The Life of Rev. David Brainerd, Chiefly Extracted from His DiaryBrainerd, David
Religion
The Life of Rev. David Brainerd, Chiefly Extracted from His Diary
Brainerd, David
Indians of North America -- Missions -- Early works to 1800
The Indians at Kaunaumeek being but few in number and Brainerd having
been laboring among them about a year, and having prevailed upon them to
be willing to leave Kaunaumeek, and remove to Stockbridge, to live
constantly under Mr. Sergeant’s ministry; he thought he might now do
more service for Christ among the Indians elsewhere: and therefore went
to New-Jersey, and laid the matter before the Commissioners; who met at
Elizabeth-Town, on the occasion, and determined that he should forthwith
leave Kaunaumeek, and go to the Delaware Indians.
By the invitations which Brainerd had lately received, it appears, that
it was not from necessity, or for want of opportunities to settle in the
ministry, that he determined to forsake all the outward comforts, he
might thus have enjoyed, to spend his life among _savages_, and endure
the difficulties and self-denials of an Indian _mission_. He had, just
as he was leaving Kaunaumeek, had an earnest invitation to a settlement
at East-Hampton, one of the pleasantest towns on Long-Island. The people
there were unanimous in their desires to have him for their pastor, and
for a long time continued in earnest pursuit of him, and were hardly
brought to relinquish their endeavors, and give up their hopes of
obtaining him. Besides this, he had an invitation to preach with
reference to a settlement in Millington, near his native town, and in
the midst of his friends. Nor did Brainerd choose the business of a
missionary to the Indians, rather than accept of those invitations,
because he was unacquainted with the difficulties and sufferings which
attended such a service; for he had had experience of these difficulties
in summer and winter; having spent about a year in a lonely desert among
these savages, where he had gone through extreme hardships, and been the
subject of a train of outward and inward sorrows, which were now fresh
in his mind.
After this he continued two or three days in New-Jersey, very ill; and
then returned to New-York; and from thence into New-England; and went to
his native town of Haddam, where he arrived on Saturday, April 14. And
he continues still his bitter complaints of want of retirement. While he
was in New-York, he says thus, “O it is not the pleasures of the world
which can comfort me! If _God_ deny his presence, what are the pleasures
of the _city_ to me? One hour of sweet retirement where _God is_, is
better than the whole world.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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