Includes forty-five selected and edited letters and journal entries of Taylor.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 155-158) and index.

"Of intense brightness" : the life and spirituality of uncommon Christian James Brainerd Taylor -- Chronology of the life and ministry of James Brainerd Taylor -- Selections from James Brainerd Taylor's letters and journal entries -- A special word to university and seminary students / Peter Adam.

"'Be uncommon Christians . . . that is, eminently holy, self-denying, cross-bearing, Bible, everyday Christians.' So James Brainerd Taylor (1801{u2013}1829) encouraged others to be, and so he strived to be himself. Of Intense Brightness reveals aspects of Taylor's uncommon Christianity by allowing the Princeton and Yale-educated evangelist to speak for himself. By means of forty-five selected and edited letters and journal entries of Taylor's (written from ages fourteen to twenty-seven), readers will obtain a unique glimpse into the inner workings of an evangelical Protestant spirituality that was, according to nineteenth-century Princeton Seminary professor Samuel Miller, 'so uniform, that we had only, as it were, one face, and that of intense brightness to behold.'" -- Publisher's description.