end of 1749, shortly after the Life of Brainerd had been published, Edwards wrote to Joseph Bellamy: “All that I do and say is watched by the multitude around me with the utmost strictness … my words and actions are represented in dark colors.”6 By June of 1750 he had been voted out. The ordeal was at an end. These events, which surround the editing of the diary, cannot be ignored. Although Edwards never once transcribed a conversation with Brainerd, any connection between the communion controversy