AN ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE OF THE LATE REVEREND MR. DAVID BRAINERD, MINISTER OF THE GOSPEL, MISSIONARY TO THE INDIANS, FROM THE HONOURABLE SOCIETY IN SCOTLAND, FOR THE PROPAGATION OF CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE, AND PASTOR OF A CHURCH OF CHRISTIAN INDIANS IN NEW-JERSEY...CHIEFLY TAKEN FROM HIS OWN DIARY, AND OTHER PRIVATE WRITINGS, WRITTEN FOR HIS OWN USE; AND NOW PUBLISHED

Boston: Printed and Sold by D. Henchman, 1749.. [2],xii,[18],316 [i.e. 318]pp., including list of subscribers. Lacking terminal leaf of publisher's advertisements and rear endpaper. Slightly later tree calf, spine ruled in gilt, gilt morocco label. Worn at corners and spine ends, boards rubbed and with a few small scuffs. Front hinge cracked (but holding), horizontal tear to front free endpaper. Titlepage loosening, scattered tanning and staining. Good. The first biography of this famed missionary, adapted from his own diary and written by the renowned New England divine, Jonathan Edwards. Expelled from Yale for sympathizing with the Whitefield revival and for remarking that a college tutor had "no more grace than this chair," Brainerd was nevertheless successful as a missionary to various native tribes. He preached to tribes in Kaunaumeek (a settlement in the woods between Stockbridge and Albany), and then at present day Easton, Pennsylvania, and also at Crosweeksung (now Crosswicks, New Jersey). He died at the age of twenty-nine in the home of Edwards, whose daughter he was engaged to marry. Brainerd was subject to periods of depression, and it has been suggested that many of his emotional religious experiences during his time as a missionary were pathological in origin.

"Brainerd was a mystic of saintly character, controlled absolutely by a sense of God and duty, indifferent to any labor or risk his devotion to these entailed, yet eminently practical in his missionary program. His religious experiences, elevations and depressions of spirit, physical weakness, travels and labors, doctrinal teachings, and methods of work, are all set forth in his diary" - DAB. ESTC W10110. EVANS 6311. DAB II, pp.591-92. SABIN 21927. HOWES E56.