Pioneers and Founders

CHAPTER II. DAVID BRAINERD, THE ENTHUSIAST.

The Indian pastor of Natick, who had been trained by Mr. Eliot, died in 1716, and two years later was born one of the men who did all in his power, through his brief life, to hold up the light of truth to the unfortunate natives of America, as they were driven further and further to the west before the advancing tide from Europe.

The fourth son among nine children, who lost both parents at a very early age, David Brainerd, though born above the reach of want, had many disadvantages to contend with. Both his parents had, however, been religious people, the children of ministers who had come out to America in the days of the Pilgrim Fathers, and settling at Haddam in Connecticut, trained up their families in the stern, earnest, and rigid rules and doctrines of Calvinism, which certainly, where they are accepted by an earnest and thoughtful mind, have a great tendency to stimulate the intellect, and force forward, as it were, the religious perceptions in early youth. David was, moreover, a delicate child, with the seeds of (probably) hereditary decline incipient, and at seven or eight years old he drew apart from play, thinking much of death, and trying to prepare by prayer and meditation. His parents' death increased these feelings, and while living at East Haddam, under the charge of his brothers, and employed in farm work, the boy was continually struggling with himself in silence, disliking all youthful mirth and amusement, fasting, watching and praying, and groaning over the state of his soul. At nineteen, the wish to become a minister came upon him, and he began to study hard at all spare moments; and in another year, at twenty, he went to reside with Mr. Fiske, the minister of Haddam, and in him found, for the first time, a friend to whom he could open his heart, who could understand the anxieties and longings within him, and who gave him advice to withdraw himself from the young companions whose gay spirits were uncongenial to him, and spend more time with the graver and more religious.

Whether this were good advice we do not know, but a period of terrible agony had to be struggled through. It seems plain, from comparison of different lives, that in the forms 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, that the old-fashioned hereditary Presbyterianism, which had had time to slacken in the hundred years since the foundation of the colony, was dismayed at the new and vivid life imported by Whitfield from the Wesleyan revival in the English Church. It was what always happens. A mixture of genuine sober-minded dread of extravagance, or new doctrine, and a sluggish distaste to the more searching religion, combine to lead to a spirit of persecution. This was the true reason that the lad's youthful rashness of speech was treated as so grave an offence. Brainerd's spirit was up. Probably he saw no cause to alter his opinion as to Mr. Whittlesey's amount of grace, and he stoutly refused to retract his words, whereupon he was found guilty of insubordination, and actually expelled from Yale. A council of ministers who assembled at Hartford petitioned for his restoration, but were refused, the authorities deeming themselves well rid of a dangerous fanatic.

Still, as a youth of blameless life and ardent piety, he was encouraged by his friends to continue his preparation for the ministry, and he persisted in reading hard, and going out between whiles to meditate in the depths of the glorious woods. It is curious that while his homely and rigid system precluded any conscious admiration of the beauties of nature, it is always evident from his journal that the lightenings of hope and joy which relieved his too frequent depression and melancholy, were connected with the scenery and the glories of day and night. Sunrise and the aurora borealis seem to have filled him with spiritual bliss, and he never was so happy as when deep in the woods, out of the sight of men; but his morbid, sensitive, excitable nature never seems to have been understood by himself or by others.

Just as John Eliot's missionary zeal was the outcome of the earnestness that carried the Puritans to New England, so the fresh infusion of religious life, brought by Whitfield, produced an ardent desire on the part of David Brainerd to devote himself to the remainder of the Indians; and in the year 1742, at twenty-five years old, he was examined by an assembly of ministers at Danbury, and licensed to preach the Gospel, when he began at once with a little settlement of Indians at Kent, with such a sinking of heart at his own unworthiness that he says he seemed to himself worse than any devil, and almost expected to have been stoned rather than listened to. Indeed, something of this diffidence and sadness seems always to have weighed him down when he began to preach, though the fervour of his subject and the responding faces of his audience always exhilarated him and bore him up through his sermon. To learn the Indian language had not occurred to him as part of his preparation, but probably these Kent Red men had been enough among the English to understand him, for they seem to have been much impressed.

A Scottish Society for propagating Christian Knowledge had arisen, and the delegates hearing of the zeal of David Brainerd, desired to engage him at a salary. The sense of his own unworthiness, and fear of keeping out a better man, brought his spirits down to the lowest ebb; nevertheless, he went to meet the representatives of the Society at New York, and there, though between the hubbub of the town and his own perpetual self-condemnation he was continually wretched, they were so well satisfied with him as to give him the appointment, on condition that he studied the language, intending to send him to the Red men between the Susquehanna and the Delaware; but there was a dispute between these and the Government, and it was decided to send him to a settlement called Kanaumeek, between Stockbridge and Albany.

Before going, David Brainerd, having no thought beyond devotion to the Indians, and thinking his allowance enough for his wants, gave up the whole of his inheritance to support a scholar at the University, and set forth, undaunted by such weakness of health as in ordinary eyes would have fitted him for nothing but to be carefully nursed; for even then he was continually suffering from pain and dizziness, and weakness so great that he could often hardly stand.

In this state he arrived at Kanaumeek, with a young Indian to act as his interpreter, and there spent the first night sleeping on a heap of straw. It was a lonely, melancholy spot, where the Indians were herded together, watched with jealous eyes by adventurers who were always endeavouring to seize their lands, and sadly degenerated from the free, grave, high-spirited men to whom Eliot had preached. His first lodging was in the log house of a poor Scotchman who lived among the Indians-a single chamber, without so much as a floor, and where he shared the family meals upon porridge, boiled corn, and girdle-cakes. The family spoke Gaelic, only the master of the house knowing any English, and that not so good as the Indian interpreter's; and, moreover, the spot was a mile and a half from the Indian wigwams, no small consideration to so weakly a man, thus poorly fed. However, the Indians were pleased with his addresses, and seemed touched by them; but the evil habits of the White men were the terrible stumbling-block. Parties of them would come into the town, and vex the missionary's ears with their foul tongues, making a scandalous contrast to the grave, calm manners of the Indians. More than ever did he love solitude, and when with his own hands he had built himself a log hut, where he could be alone when he pleased, his relief was great.

He was not the highly educated scholar and practical theorist that his predecessor had been: he seems to have had no plans or systems, and merely to have tried to fulfil immediate needs; but he soon found that he could not hope to benefit his Red flock without a school, so he made a journey to New Jersey to entreat for means to set one up, and this was done, with his interpreter as master. His journey was made on horseback, and was no small undertaking, for even between Stockbridge and Kanaumeek he had once lost his way, and had to sleep a night in the woods.

He had by this time thoroughly repented of the uncharitableness and hastiness of his speech about Mr. Whittlesey, and he took a journey to New Haven to send in a thoroughly humble and Christian-like apology, requesting to be permitted to take his degree. Twice he was refused, and the third time was told that the only condition on which the degree would be granted would be the making up his term of residence at Yale, which was, of course, not possible to a licensed minister in full employment, and in fact was an insulting proposal to a man of his standing and character.

His journey cost him dear, for as he was riding home he was attacked with violent pain in the face and shiverings, which forced him to halt at the first shelter he could find, happily with kind friends, who nursed him for a fortnight before he could return home. He believed that had his illness seized him in his log house at home, he must certainly have died for want of care and attendance, although he was much beloved by his poor Indians.

His life was indeed a frightfully hard one, and would have been so for a healthy man; for he had to work with his own hands to store provisions for his horse in the winter, and that when weak and suffering the more for want of proper food. He could get no bread but by riding ten or fifteen miles to procure it, and if he brought home too much it became mouldy and sour, while, if he brought home a small quantity, he could not go for more if he failed to catch his horse, which was turned out to graze in the woods; so that he was reduced to making little cakes of Indian meal, which he fried in the ashes. "And then," he says, "I blessed God as if I had been a king." "I have a house and many of the comforts of life to support me," he says with great satisfaction; and the solitude of that house was so precious to him that, however weary he was, he would ride back twenty miles to it at night rather than spend an evening among ungodly men. By this terrible stinting of what we should deem the necessaries of life, he was actually able, in fifteen months, to devote a hundred pounds to charitable purposes, besides keeping the young man at the University.

So much, however, did he love his solitude, that he counted it as no relief, but an affliction, to have to ride to Stockbridge from time to time to learn the Indian language from Mr. Sergeant, the missionary there stationed. Something of this must have been morbid feeling, something from the want of energy consequent on the condition of his frame. For a man in confirmed decline such an entry in a journal as this is no trifle:-"December 20.-Rode to Stockbridge. Was very much fatigued with my journey, wherein I underwent great hardship; was much exposed, and very wet by falling into a river." Mr. Sergeant could hardly have been profane company, but Brainerd never enjoyed these visits, thinking that intercourse with the world made him less familiar with heaven.

Another inconvenience was the proximity of Kanaumeek to the frontier, and these were the days of that horrid war between England and France in America, when the native allies of each nation made savage descents on the outlying settlements, inflicting all the flagrant outrages of their wild warfare. A message came one evening to Kanaumeek from Colonel Stoddart, warning all in exposed situations to secure themselves as well as possible, since an attack might come at any moment; and this Brainerd quietly records as a salutary warning not to attach himself too much to the comforts of life he enjoyed.

The attack was never made, but he came to the conclusion that his small congregation of Indians would be much better with their fellows at Stockbridge under the care of Mr. Sergeant, and that this would leave him free to go to more wild and untaught tribes. It was carried out, and the Indians removed. There was much mutual love between them and their pastor, and the parting was very affectionate, though even after two years he was still unable to speak the language, and never seems to have troubled himself about this trifling obstacle. Several English congregations entreated him to become their minister, but he refused them all, and went to meet the Commissioners of the Scottish Society at New Jersey. They arranged with him for a mission to the Delaware Indians, in spite of his being laid up for some days at the time; and when he went back to Kanaumeek to dispose of his books and other "comforts," the effects of being drenched with rain showed themselves in continued bleeding from the lungs. He knew that he was often in an almost dying state, and only wished to continue in his Master's service to the end he longed for. He owns that his heart did sometimes sink at the thought of going alone into the wilderness; but he thought of Abraham, and took courage, riding alone through the depths of the forest, so desolate and lonely day after day, that it struck terror even into his soul. There were scanty settlements of Dutch and Irish, where he sometimes spent a night, but the Sunday he passed among some Irish was so entirely unmarked by them, that he felt like a "creature banished from the sight of God."

At last he reached his destination on the fork of the river Delaware, and being within moderate distance of Newark, there received ordination as a minister on the 11th of June, 1744. Severe illness followed the exertion of preaching and praying before the convened ministers; but as soon as he could walk, he set forth on his return, though he was so weak that he could hardly open his numbed hand, but his heart and hopes had begun to revive, and the little settlement of Whites with whom he lived were willing to listen to him.

The Indians were in the midst of preparing for an idolatrous feast and dance. Brainerd spent a day in the woods in an anguish of prayer, and then went to the place of meeting, where, stranger as he was, he prevailed on them to cease their revels and attend to him.

His biographer, President Jonathan Edwards, provokingly leaves out his method of teaching, "for the sake of brevity," and from his own diary little is to be gathered but accounts of his state of feeling through endless journeyings and terrible prostrations of strength. He was always travelling about-now to the Susquehanna, now back to New England-apparently at times with the restlessness of disease, for this roving about must have prevented him from ever deepening the impression made by his preaching, which after all was only through an interpreter, for he never gave himself time to learn the language.

Yet after some months he did find a settlement of Indians, about eighty miles from the fork of Delaware, at a place called Crossweeksung, who were far more disposed to attend to him. They listened so eagerly, that day after day they would travel after him from village to village, hardly taking any heed to secure provisions for themselves. The description of their conduct is like that of those touched by Wesleyan preaching. They threw themselves on the ground, wept bitterly, and prayed aloud, with the general enthusiasm of excitement, though, he expressly says, without fainting or convulsions, and even the White men around, who came to scoff, were deeply impressed.

David Brainerd had at last his hour of bliss! He was delivered from his melancholy by the joy of such results, and in trembling happiness baptized his converts in the river beside their wigwams before leaving them to proceed to a village on the Susquehanna, where he hoped for an interview with the chief Sachem of the Delawares.

The place, however, was in the wildest confusion and uproar, it being the period of a great festival, when every one was too tipsy to attend to him. At an island called Juneauta, he met a very remarkable personage, a Powaw, who bore the reputation of a reformer, anxious to restore the ancient religion of the Red man, which had become corrupted by intercourse with the White and his vices.

His aspect was the most dreadful thing Brainerd had ever seen. He wore a shaggy bearskin coat, hood, and stockings, and a hideous, painted mask, so that no part of his person was visible, not even the hand in which he held an instrument made of the shell of a tortoise, with dry corn within, and he came up rattling this, and dancing with all his might, and with such gesticulations that, though assured that he intended no injury, it was impossible not to shrink back as this savage creature came close.

Yet he was a thoughtful man, such as would have been a philosopher in ancient Greece or Rome. He took the missionary into his hut, and conversed long and earnestly with him. He had revolted in spirit from the degradation of his countrymen, and had gone to live apart in the woods, where he had worked out a system of natural religion for himself, which he believed the Great Spirit had taught him, and which had at last led him to return to his people and endeavour to restore them to that purity which of course he believed to have once existed. He believed there were good men somewhere, and he meant to wander till he found them; meantime, he was kindly to all who came near him, and constantly uplifted his testimony against their vices, especially when the love of strong drink was brought among them. When all was in vain, he would go weeping away into the woods, and hide himself there till the hateful fire-water was all consumed and the madness over. Brainerd was greatly touched by this red-skinned Epictetus, who, he said, had more honesty, sincerity, and conscientiousness than he had ever met with in an Indian, and more of the temper of true religion; and he expounded to him the Christian doctrine with great carefulness and double earnestness. The self-taught philosopher broke in now and then with "Now that I like,"-"So the Great Spirit has taught me;" but when the missionary came to the regions where faith surpasses the power of the intellect and the moral sense, the Indian would not follow him, and rejected his teaching. It was curious that he particularly denied the idea of a devil, declaring that there was no such being, according to the ancient Indians. Now, the incantations of the Powaws were generally supposed to be addressed to evil spirits, and probably the perception of the falsehood of these pretended rites led to his disclaiming the Christian doctrine.

Whether time and further teaching would have overpowered his belief in his own inspiration does not appear, for Brainerd found the Indians too vicious and hardened to pay the least heed either to him or to their own reformer; and he went back to Crossweeksung, where his flock was still increasing, and in a most satisfactory condition, renouncing their heathen customs and their acquired vice of drunkenness, and practising some amount of industry. A school was set up, old and young learnt English, the children in three or four months could read the Bible in English, and Brainerd's sermons and prayers were understood without an interpreter.

This improved condition of the Indians destroyed the shameful profits of the nearest settlement of Whites, whose practice it had hitherto been to entice them to drink, and then run up a heavy score against them for liquor. Finding that all endeavours to seduce them into drunkenness were now vain, these wretches first tried to raise the country against Brainerd, by reporting that he was a Roman Catholic in disguise; and when this failed, they laid claim to the lands of Crossweeksung, in discharge of debts that they declared to have been previously contracted. Fortunately, Brainerd had it in his power to advance 82_l. from his private means, so as to save his people from this extortion; but he afterwards thought it best to remove them from these dangerous neighbours to a new settlement, fifteen miles off, called Cranberry. He remained himself in his little hut at Crossweeksung, after they had proceeded to raise wigwams and prepare the ground for maize; but, whenever he rode over to visit them, his approach was notified by the sound of a conch shell, and they all gathered round for his prayers and instruction.

His success with them seems to have greatly cured his depression of spirits, but his mind was balancing between the expedience of remaining among them as their permanent pastor, protector, and guide, and that of striving to extend the kingdom of faith. Sometimes he liked the prospect of a settled home and repose, study and meditation; but, at the thought of gaining souls to Christ, all these considerations melted before him, and he believed that he was marked out for the life of a pilgrim and hermit by his carelessness about hardships.

He had not, however, taken leave of his flock when he set forth on another expedition to the obdurate Indians of the Susquehanna, in the September of 1746. It was without result; he could obtain no attention, and the hardships of the journey, the night exposure, and the frequent drenchings completed the wreck of his health. He came back with night perspirations, bleeding from the lungs, and suffering greatly, feverish and coughing, and often in pain; yet, whenever he could mount his horse, riding the fifteen miles to attend to the Indians at Cranberry, or sitting in a chair before his hut, when they assembled round him.

On Sunday he persisted in preaching, till generally at the end of half an hour he fainted, and was carried to his bed; and at the administration of the Lord's Supper he was carried to the place where he had forty Indian communicants, and likewise some Whites, who had learnt to reverence him, and who supported him back to his bed. He was quite happy now, for he felt he had done all he could to the utmost of his strength; but, soon becoming totally unable to speak at all, he felt that he must do what he called "consuming some time in diversions," and try to spend the winter in a civilized place.

After riding his first short stage, however, his illness increased so much, that he was quite incapable of proceeding or returning, and remained in a friend's house at Elizabethtown, suffering from cough, asthma, and fever the whole winter. In March 1747 he had rallied enough to ride to Cranberry, where he went from hut to hut, giving advice to and praying with each family, and parting with them with great tenderness. Tears were shed everywhere; for, though he still hoped to return, all felt that they should see his face no more! But, to his great comfort and joy, his poor people were not to be abandoned to themselves and their tempters. His younger brother-John-relieved his mind by offering to assume the care of them, and under his pastorship he could thankfully leave them.

In April he set out again on his journey, at the rate of about ten miles a day, riding all the way, and on the 28th of May arrived at Northampton, where Jonathan Edwards, afterwards President of the College of New Jersey, was then minister. They were like-minded men, both disciples of Whitfield, and the self-devoted piety of the young missionary was already so well known to Mr. Edwards by report, that it was most gladly that he received him into his house and family. There the impression Brainerd made was of a singularly social, entertaining person, meek and unpretending, but manly and independent. Probably rest and brightness had come when the terrible struggle of his early years had ceased, and morbid despondency had given way to Christian hope, for he became at once a bright and pleasant member of any society where he formed a part, and to the Edwards family he was like a son or brother. When he was able, Mr. Edwards wished him to lead the family devotions, and was always greatly impressed by the manner and matter of his prayers, but one petition never failed, i.e. "that we might not outlive our usefulness." Even in saying grace there was always something about him that struck the attention.

His purpose in coming to Northampton had been to consult Dr. Mather, whose verdict was that he was far gone in decline, and who gave him no advice but to ride as much as possible. So little difference did this sentence make to him that he never noted it in his diary, though he spoke of it cheerily in the Edwards family-a large household of young people-where he was so much beloved, that when he decided to go to Boston, Jerusha, the second daughter, entreated to be allowed to accompany him, to nurse him as his sister would have done.

The pure, severe simplicity of those early American manners was such, that no one seems to have been surprised at a girl of eighteen becoming the attendant of a man of twenty-nine. Jerusha had the full consent and approbation of her parents, and she was a great comfort and delight to him. He told her father that she was more spiritual, self denying, and earnest to do good, than any young person he had ever known; and on doubt their communings were far above earth, hovering, as he was well known to be, upon the very borders of the grave.

They took four days to reach Boston, and there he was received with the greatest respect by all the ministers; but, a week after his arrival, so severe an attack of his illness came on that he became delirious, and was thought to be at the point of death. Again, however, he came back enough to life to sit up in bed and write ardent letters of counsel to the brother who had succeeded him among his Indians, and likewise to give his friends the assurance of his perfect peace and joy. He said that he had carefully examined himself, and though he had found much pride, selfishness, and corruption, he was still certain that he had felt it his greatest happiness to glorify and praise God; and this certainty, together with his faith in the Redeemer, had calmed all the anguish he had suffered for years.

Whenever he was able to converse he had numerous visitors, especially from the deputies of the Society in London which had assisted Eliot. A legacy for the support of two missionaries had newly been received, and his counsel on the mode of employing it was asked. He was able to strive to imbue others with the same zeal as himself, and to do much on behalf of his own mission, although he often lay so utterly exhausted that he said of himself that he could not understand how life could be retained. One of his brothers, a student at Yale, came to see him, and to tell him of the death of his favourite sister, of whose illness he had not even heard, but it was no shock to him, for he felt far more sure of meeting her again than if she had been left on earth.

The summer weather, to the surprise of all, brought back a slight revival of strength, and some of his friends began to hope he might yet recover, but he knew his own state too well, and told them he was as assuredly a dead man as if he had been shot through the heart; still he was resolved to profit by this partial restoration to return to Northampton, chiefly because the rumour had reached him that the Bostonians had intended to give him such a funeral as should testify their great esteem; and being disappointed in this, they intended to assemble and escort him publicly, while still alive, out of their city, but the bare idea naturally made him so unhappy that they were forced to give it up.

Five days were spent in the journey, and again the Edwardses reverentially opened their doors to a guest so near heaven. For some time he rode out two or three miles daily, and sat with the family, writing or conversing cheerfully when not engaged in prayer. His brother John came from Crossweeksung and cheered him with a good account of his Indians; and hearing of the great need of another school, he wrote to the friends who had shown themselves so warmly interested in him at Boston, and was gratified by their reply, with a subscription of 200_l. for the purpose, and of 75_l. for the mission to the Six Nations. His answers were written with his own hand; but he had become so much weaker that he felt this his last task. He had been one who, in his short life, had sown in tears to reap in joy.

He was sinking fast as the autumn cold came on, often talking tenderly to the little ones of the house, but suffering terribly at times, and sighing, "Why is His chariot so long coming?" then blaming himself for over-haste to be released.

He had a smile for Jerusha as she came into his room on Sunday morning. "Are you willing to part with me? I am willing to part with you, though if I thought I could not see you and be happy with you in another world, I could not bear to part. I am willing to leave all my friends. I am willing to leave my brother, though I love him better than any creature living. I have committed him and all my friends to God, and can leave them with God!"

Presently, looking at the Bible in her hands, he said, "Oh that dear Book! the mysteries in it and in God's providence will soon be unfolded."

He lingered in great agony at times till the 9th of October, 1747, when came a cessation of pain, and during this lull he breathed his last, then wanting six months of his thirtieth birthday. He had told Jerusha that they should soon meet above, and, in effect, she only lived until the next February. She told her father on her death-bed, that for years past she had not seen the time when she had any wish to live a moment longer, save for the sake of doing good and filling up the measure of her duty.

David Brainerd's career ended at an age when John Eliot's had not begun. It was a very wonderful struggle between the frail suffering body and the devoted, resolute spirit, both weighed down by the natural morbid temper, further depressed by the peculiar tenets of the form of doctrine in which he had been bred. The prudent, well-weighed measures of the ripe scholar, studious theologian, and conscientious politician, formed by forty-two years' experience of an old and a new country, could not be looked for in the sickly, self-educated, enthusiastic youth who had been debarred from the due amount of study, and started with little system but that of "proclaiming the Gospel"-even though ignorant of the language of those to whom he preached. And yet that heart-whole piety and patience was blessed with a full measure of present success, and David Brainerd's story, though that of a short life, over-clouded by mental distress, hardship, and sickness, fills us with the joyful sense that there is One that giveth the victory.