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經文：「一粒麥子不落在地裏死了，仍舊是一粒；若是死了，就結出許多子粒來。」（約12：24） 我曾到美國麻塞諸塞諾桑普頓城的老墓園，憑弔大衛．布萊納德 David Brainerd 。他的墳相鄰他所心愛的潔露莎．愛德華 Jerusha Edwards 小姐墳旁，他因死得早，他們生前並沒有結婚。 這位年輕的傳教士對於福音工作無論有多少的希望與期待，都隨著他的遺體埋入墳內。關於他的事工，現在只留下溫馨的回憶和幾十位淺黑膚色的印第安信徒。 然而那位德高望重的清教徒約拿單．愛德華 Jonathan Edwards 曾希望大衛成為他的女婿，他把大衛一生事蹟收集在一本小書裏；而這本小書竟飛越洋海來到劍橋大學的學生亨利．馬丁 Henry Martyn 的桌上。 而那位馬丁竟拋棄他的學業、才華、機會到印度去傳教。當他從印度的珊瑚海濱啟程回家時中途患病，又帶病向北跋涉，遠到黑海之濱那陰鬱沉悶的托卡特可汗，在那裏他蹲伏在園木堆下，貼著泥土來減輕高燒，終於孤獨地死在那裏。 他成就了什麼？這些虛擲又達到什麼目的呢？從布萊納德的古墓，到遠在黑海海濱的馬丁的墓中，興起了現代傳教士的浩蕩大軍。--培根 Leonard Woolsey Bacon 新譯｜荒漠甘泉讀書會
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Scripture: "Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it remains a single grain, but if it dies away in the ground, the grain is freed to spring up in a plant bearing many grains" (John 12:24). Go to the old burying ground of Northampton, Mass., and look upon the early grave of David Brainerd, beside that of the fair Jerusha Edwards, whom he loved but did not live to wed. What hopes, what expectations for Christ's cause went down to the grave with the wasted form of that young missionary of whose work nothing now remained but the dear memory, and a few score of swarthy Indian converts! But that majestic old Puritan saint, Jonathan Edwards, who had hoped to call him his son, gathered up the memorials of his life in a little book, and the little book took wings and flew beyond the sea, and alighted on the table of a Cambridge student, Henry Martyn. Poor Martyn! Why should he throw himself away, with all his scholarship, his genius, his opportunities! What had he accomplished when he turned homeward from "India's coral strand," broken in health, and dragged himself northward as far as that dreary khan at Tocat by the Black Sea, where he crouched under the piled-up saddles, to cool his burning fever against the earth, and there died alone? To what purpose was this waste? Out of that early grave of Brainerd, and the lonely grave of Martyn far away by the splashing of the Euxine Sea, has sprung the noble army of modern missionaries. --Leonard Woolsey Bacon ｜ Mrs. Charles Cowman
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