BIO:David Brainerd 1718-1747 Missionary to the American Indians.

   David Brainerd was born April 20, 1718, at Hatham, Connecticut. 
His early years were spent in an atmosphere of piety though his father 
died when David was nine and his mother died five years later. 

   As a young man he was inclined to be melancholy, with the welfare of 
his soul ever before him. His entire youth was divided between farming, 
reading the Bible, and praying. Early in life, he felt the call to the 
ministry and looked forward almost impatiently to the day when he could 
preach the Gospel.  His formal education consisted of three years at 
Yale, where he was an excellent student until ill health forced him to 
return home. He completed his studies privately until he was fitted and 
licensed to preach by the Association of Ministers in Fairfield County,
Connecticut. He turned down the offers of two pastorates in order to
preach the Gospel to the American Indians. Jonathan Edwards wrote of
him, "And, having put his hand to the plow, he looked not back, and
gave himself, heart, soul, and mind, and strength, to his chosen
mission with unfaltering purpose, with apostolic zeal, with a heroic
faith that feared no danger and surmounted every obstacle, and with an
earnestness of mind that wrought wonders on savage lives and whole
communities." Brainerd did his greatest work by prayer. He was in the
depths of the forests alone, unable to speak the language of the
Indians. But he spent whole days in prayer, praying simply that the
power of the Holy Ghost might come upon him so greatly that the Indians
would not be able to refuse the Gospel message. Once he preached
through a drunken interpreter, a man so intoxicated that he could
hardly stand up. Yet scores were converted through that sermon. Plagued
by ill health and the hardships of the primitive conditions, he died
at the early age of 29, at the home of Jonathan Edwards, to whose
daughter he was engaged. After his death, William Carey read his diary
and went to India. Robert McCheyne read it and went to the Jews. Henry
Martyn read it and went to India. Though it was not written for
publication, his diary influenced hundreds to yearn for the deeper life
of prayer and communion with God, and also moved scores of men to
surrender for missionary work.

