of religion which make everything
depend upon the individual person's own consciousness of the state of his
heart and feelings, instead of supporting this by any outward tokens for
faith to rest upon, the more humble and scrupulous spirits often undergo
fearful misery before they can attain to such security of their own faith
as they believe essential. Indeed, this state of wretchedness is almost
deemed a necessary stage in the Christian life, like the Slough of
Despond in the Pilgrim's Progress; and with such a temperament as David
Brainerd's, the horrors of the struggle for hope were dreadful and lasted
for months, before an almost physical perception of light, glory, and
grace shone out upon him, although, even to the end of his life, hope and
fear, spiritual joy and depression alternated, no doubt, greatly in
consequence of his constant ill-health.

In 1739, in his twenty-first year, he became a student at Yale, and,
between hard work and his mental self-reproach for the worldly ambition
of distinction, his health broke down, haemorrhage from the lungs set in,
and he was sent home, it was supposed, only to die. He was then in a
very happy frame of mind, and was almost sorry to find himself well
enough to return to what he felt to be a scene of temptation. That same
year, his head was entirely turned by the excitement of George
Whitfield's preaching; he was carried away by religious enthusiasm, and
was in a state of indiscreet zeal, of which his better judgment
afterwards repented, so that he destroyed all the portion of his journal
that related to that year. Indeed, his vehemence cost him dear, for, in
the heat of a discussion, he had the misfortune to say, "Mr. Whittlesey,
he has no more grace than this chair I am leaning upon." Mr. Whittlesey
was one of the college tutors, and a gossiping freshman who overheard the
words thought proper to report this to a meddling woman, who immediately
walked off to the Rector of the college with the awful intelligence that
young Brainerd said that Mr. Whittlesey had no more grace than a chair!

The Rector had not the sense to silence the silly slander; he sent for
the freshman, took his evidence, and that of the young men with whom
Brainerd had been conversing, and then required him to make public
confession and amends to Mr. Whittlesey before the whole assembled
college,--a humiliation never previously required, except in cases of
gross moral misconduct. The fact was, tha