Chapter 9
“Not from a stock of ours, but Thine,
Jesus Thy flock we feed.
Thy unexhausted grace Divine
Supplies their every need.
But if we trust Thy providence,
Thy power and will to save,
We have the treasure to dispense,
And shall forever have!”
―Charles Wesley.
Such remarkable fruits of his ministry among the Indians naturally impressed Brainerd greatly, and with the carefulness of judgment which always characterized his way of looking at things, he was in no haste to immediately accept every conversion as a spiritual fact, to be the cause, perhaps, of lamenting and disappointment afterward. In one case of a notorious drunkard he deferred the rite of baptism for several weeks, to prove the fruits of the Spirit, and he relates with great satisfaction that of all the adult Indians he had baptized, none afterward failed to give him “comfortable grounds to hope that God had wrought a special work of grace in their hearts.” He speaks very thankfully of forty-seven Indians at the Forks of the Delaware, “that through rich grace, none of them as yet have been left to disgrace their profession of Christianity, by any scandalous or unbecoming behavior.”
And now he sits down in his wigwam to review the work already done, and discern what special causes of thankfulness there were in the revival of true religion, which had just stirred the hearts of his Indians. This incident is of the deepest import, as showing the spirit of the man; here in his journal, written at this time, he lays bare unreservedly his heart, and with the sincerest humility disclaims for himself any credit in the success which had been achieved. He tells us that just before his strength was almost spent, and so far from thinking that a measure of encouragement was near at hand, he was, in face of the apparent futility of his prayers and labors, beginning to question whether he had not toiled in vain.
“I was ready to look upon myself as a burden to the honorable Society that employed and supported me in this mission, and began to entertain serious thoughts of giving up my mission, and almost resolved I would do so at the conclusion of the present year, if I had then no better prospect of special success in my work than I had hitherto had. I cannot say I entertained these thoughts because I was weary of the labors and fatigues that necessarily attended my present business, or because I had right and freedom in my own mind to turn any other way, but purely through dejection of spirit, pressing discouragement, and an apprehension of its being unjust to spend money consecrated to religious uses, only to civilize the Indians, and bring them to an external profession of Christianity. This was all I could then see any prospect of being effected, while God seemed, as I thought, evidently to frown upon the design of their saving conversion, by withholding the convincing and renewing influences of His blessed Spirit from attending the means I had hitherto used with them to that end.”
This then was his mood, the cloudy and dark day of a spiritual depression, like the two disciples who, with the pathos of a disappointed faith, told the Lord, “and we trusted;” so Brainerd had to sound the utmost depths of his weakness and inability until the manifestation of the power of God was spread before his eyes. “All hopes in human probabilities most evidently appeared to fail,” he said, and his first act of gratitude is to praise God that in His mercy He thus ordained strength out of weakness, that the glory might not be, the servant’s but the Master’s alone.
He marks how unaccountably, too, this concern seized the souls of these people. When he came first among them it was with difficulty he could get a single Indian man to come and hear the Gospel; his first congregation consisted of four women and a few little children, and yet, in the space of a few weeks, the crowds began to gather, and the people flocked, as we have seen, from all parts to listen to his words. The cry, “What must I do to be saved?” rang through every Indian settlement; “their coming to the place of our public worship was like Saul and his messengers coming among the prophets; they no sooner came than they prophesied.”
Brainerd, like many who have set about the Lord’s business in earnest since, had to work against the prejudices of his own people. It is very wonderful how history repeats itself. And we find this faithful man of God the subject of the criticisms of the lukewarm, and the denunciations of the evil-disposed. Perhaps these white men felt, that their craft was in danger, and their business, not it may be of a very creditable sort, would be endangered by the conversion of the natives. Just as the Anglo-Indians of Calcutta depreciated Henry Martyn with scoffing and scorn, so Brainerd found people objecting to his earnest and straightforward preaching of the Gospel. “The Indians were well enough already,” they said. “There was no need of all this noise about Christianity; they would be in no better, no safer, or happier state than they were already;” and so forth. This failing to impede the progress of Brainerd, they adopted bolder methods, outran him in the field, and told the Indians that he was a knave, a deceiver, daily teaching lies; and that his design was “to gather together as large a body of them as he possibly could, and then sell them to England for slaves.” They even plied them with strong drink that they might the better set them in savage prejudice against the young missionary. But against these opposers of the faith, its witness was armed by the might of Divine power, and exclaimed, on seeing how affectionately the Indians hurried to hear his word, “If God will work, who can hinder?”
Brainerd was not an expert linguist, and he very truly sets it down as an instance of the goodness of God that he was provided with a competent interpreter. For a time, certainly, this man, having no personal interest in the message he repeated, did not in any way express either the pathos or the power of the Gospel appeal, but after his conversion a wonderful change came in this respect. “It pleased God,” says Brainerd, “at this season to inspire his mind with longing desire for the conversion of the Indians, and to give him admirable zeal and fervency in addressing them in order thereto. And it is remarkable that when I was favored with special assistance in any work and enabled to speak with more than common freedom, fervency and power, under a lively and affecting sense of Divine things, he was usually affected in the same manner almost instantly, and seemed at once quickened and enabled to speak in the same pathetic language and under the same influence as I did. And a surprising energy often accompanied the Word at such seasons, so that the faces of the whole assembly would be apparently changed almost in an instant, and tears and sobs become common among them.” So that while Brainerd cannot claim, as he says, “any gift of tongues,” he had the immense advantage of an interpreter who had the heart and understanding to communicate the doctrines of Christianity.
Then, as now, there were in the minds of people strong prejudices against influencing the minds of the hearers by statements concerning the terrors of God’s wrath and indignation against sinners. “But God has left no room,” says Brainerd, “for this objection in the present case, this work of grace having been begun and carried on by almost one continued strain of Gospel invitation to perishing sinners.” Not that he hesitated to place before them “the exceeding sinfulness of sin,” and the consequences thereof if unrepented of. These old Puritans had a habit of calling a spade a spade, and believed in a real hell and a real devil just as truly as they proclaimed a real Christ and a real heaven. But still, to the disappointment of many carping lookers on, the extraordinary spiritual awakening of these Indians was clearly not due to any terrifying teaching. The remark Brainerd makes upon this is very true and frank.
“This great awakening, this surprising concern was never excited by any harangues of terror, but always appeared most remarkable when I insisted upon the compassion of a dying Savior, the plentiful provisions of the Gospels, and the free offers of Divine grace to needy distressed sinners. Nor would I be understood to insinuate that such religious concern might be justly suspected as not being genuine and from a Divine influence, because produced by the preaching of terror, for this is, perhaps, God’s more usual way of awakening sinners, and appears entirely agreeable to Scripture and sound reason; but what I meant here to observe is, that God saw fit to employ and bless milder means for the effectual awakening of these Indians, and thereby obviated the fore-mentioned objection, which the world might otherwise have had a more plausible color of making.” He notes the absence of undue excitement in the meetings, and, although many have trembled and some been stricken speechless under the power of the Word, there were no convulsions and bodily agonies which, at that time at least, were common to great religious revivals. There was a marked reality and thoroughness in these convictions of sin.
Across the wide interval of a century and a-half we hear Brainerd thanking God that in his work the drink, “their darling vice,” the sin that easily besets them, is losing its master hood over the souls and bodies of the people by the progress of Christian principle. They began to pay their debts, to lay aside all censoriousness of manner, to live with each other in brotherly love, and, above all, to put on charity. “A conquest of sin by the working of the Holy Ghost, and the cultivation of those Christian graces which make up the character of the Scriptural Christian, these things they followed after with great joy. Their consolations did not incline them to lighten, but, on the contrary, were attended by solemnity, and oftentimes with tears, and an apparent brokenness of heart. In some respects some of them have been surprised themselves, and have with concern observed to me, When their hearts have been glad (which is a phrase they commonly make use of to express spiritual joy) they could not help crying for all.”
Thus in this brief retrospect Brainerd finds place for abundant gratitude. Up to this point he had ridden over three thousand miles, and passed through hardships and trials of faith and patience, which are but faintly hinted at in his journal. He tells us how he had constantly to go away from his people in order to reach the towns where he might represent the work, and ask for it financial support.
For a long time Brainerd felt that he must have another worker with him, but failed to meet with the man of his choice. He then again set his mind upon obtaining sufficient funds to build a school and get the children in.
In one of these journeys he informs us that he reached a ferry just too late to cross on account of the tempestuous wind and waves, and had to spend the night in the ferry-house amid drinking people, who freely used the most profane language. He sat down and began to write in spite of the disturbances, and his mind was filled with calm, but he “thanked God that he was not likely to spend an eternity in such company.”
And now, possibly writing the very words under such untoward circumstances, he commits his thoughts to paper as to the work in which he was engaged.
“As these poor pagans stood in need of having line upon line and precept upon precept, in order to their being instructed and grounded in the principles of Christianity, so I preached publicly, and taught from house to house almost every day for whole weeks together when I was with them. My public discourses did not then make up one-half of my work, while there were so many constantly coming to me with that important inquiry, ‘What must we do to be saved? and opening to me the various exercises of their minds. And yet I can say (to the praise of rich grace) that the apparent success with which my labors were crowned has unspeakably more than compensated for the labor itself, and was likewise a good means of supporting and carrying me through business and fatigues which it seems my nature would have sunk under without such an encouraging prospect. But although this success has afforded unaltering support, comfort and thankfulness, yet in this season I have found great need of assistance in my work, and have been much oppressed for want of one to bear a part of my labors and hardships. ‘May the Lord of the harvest send forth other laborers into this part of His harvest, that those who sit in darkness may see great light, and that the whole earth may be filled with the knowledge of Himself!”
“O Lord of life and glory,
Have we not ears to hear
The sounds that rise before Thee,
To mock Thy love and tears?
Do we not hear the crying
For help from hearts and homes,
And can we sit denying
The help our Savior owns?
“O Lord of life and glory,
Our minds are at Thy feet,
That we may grasp the meaning
Of Calvary’s wondrous feat.
To nations now in slumber
We have to take the light,
Before the judgment thunder
Shall end our war for right.”
Herbert Booth.