author
David Brainerd
1718–1747
A young colonial missionary whose journals outlived him, he became one of the best-known devotional voices in early American Protestant history. His brief life among Native communities and his intense diary writing gave later readers a powerful picture of faith, hardship, and spiritual struggle.
1 Audiobook
The Life of Rev. David Brainerd, Chiefly Extracted from His Diary
by David Brainerd
About the author
Born in Connecticut in 1718, David Brainerd was an American Presbyterian minister and missionary. He is best known for his work among Native American communities in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and for the personal journals that recorded both his religious zeal and his frequent exhaustion, illness, and self-doubt.
Brainerd studied at Yale but did not complete his degree after a controversy that led to his expulsion. He later entered missionary service and spent the last years of his life traveling, preaching, and enduring severe physical weakness. He died in 1747 at just twenty-nine years old.
Much of his lasting reputation comes from the publication of his diary by Jonathan Edwards, who helped turn Brainerd into an influential figure for later evangelical readers and missionaries. Today he is remembered less for a long public career than for the unusual intensity and honesty of the writings he left behind.