*Friday, April 22. My leanness testifies against me! My soul abhors itself for its unlikeness to God, its inactivity and sluggishness. When I have done all, what an unprofitable servant am I! I groan 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, for God and his glory.
*Tuesday, May 10. I was extremely pressed with a sense of guilt, pollution, blindness; the sins of my youth were set in order before me; they went over my head a 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, Oh! the pride, selfishness, ignorance, bitterness, party-zeal, and the want of love, candour, meekness, and gentleness, that have attended my attempts to promote religion; and this when I had real assistance from above, and some sweet intercourse with heaven! But, what corrupt mixtures attended my best duties!
After several weeks I found my distance from the Indians a very great disadvantage, as I was obliged to travel forward and backward almost daily on foot having no pasture in which I could keep my horse. And after all my pains, I could not be with them in the evening and morning, which were hours when they could best attend my instructions.
I therefore resolved to remove, and live with or near the Indians, that I might watch when they were at home and take that time for their instruction.
Accordingly I removed and for a time lived with them in one of their wigwams: not long after I built me a small house, where I spent the remainder of that year alone; my interpreter (who was an Indian) choosing rather to live in a wigwam among his own countrymen.
But although the difficulties of this solitary way of living are not the least, yet I can truly say the burden I felt respecting my great work among the poor Indians, the fear and concern that continually hung upon my spirit, lest they should be prejudiced against Christianity, by means of some who (although they are called Christians) had rather the Indians should remain heathens, that they may with more ease cheat them; the fear and concern I felt in these respects, were much more pressing to me, than all the difficulties that attended the circumstances of my living.
As to the state or temper of mind, in which I found these Indians, at my first coming among them, it was much more encouraging, than expected. Their prejudices against Christianity, were in a great measure removed by the long continued labours of the Rev. Mr. Sergeant among a number of the same tribe, in a place more than twenty miles distant: by which means, these were in some degree, prepared to entertain the truths of Christianity instead of objecting against them as is common with them at first. Some of them appeared well disposed toward religion, and seemed pleased with my coming among them.
*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.[¹] Most of the talk I hear, is either Highland Scotch or Indian. I have no fellow-Christian to whom I might unbosom myself, and lay open my spiritual sorrows, and with whom I might take sweet counsel about heavenly things, and join in prayer. I live poorly with regard to the comforts of life: most of my diet consists of boiled corn, and hasty pudding. I lodge on a bundle of straw, my labour is hard; and I have little appearance of success. The Indian affairs are very difficult; having no land to live on, but what the Dutch threaten to drive them from; they have no regard to the souls of the poor Indians; and 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.”
[¹] This person was Mr. Brainerd’s interpreter; who was an ingenious young Indian belonging to Stockbridge, whose name was John Wauwaumpequunaunt, who had been instructed in the Christian religion by Mr. Sergeant; understood both English and Indian very well, and wrote a good hand.
[Here he had various exercises of mind; from his first coming to Kaunaumeek, till he got into his own house, a little hut that he made chiefly with his own hands, with long and hard labour. How it was with him in those dark seasons he further describes in his diary for July 2.] “My soul is, and has for a long time been in a pitieous 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 while I have travelled among the thick brakes, to drop into everlasting oblivion. In this case, I have almost resolved never again to see any of my acquaintance; and really thought, I could 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: having at the same time, ten thousand former sins and follies presented to my view.——And these attended with such external circumstances as mine at present are; destitute of most of the conveniences 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.”