Brainerd, David

Brainerd, David, missionary to the American Indians, was born at Haddam, Connecticut, 20th April 1718. He entered Yale College in 1739, but three years later was expelled for declaring that one of the college tutors had no more of the grace of God than a chair. That same year he was licensed to preach, and sent as a missionary to the Indians in Massachusetts. He laboured afterwards among the Indians in Pennsylvania, and with much success in New Jersey, baptising there no fewer than seventy-seven converts, of whom thirty-eight were adults. In 1747 he died in the house of Jonathan Edwards, by whose able pen his Life was soon after written. The year before his death Brainerd published the narrative of his labours in his Mirabilia Dei inter Indicos and Grace Displayed. These were republished, together with the Life, in 1822, and had some popularity. See Sherwood's essay, introductory to the third edition (New York, 1884).