g which a sentence from the word of God presented to his mind."
[5]

He was wonderfully gifted in prayer. Here all his intellectual,
imaginative, and spiritual powers were fused into one and poured
themselves forth in an unbroken stream of penitential and adoring
affection. When he said, "Let us pray," a divine influence seemed to
rest upon all present. His prayers were not mere pious mental exercises,
they were devout inspirations.

No one can form an adequate conception of what Dr. Payson was from any
of the productions of his pen. Admirable as his written sermons are, his
extempore prayers and the gushings of his heart in familiar talk were
altogether higher and more touching than anything he wrote. It was my
custom to close my eyes when he began to pray, and it was always a
letting down, a sort of rude fall, to open them again, when he had
concluded, and find myself still on the earth. His prayers always took
my spirit into the immediate presence of Christ, amid the glories of
the spiritual world; and to look round again on this familiar and
comparatively misty earth was almost painful. At every prayer I heard
him offer, during the seven years in which he was my spiritual guide,
I never ceased to feel new astonishment, at the wonderful variety and
depth and richness and even novelty of feeling and expression which were
poured forth. This was a feeling with which every hearer sympathised,
and it is a fact well-known, that Christians trained under his influence
were generally remarkable for their devotional habits. [6]

Dr. Payson possessed rare conversational powers and loved to wield
them in the service of his Master. When in a genial mood--and the mild
excitement of social intercourse generally put him in such a mood--his
familiar talk was equally delightful and instructive. He was, in truth,
an improvisatore. Quick perception, an almost intuitive insight into
character, an inexhaustible fund of fresh, original thought and
incident, the happiest illustrations, and a memory that never faltered
in recalling what he had once read or seen, easy self-control, and
ardent sympathies, all conspired to give him this preeminence. Without
effort or any appearance of incongruity he could in turn be grave
and gay, playful and serious. This came of the utter sincerity and
genuineness of his character. There was nothing artificial about him;
nature and grace had full play and, so to say, constantly ran into
each other. A keen