Brainerd left New Jersey, as we before stated, on the 21st of April, 1747 ; on which day he entered on the thirtieth year of his age, and the fifth of his ministry. This was his last year. He did not live quite half through it; resigning his soul to Him whom he supremely loved, on the 9th of October following.

We shall trace, in the present chapter, the chief circumstances that marked his descent to the grave through the last six months of his life.

At the end of May, Brainerd reached the house of his friend and biographer, President Edwards, at Northampton, in New England. He was, at this time, better than he had been in the winter; was able to ride five-and-twenty miles in a day, and to walk half a mile; and appeared cheerful, and free from melancholy, but in a confirmed and incurable consumption.

Mr. Edwards, on this occasion, draws the following striking picture of him:—

‘I had had much opportunity, before this, of particular information concerning him, from many that were well acquainted with him; and had myself once an opportunity of considerable conversation and some acquaintance with him at Newhaven, near four years before, at the time of the commencement when he offered that confession to the rector of the college which has been already mentioned in this history ; I being one whom he was then pleased to consult several times on that affair: but now I had opportunity for a more full acquaintance with him.