the church were freely spent on the missions. Whitefield
visited the school and the field, and sped Kirkland on his way to the
Oneidas. Edwards, leaving Northampton in sorrow of heart, gave his
incomparable powers to the work of the gospel among the Stockbridge
Indians until summoned thence to the presidency of Princeton College.
When Brainerd fainted under his burden, it was William Tennent who went
out into the wilderness to carry on the work of harvest. But the great
gift of the American church to the cause of missions was the gift of
David Brainerd himself. His life was the typical missionary's life--the
scattering of precious seed with tears, the heart-sickness of hope
deferred, at last the rejoicing of the harvest-home. His early death
enrolled him in the canon of the saints of modern Christendom. The story
of his life and death, written by Jonathan Edwards out of that fatherly
love with which he had tended the young man's latest days and hours, may
not have been an unmixed blessing to the church. The long-protracted
introspections, the cherished forebodings and misgivings, as if doubt
was to be cultivated as a Christian virtue, may not have been an
altogether wholesome example for general imitation. But think what the
story of that short life has wrought! To how many hearts it has been an
inspiration to self-sacrifice and devotion to the service of God in the
service of man, we cannot know. Along one line its influence can be
partly traced. The "Life of David Brainerd" made Henry Martyn a
missionary to the heathen. As spiritual father to Henry Martyn, Brainerd
may be reckoned, in no unimportant sense, to be the father of modern
missions to the heathen.

FOOTNOTES:

[156:1] Of how little relative importance was this charge may be judged
from the fact that a quarter-century later, when the famous Joseph
Bellamy was invited to it from his tiny parish of Bethlem, Conn., the
council called to advise in the case judged that the interests of
Bethlem were too important to be sacrificed to the demands of New York.

[156:2] See the altogether admirable monograph of Professor A. V. G.
Allen on "Jonathan Edwards," p. 23.

[159:1] Allen, "Jonathan Edwards," pp. 164-174.

[162:1] Joseph Tracy, "The Great Awakening," chap. ii. This work, of
acknowledged value and authority, is on the list of the Congregational
Board of Publication. It is much to be regretted that the Board does not
publish it as well as announce it. A ne