A Book of Earnest Lives (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1894 Excerpt: ...he would certainly have died for want of proper care and skilful attendance. Even for a robust and vigorous man, with nerves like steel and a frame like iron, this life in the wilderness would have been exceptionally severe, but for Brainerd it was a prolonged martyrdom, under which he was sustained only by his deep sense of the worthiness of his work. It was work done in Christ's name, that souls might be brought to Christ; and this knowledge supported his failing limbs, and infused vitality into his enfeebled constitution. When weak and sick for lack of sufficient food, he was compelled with his own hands to gather a winter supply of fodder for his horse. To get bread, he had to ride fourteen or fifteen miles. If he returned with a stock beyond his immediate wants, it turned sour and mouldy before he could eat it. If the quantity proved insufficient, he could go for no more until he had caught his horse, which was turned out to graze in the woods. Thus he frequently found himself without any better food than cakes of Indian meal, roasted in the ashes. But these physical hardships caused him no annoyance, no sinking of the heart, or mental deression: he wrote in his journal: "I have a house, and many of the comforts of life to support me," and he blessed God as if h- Ijtd been a king. The war between England and France, which raged in America, necessitated, at last, the removal of Brainerd's small congregation of Indians to the town of Stockbridge (April 1744). There he made CHRISTIAN VERSUS CHRISTIAN. 209 up his mind to leave them; and though suffering from bleeding at the lungs, and in a consumptive condition, he resolved to penetrate farther into the wilderness, and visit the less civilized tribes. For this purpose he accepted a mission t...