11 October: Boreham on David Brainerd

An Idyll of the Forest
This is the anniversary of the death, in 1747, of David Brainerd. It is therefore, just two hundred years since the world awoke with a start to a recognition of the fact that a young man had lived and died among the solitudes of the great American Woods who, achieving neither fame nor notoriety during his brief span of existence, was nevertheless destined to affect profoundly the course of civilisation.[1] He had kept a journal. The journal was published in full under the personal supervision of President Jonathan Edwards, and, in a few months, it was strangely influencing the lives of thousands of readers. Mr. R.E. Prothero, who wrote the biographies of Edward Gibbon, Lord Byron, and Dean Stanley, speaks of the journal of David Brainerd as a forgotten book; yet, he adds, it would be difficult to measure the magnitude of the results that it produced. It fired the imagination of William Carey; it stirred that consuming zeal in the soul of Henry Martyn, of which Lord Macaulay and George Eliot have written so movingly; and it inspired the decision of David Livingstone to become a missionary. Many of the most commanding figures of the 18th century, in Church and State, and on both sides of the Atlantic, fell under the spell of David Brainerd, and moulded their careers on his heroic example. Dying at 29, he did his best work whilst lying in his grave.

Born in 1718 at Haddam in Connecticut, and educated at Yale University, Brainerd came of a long line of Puritan ancestors, many of whom were preachers, and most of whom were consumptives. His own brief life was one continuous cough. If, today, he offered himself to any missionary society on the face of the earth, he would be submitted to a medical examination, would be summarily rejected, and nothing more heard of him.

The Lure Of The Wigwams
But the day of the missionary society had not yet dawned. As a result of a long and intense spiritual struggle in a lonely wood near his New England home, he had heard what he called "an effectual call" and had set his heart on being a missionary. China, India, Africa —all these were, of course, utterly out of the question. He thought of the redskins that haunted the prairies and forests of his own land. As a boy, he succumbed to the fascination that youth has always felt for the distinctive and picturesque features of Indian life. He thought of the canoes and the wigwams, the mats and the moccasins, the frayed leggings and the feathered headgear, the bows and the quivers, the scalping-knives and the tomahawks, the pow-wows and the peace pipes; he thought of these, and he thought, above all, of the man himself.

He thought of the Indians' haughty and taciturn demeanour, of his lithe and agile movement, of their simple but dignified eloquence, of their courage and resource on the war path, as well as of their poetic and imaginative accomplishments in time of peace. David Brainerd made up his mind that the Indian was well worth winning. For five years this frail young consumptive, racked with his cough and never free from pain, moved among the tattooed warriors of the forests. Most of his days were spent in the saddle, startling the furry creatures of the wild as he broke upon their age-long solitude. Most of his nights were spent beneath the open sky. Ignoring his rickety lungs, he exposed himself to perils and privations of every kind. Greedy of the moments as they flew by, he persisted as long as his spindly legs would bear the weight of his brittle body and then rode back to New England to die.

Unharmed Because Unarmed
The eyes of the red men were constantly upon him. He often rested amidst dense and matted vegetation that stood as it had stood from the foundation of the world. As far as he knew, he was seen only by the beavers who were busily building their dams on the picturesque inlets of the Susquehannah many feet below. But, all the time, he was being watched by wolfish eyes concealed within the impenetrable foliage. And it was well for him that it was so. For the scouts of many a hostile tribe, hearing of his approach, were sent out to observe and perhaps destroy him; impressed by his frailty and defencelessness they returned with the report that the white man came only to befriend them; and when, in due course, he reached the wigwams he was accorded a prophet's welcome. In the nature of things, such a career could not last long. When he felt his strength deserting him, he struggled back to Northampton, Massachusetts. He was nursed by Jerusha Edwards, the 17 year old daughter of President Edwards, to whom he was betrothed. Day by day she sat beside his bed, "her face close to his"; contracted his pitiless malady; and, on St. Valentine's Day, four months later, she followed him into the unseen.

His influence spread like wildfire with the publication of his journal. Whilst David Brainerd, unknown to his fellow men, was thridding the intricate maze of the western forests, Mr. Wesley, in the prime of life, was stirring England as England had never been stirred before. John Wesley and David Brainerd never saw each other's faces; until after Brainerd's death Mr. Wesley had never so much as heard his young contemporary's name. The Atlantic rolled between them and their fields lay far apart. Yet, although the one died at 29 and the other lived to be nearly 90, Wesley and Brainerd were twin spirits. "What can be done," cried Mr. Wesley, when he feared that the fires of the great revival were dying down, "what can be done to rebuild the work where it has decayed?" And he answered his own question. "Let every preacher," he commanded, "read the journal of David Brainerd!" Very few personal chronicles have ever been paid a more significant or more notable tribute.

[1] This editorial appears in the Hobart Mercury on April 21, 1951.

F W Boreham

Image: David Brainerd