was born at Brinkenhof, in Livonia, September 29th, 1743. His father having been cast into prison at Petersburgh, in the year 1747 (of which a short account may be seen in the History of the Brethren, page 493), his mother carried him as an infant to Germany, and on the journey experienced in a variety of singular providences, the gracious interposition of God for her own and her child's safety. He was then educated at several schools established by the Brethren in Upper Lusatia. In an extensive account of the first part of his life, communicated to us by his widow, he takes notice that the sufferings of his parents was the occasion of his being treated with extraordinary kindness as a child, and owns, that this seeming preference had in the beginning a bad influence upon his mind, till by the light of the gospel, he was taught to know and confess himself a sinner before God. When the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world, was pointed out unto him, he embraced the doctrine of all- sufficient atonement of Jesus Christ, and the merits of his sufferings and death, in fervent faith, and devoted himself a willing sacrifice to him, as the due reward for the travail of his soul. In the year 1773, he was attacked by a very severe fit of illness, so that the physicians pronounced him to be past recovery. He himself desired to depart and to be with Christ, and when he recovered, contrary to all expectation, he observes, "that he did not rightly know how to descend again into the concerns of this poor world, having already enjoyed the rapturous hopes of being translated into the preference of his God and Redeemer." By this illness his constitution received a great shock and was much weakened. Yet he felt more than ever a desire to spend the remainder of his days and strength in the service of the Lord, and first accepted a place as tutor to a worthy family in Livonia, but meeting there with some disagreeable circumstances, which in his account he very ingenuously confesses to have been occasioned by his own fault, he returned to Germany in 1777. He considers his return as a particular providence, and extols in very grateful terms the mercy and goodness of our Savior, whose covenant with him remained firm, in leading him thus back into a situation more calculated to preserve him from this evil world; for he had many very advantageous offers, which might have led him entirely astray, none of which he could find freedom to accept. In 1779 he received a call to labor in the Mission on the coast of Labrador, of which he accepted with expressions of great humility, and an heartfelt sense of his insufficiency.