observer, who knew him well, both in private and in
public, testifies: "His facetiousness indeed was ever a near neighbor
to his piety, if it was not a part of it; and his most cheerful
conversations, so far from putting his mind out of tune for acts of
religious worship, seemed but a happy preparation for the exercise of
devotional feelings." [7] This coexistence of serious with playful
elements is often found in natures of unusual depth and richness, just
as tragic and comic powers sometimes co-exist in a great poet.

The same qualities that rendered him such a master of conversation, lent
a potent charm to his familiar religious talks in the prayer-meeting,
at the fireside, or in the social circle. Always eager to speak for
his Master, he knew how to do it with a wise skill and a tenderness of
feeling that disarmed prejudice and sometimes won the most determined
foe. Even in administering reproof or rebuke there was the happiest
union of tact and gentleness. "What makes you blush so?" said a reckless
fellow in the stage, to a plain country girl, who was receiving the
mail-bag at a post office from the hand of the driver. "What makes you
blush so, my dear?" "Perhaps," said Dr. Payson, who sat near him and was
unobserved till now, "Perhaps it is because some one spoke rudely to her
when the stage was along here the last time."

Edward Payson was graduated at Harvard College in the class of 1803.
In the autumn of that year he took charge of an academy then recently
established in Portland. Resigning this position in 1806, he returned
home and devoted himself to the study of divinity under his father's
care. He was licensed to preach in May, 1807, and a few months later
received a unanimous call to Portland, where he was ordained in December
of the same year. On the 8th of May, 1811, he was married to Ann Louisa
Shipman, of New Haven, Conn. An extract from a manly letter to Miss
Shipman, written a few weeks after their engagement, will show the
spirit which inspired him both as a lover and a husband:

When I wrote my first letter after my late visit, I felt almost angry
with you and quite so with myself. And why angry with you? Because I
began to fear you would prove a dangerous rival to my Lord and Master,
and draw away my heart from His service. My Louisa, should this be the
case, I should certainly hate you. I am Christ's; I must be Christ's; He
has purchased me dearly, and I should hate the mother who bore me, if
s