Saturday, April 16. Still in the depths of distress.-In the afternoon, preached to my people; but was more discouraged with them than before; feared that nothing would ever be done for them to any happy effect. I retired and poured out my soul to God for mercy; but without any sensible relief. Soon after came an Irishman and a Dutchman, with a design, as they said, to hear me preach the next day; but none can tell how I felt, to hear their profane talk. Oh, I longed that some dear Christian knew my distress. I got into a kind of hovel, and there groaned out my complaint to God; and withal felt more sensible gratitude and thankfulness to God, that he had made me to differ from these men, as I knew through grace he had. Lord's day, April 17. In the morning was again distressed as soon as I waked, hearing much talk about the world and the things of it. I perceived the men were in some measure afraid of me; and I discoursed something about sanctifying the Sabbath, if possible to solemnize their minds: but when they were at a little distance, they again talked freely about secular affairs. Oh, I thought what a hell it would be, to live with such men to eternity! The Lord gave me some assistance in preaching, all day, and some resignation, and a small degree of comfort in prayer at night. He continued in this disconsolate frame the next day. Tuesday, April 19. In the morning, I enjoyed some sweet repose and rest in God; felt some strength and confidence in him; and my soul was in some measure refreshed and comforted. Spent most of the day in writing, and had some exercise of grace, sensible and comfortable. My soul seemed lifted above the deep waters, wherein it has been so long almost drowned; felt some spiritual longings and breathings of soul after God; and found myself engaged for the advancement of Christ's kingdom in my own soul. Wednesday, April 20. Set apart this day for fasting and prayer, to bow my soul before God for the bestowment of divine grace; especially that all my spiritual afflictions and inward distresses might be sanctified to my soul. And endeavoured also to remember the goodness of God to me the year past, this day being my birth-day. Having obtained help of God, I have hitherto lived, and am now arrived at the age of twenty-five years. My soul was pained, to think of my barrenness and deadness; that I have lived so little to the glory of the eternal God. I spent the day in the woods alone, and there poured out my complaint to God. O that God would enable me to live to his glory for the future! Thursday, April 21. Spent the forenoon in reading and prayer, and found myself engaged; but still much depressed in spirit under a sense of my vileness and unfitness for any public service. In the afternoon, I visited my people, and prayed and conversed with some about their souls concerns: and afterwards found some ardour of soul in secret prayer. O that I might grow up into the likeness of God! Friday, April 22. Spent the day in study, reading, and prayer; and felt a little relieved of my burden, that has been so heavy of late. But still was in some measure oppressed; and had a sense of barrenness. Oh, my leanness testifies against me! my very soul abhors itself for its unlikeness to God, its inactivity and sluggishness. When I have done all, alas, what an unprofitable servant am I! My soul grones, to see the hours of the day roll away, because I do not fill them, in spirituality and heavenly mindedness. And yet I long they should speed their pace, to hasten me to my eternal home, where I may fill up all my moments, through eternity, for God and his glory. On Saturday and Lord's day, his melancholy again prevailed; he complained of his ignorance, stupidity, and senselessness; while yet he seems to have spent the time with the utmost diligence, in study, in prayer, in instructing and counselling the Indians. On Monday, he sunk into the deepest melancholy; so that he supposed he never spent a day in such distress in his life; not in fears of hell, (which, he says, he had no pressing fear of) but a distressing sense of his own vileness, &c. On Tuesday, he expresses some relief. Wednesday he kept as a day of fasting and prayer, but in great distress. The three days next following, his melancholy continued, but in a less degree, and with intervals of comfort *. Lord's day, May 1. Was at Stockbridge to day. In the forenoon had some relief and assistance; though not so much as usual. In the afternoon, felt poorly in body and soul; while I was preaching, seemed to be rehearsing idle tales, without the least life, fervour, sense, or comfort; and especially afterwards, at the sacrament, my soul was filled with confusion, and the utmost anguish that ever I endured, under the feeling of my inexpressible vileness and meanness. It was a most bitter and distressing season to me, by reason of the view I had of my own heart, and the secret abominations * On the last of these days be wrote the first letter in the collection of his letters, among his Remains. that lurk there: I thought the eyes of all in the house were upon me, and I dared not look any one in the face; for it verily seemed as if they saw the vileness of my heart, and all the sins I had ever been guilty of. And if I had been banished from the presence of all mankind, never to be seen any more, or so much as thought of, still I should have been distressed with shame; and I should have been ashamed to see the most barbarous people on earth, because I was viler, and seemingly more brutishly ignorant than they.-"I am made to possess the sins of my youth." The remaining days of this week were spent, for the most part, in in. ward distress and gloominess. The next Sabbath, he had encouragement, assistance, and comfort; but on Monday sunk again. Tuesday, May 10. Was in the same state, as to my mind, that I have been in for some time; extremely pressed with a sense of guilt, pollution, and blindness: "The iniquity of my heels have compassed me about; the sins of my youth have been set in order before me; they have gone over my head, as an heavy burden, too heavy for me to bear." Almost all the actions of my life past seem to be covered over with sin and guilt; and those of them that I performed in the most conscientious manner, now fill me with shame and confusion, that I cannot hold up my face. Oh! the pride, selfishness, hypocrisy, ignorance, bitterness, party-zeal, and the want of love, candour, meekness, and gentleness, that have attended my attempts to promote religion and virtue; and this when I have reason to hope I had real assistance from above, and some sweet intercourse with Heaven! But, alas, what corrupt mixtures attended my best duties! The next seven days, his gloom and distress continued for the most part, but he had some turns of relief and spiritual comfort. He gives an account of his spending part of this time in hard labour, to build himself a little cottage to live in amongst the Indians, in which he might be by himself; having, it seems, hitherto lived with a poor Scotchman, as he observes in the letter just now referred to; and afterwards, before his own house was habitable, lived in a wigwam among the Indians. Wednesday, May 18. My circumstances are such, that I have no comfort, of any kind, but what I have in God. I live in the most lonesome wilderness; have but one single person to converse with, that can speak English *. Most of the talk *This person was Mr. BRAINERD's interpreter; who was an ingenious young Indian belonging to Stockbridge, whose name was John Wauwaumpequunnaunt. I hear, is either Highland Scotch or Indian. I have no fellowChristian to whom I might unbosom myself, or lay open my spiritual sorrows; with whom I might take sweet counsel in conversation about heavenly things, and join in social prayer. I live poorly with regard to the comforts of life: most of my diet consists of boiled corn, hasty-pudding, &c. I lodge on a bundle of straw, my labour is hard and extremely difficult, and I have little appearance of success, to comfort me. The Indians have no land to live on, but what the Dutch people lay claim to; and these threaten to drive them off. They have no regard to the souls of the poor Indians; and, by what I can learn, they hate me, because I come to preach to them.-But that which makes all my difficulties grievous to be borne, is, that God hides his face from me. Thursday, May 19. Spent most of this day in close studies: but was sometimes so distressed that I could think of nothing but my spiritual blindness, ignorance, pride, and misery. Oh, I have reason to make that prayer, "Lord, forgive my sins of youth, and former trespasses." Friday, May 20. Was much perplexed, some part of the day; but towards night, had some comfortable meditations on Is. xl. 1. Comfort ye, comfort ye, &c. and enjoyed some sweetness in prayer. Afterwards, my soul rose so far above the deep waters, that I dared to rejoice in God. I saw, there was sufficient matter of consolation in the blessed God. The next nine days, his burdens were for the most part alleviated, but with variety; at some times, having considerable consolation; and at others, more depressed. The next day, Monday, May 30, he set out on a journey to New-Jersey, to consult the commissioners who employed him about the affairs of his mission*. He performed his journey thither in four days; and arrived at Mr. Burr's in Newark on Thursday. In great part of his journey, he was in the depths of melancholy, under distresses like those already mentioned. On Friday, he rode to Elisabeth-Town: and on Saturday to NewYork; and from thence on his way homewards as far as White-Plains. There he spent the Sabbath, and had considerable degrees of divine consolation and assistance in public services. On Monday, he rode about sixty miles to NewHaven. There he attempted a reconciliation with the authority of the He had been instructed in the Christian religion by Mr. Sergeant; had lived with the Reverend Mr. Williams of Long-Meadow; had been further instructed by him, at the charge of Mr. Hollis of London; and understood both English and Indian very well, and wrote a good band. * His business with the commissioners now was, to obtain orders from them to set up a school among the Indians at Kaunaumcek, and that his interpreter might be appointed the schoolmaster; which was accordingly done. T VOL. III. college; and spent this week in visiting his friends in those parts, and in his journey homewards, till Saturday, in a pretty comfortable frame of mind. On Saturday, in his way from Stockbridge to Kaunaumeek, he was lost in the woods, and lay all night in the open air; but happily found his way in the morning, and came to his Indians on Lord's day, June 12, and had greater assistance in preaching among them than ever before, since his first coming among them. From this time forward he was the subject of various frames and exer cises of mind: in the general, much after the same manner as hitherto, from his first coming to Kaunaumeek till he got into his own house, (a little hut, which he made chiefly with his own hands, by long and hard labour), which was near seven weeks from this time. Great part of this space of time, be was dejected, and depressed with melancholy, sometimes extremely; his melancholy operating in like manner as related in times past. How it was with him in those dark seasons, he himself further describes in his diary for July 2, in the following manner. "My soul is, and has for a long time been in a piteous condition, wading through a series of sorrows, of various kinds. I have been so crushed down sometimes with a sense of my meanness and Infinite unworthiness, that I have been ashamed that any, even the meanest of my fellow-creatures, should so much as spend a thought about me; and have wished sometimes, while travelling among the thick brakes, to drop, as one of them, into everlasting oblivion. In this case, sometimes, I have almost resolved never again to see any of my acquaintance: and really thought, I could not do it and hold up my face; and have longed for the remotest region, for a retreat from all my friends, that I might not be seen or heard of any more. -Sometimes the consideration of my ignorance has been a means of my great distress and anxiety. And especially my soul has been in anguish with fear, shame, and guilt, that ever I had preached, or had any thought that way.- -Sometimes my soul has been in distress on feeling some particular corruptions rise and swell like a mighty torrent, with present vio lence; having, at the same time, ten thousand former sins and follies presented to view, in all their blackness and aggravations.—And these, while destitute of most of the conveniencies of life, and I may say, of all the pleasures of it; without a friend to communicate any of my sorrows to, and sometimes without any place of retirement, where I may unburden my soul before God, which has greatly contributed to my distress. Of late, more especially, my great difficulty has been a sort of carelessness, a kind of regardless temper of mind, whence I have been disposed to indolence and trifling and this temper of mind has constantly been attended with guilt and shame; so that sometimes I have been in a kind of horror, to find myself so unlike the blessed God. I have thought I grew worse under all my trials; and nothing has cut and wounded my soul more than this. Oh, if I am one of God's chosen, as I trust through infinite grace I am, I find of a truth, that the righteous are scarcely saved." : It is apparent, that one main occasion of that distressing gloominess of mind which he was so much exercised with at Kaunaumeek, was reflection on his past errors and misguided zeal at college, in the beginning of the late religious commotions. And therefore he repeated his endeavours this year for reconciliation with the governors of the college, whom he bad at that time offended. Although he had been at New-Haven, in June, this year, and attempted a reconciliation, as mentioned already; yet, in the beginning of July, he made another journey thither, and renewed his attempt, but still in |