient that he should delay his journey till the ensuing spring. The interval, however, was not spent unprofitably to himself or others. He conversed occasionally with select friends; he read much, prayed much, and preached often. Considering himself as for ever devoted to the work in which he had engaged, and expecting soon to go and spend the remainder of his life among savages in the wilderness, he began to think how he might glorify God most with the property left him by his father: And no way more eligible occurring to his thoughts, than by educating some young man for the ministry, he accordingly made the offer to a person whom he thought most promising; and having given him some previous learning, sent him to college, and was at the sole expence of his education.

While he was preparing for his journey, the corresponding ministers, whom he met at Woodbridge in the latter end of March, having received information that a contest subsisted between the white people and the Indians at Delaware, concerning their lands, which they supposed would be a hin

drance

drance to the reception of the Gospel, they gave him new directions, and appointed him to go among the Indians at KAUNAUMEEK.

This is a place in the province of New-York, in the woods between Stockbridge and Albany, and about eighteen or twenty miles distant from each of these towns. Here he arrived on the 1st of April, 1743, and was kindly received by the Indians, who soon became seriously attentive to his instructions: And he continued among them upwards of twelve months, subject to great gloominess and distress of mind, and exposed to many hardships and difficulties, sleeping on straw, in a wretched hovel, and living on food of the most ordinary kind, and even reduced, sometimes, to short allowance, as none could be procured from a less distance than sixteen or eighteen miles.

He ascribes the favourable reception he met with, to the long-continued labours of the Rev. Mr. Sergeant among some of the same tribe, by whose report their prejudices were, in a great measure, removed, and their minds prepared to entertain the truths of Christianity. He immediately endeavoured to teach them the nature of the fall and recovery in the most plain and easy manner; addressing them by an interpreter, an ingenious young Indian, who had been instructed in the Christian religion, by Mr. Sergeant, and was able to read well, and write a good hand.

After he had been some months on the spot, he composed, and, by the help of his interpreter, translated into their own Janguage, several psalms and forms of prayer, adapted to their circumstances and capacities, and which he learned to pronounce so well, that he could sing and pray with them in their own tongue.

When they had gained some acquaintance with such truths as he thought were necessary to be previously known, he gave them an historical account of God's dealings with the Jews, and explained some of their rites, ceremonies, and sacrifices; leading them gradually on to the birth, life, miracles, sufferings, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, and the consequent effusion of the Holy Spirit: And having prepared the way by this general view of things, he expounded, almost every evening, in a regular course, the Gospel of St. Matthew, that their ideas might be more distinct and particular.

Besides these instructions, he had, by the consent of the Commissioners, instituted a school for children and young

people,

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