The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss | Page 5

they are often marred by a very
morbid element. Like David Brainerd, the missionary saint of New
England, to whom in certain features of his character he bore no little

resemblance, Edward Payson was of a melancholy temperament and
subject, therefore, to sudden and sharp alternations of feeling. While he
had great capacity for enjoyment, his capacity for suffering was equally
great. Nor were these native traits suppressed, or always overruled, by
his religious faith; on the contrary, they affected and modified his
whole Christian life. In its earlier stages, he was apt to lay too much
stress by far upon fugitive "frames," and to mistake mere weariness,
torpor, and even diseased action of body or mind, for coldness toward
his Saviour. And almost to the end of his days he was, occasionally,
visited by seasons of spiritual gloom and depression, which, no doubt,
were chiefly, if not solely, the result of physical causes. It was an error
that grew readily out of the brooding introspection and self-anatomy
which marked the religious habit of the times. The close connection
between physical causes and morbid or abnormal conditions of the
spiritual life, was not as well understood then as it is now. Many things
were ascribed to Satanic influence which should have been ascribed
rather to unstrung nerves and loss of sleep, or to a violation of the laws
of health. [4] The disturbing influence of nervous and other bodily or
mental disorders upon religious experience deserves a fuller discussion
than it has yet received. It is a subject which both modern science and
modern thought, if guided by Christian wisdom, might help greatly to
elucidate.
The morbid and melancholy element, however, was only a painful
incident of his character. It tinged his life with a vein of deep sadness
and led to undue severity of self-discipline; but it did not seriously
impair the strength and beauty of his Christian manhood. It rather
served to bring them into fuller relief, and even to render more striking
those bright natural traits--the sportive humor, the ready mother wit, the
facetious pleasantry, the keen sense of the ridiculous, and the wondrous
story-telling gift--which made him a most delightful companion to
young and old, to the wise and the unlettered alike. It served, moreover,
to impart peculiar tenderness to his pastoral intercourse, especially with
members of his flock tried and tempted like as he was. He had learned
how to counsel and comfort them by the things which he also had
suffered. He may have been too exacting and harsh in dealing with
himself; but in dealing with other souls nothing could exceed the
gentleness, wisdom, and soothing influence of his ministrations.

As a preacher he was the impersonation of simple, earnest, and
impassioned utterance. Although not an orator in the ordinary sense of
the term, he touched the hearts of his hearers with a power beyond the
reach of any oratory. Some of his printed sermons are models in their
kind; that _e.g._ on "Sins estimated by the Light of Heaven," and that
addressed to Seamen. His theology was a mild type of the old New
England Calvinism, modified, on the one hand, by the influence of his
favorite authors--such as Thomas à Kempis, and Fenelon, the Puritan
divines of the seventeenth century, John Newton and Richard
Cecil--and on the other, by his own profound experience and seraphic
love. Of his theology, his preaching and his piety alike, Christ was the
living centre. His expressions of personal love to the Saviour are
surpassed by nothing in the writings of the old mystics. Here is a
passage from a letter to his mother, written while he was still a young
pastor:
I have sometimes heard of spells and charms to excite love, and have
wished for them, when a boy, that I might cause others to love me. But
how much do I now wish for some charm which should lead men to
love the Saviour!... Could I paint a true likeness of Him, methinks I
should rejoice to hold it up to the view and admiration of all creation,
and be hid behind it forever. It would be heaven enough to hear Him
praised and adored. But I can not paint Him; I can not describe Him; I
can not make others love Him; nay, I can not love Him a thousandth
part so much as I ought myself. O, for an angel's tongue! O, for the
tongues of ten thousand angels, to sound His praises.
He had a remarkable familiarity with the word of God and his mind
seemed surcharged with its power. "You could not, in conversation,
mention a passage of Scripture to him but you found his soul in
harmony with it--the most apt illustrations would flow from his lips, the
fire of