Siouxie and the Laces Blog

By almost any standard, David Brainerd was not a suitable candidate for missionary service. From his youth he was frail and sickly, later becoming tubercular and dying of that disease at age  twenty-nine. He never finished college, being expelled from Yale for criticizing a professor and for his interest and attendance in meetings of the “New Lights,” a religious organization. He was prone to depression. Yet he became a missionary to the American Indians and, in the most real sense, a pioneer of modern missionary work. Brainerd began his ministry 1743, reaching out to the Indians (Native Americans) at Kannameek, New York. He also ministered in New Jersey and Delaware. Brainerd’s first journey to Delaware to reach that ferocious tribe resulted in a miracle that preserved his life and endeared him among the Indians as a “Prophet of God.” Camped at the outskirts of the Indian settlement, Brainerd planned to enter the Indian community the next morning for the purpose of preaching the gospel. Unbeknownst to him, Brainerd’s every move was watched by warriors who had been sent to kill him. When the braves drew close to Brainerd’s tent, they saw him kneeling in prayer. As he prayed, suddenly a rattlesnake slipped to his side and lifted up its head to strike, flicking its forked tongue almost in Brainerd’s face. Then, without any apparent reason, the rattlesnake glided swiftly into the nearby undergrowth. “The Great Spirit is with the paleface!” the Indians declared. Which is why, instead of killing Brainerd, they gave him a prophet’s welcome.