David Brainerd

David Brainerd was born on April 20, 1718, in Haddam, Connecticut, the sixth of nine children born to Hezekiah and Dorothy Brainerd. His father died when David was eight, his mother when he was fourteen, leaving him to be raised by an older sister. The early losses marked him with a melancholy that would shadow his entire brief life. He entered Yale College in 1739 during the height of the Great Awakening, when the campus was divided between those who embraced the revival and those who opposed it. Brainerd aligned himself firmly with the revivalists, a position that would cost him dearly.

His conversion came during his sophomore year in a moment of profound spiritual crisis. He had struggled for months with what he described as "a dreadful hardness of heart" until, walking alone in a secluded place, he experienced what he called "unspeakable glory" and "a new inward perception" of Christ. The experience was genuine, but it fed a scrupulosity about his own spiritual state that would torment him for the rest of his life. In 1742, during his senior year, he was expelled from Yale for making remarks critical of a tutor's spiritual condition, saying the man "had no more grace than this chair." The comment reached the authorities, and despite attempts at reconciliation, Brainerd was dismissed two months before graduation. The humiliation cut deep. He would spend years seeking readmission, not for the degree but for the public vindication it represented.

Unable to pursue ordination through normal Presbyterian channels without a Yale degree, Brainerd was examined and licensed by a group of New Light ministers in 1742. The Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge appointed him as a missionary to the Native Americans, and in 1743 he began work among the tribes of eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The assignment was physically brutal and often discouraging. He lived in crude conditions, struggled with languages he barely knew, and saw little fruit for the first several years. His diary from this period records long stretches of spiritual darkness, physical illness, and what he called "overwhelming melancholy." But in 1745, while working among the Delaware at Crossweeksung, New Jersey, a remarkable awakening began. Entire families were converted, drunkenness ceased, and a community of Native American believers emerged that would persist for decades.

The success came at enormous personal cost. Brainerd drove himself mercilessly, often preaching when he was too ill to stand properly. He had contracted tuberculosis, and the disease steadily weakened him. In 1746, no longer able to continue his missionary work, he made his way to Northampton, Massachusetts, to stay with Jonathan Edwards. Edwards had become something of a father figure to the younger man, and Brainerd spent his final months in the Edwards household, cared for largely by Edwards's daughter Jerusha, to whom he had become engaged. His suffering was intense—constant fever, difficulty breathing, and periods of delirium. He died on October 9, 1747, at the age of twenty-nine. Jerusha Edwards died four months later, likely from the same disease.

His Writing and Influence

Brainerd kept a detailed diary throughout his adult life, recording with painful honesty his spiritual struggles, his missionary labors, and his physical decline. After his death, Jonathan Edwards compiled and edited these writings, publishing them in 1749 as An Account of the Life of the Late Reverend Mr. David Brainerd. Edwards presented Brainerd as a model of evangelical piety, but the diary reveals a more complex figure—a man of genuine devotion whose introspection often bordered on the morbid.

The diary's influence was immediate and extraordinary. John Wesley condensed it for Methodist readers, calling it "one of the most excellent pieces" he had ever published. William Carey credited it with inspiring his missionary calling to India. Henry Martyn carried it with him to Persia. Throughout the nineteenth century it became a standard text for missionary preparation, despite—or perhaps because of—its unflinching portrayal of missionary hardship. The work shaped the romantic ideal of missionary sacrifice that would motivate thousands to foreign service.

Modern readers find Brainerd more troubling. His relentless self-examination, his tendency to interpret every physical or emotional difficulty as a sign of spiritual failure, and his apparent inability to accept grace for himself make for difficult reading. Some scholars have suggested he suffered from what would now be recognized as clinical depression, complicated by tuberculosis and the genuine hardships of frontier missionary work. Yet beneath the melancholy lies a fierce commitment to the gospel and a love for Native American peoples that was rare in his era.

The diary remains in print and continues to challenge readers with its portrait of costly discipleship. Edwards's editorial work ensured its survival, but it also shaped its reception in ways that sometimes obscured Brainerd's humanity beneath a halo of missionary martyrdom.

Who should read Brainerd: Those called to difficult ministry who need to see that spiritual darkness and fruitful service can coexist, and those whose faith has been tested by suffering or mental anguish. He offers no easy comfort, but his example suggests that God can use broken vessels. Not for readers seeking triumphant faith or practical ministry advice—Brainerd's value lies in his raw honesty about the cost of following Christ in a fallen world.