his father's house to pursue a course of reading and study preparatory for the calling he had resolved on following. Deemed by the presbytery of the district in which he lived to be amply qualified for the duties of the sacred office, he was licensed to preach the gospel of the ever-blessed God.

Invited to be colleague of the pastor of the Congregational Church at Portland, he returned to the city in which three years had already been passed by him, was ordained, and entered on the duties of his co-pastorship. The senior pastor retiring from active duty in the course of a few years, in consequence of age and infirmity, the responsibility which had hitherto been divided now rested exclusively on Mr. Payson. He successfully met the claims which were now made upon him. His ministry was a power for good, not only in Portland, but far beyond. Intensely evangelical in doctrine, and attractive and earnest in his style of preaching, many souls were won by him to the Saviour, whilst believers were

elevated in their spirituality and quickened in their zeal.

His constitution, which never was strong, finally gave way under the pressure of the manifold duties he undertook, and into which he threw his whole soul. But he continued to testify for his Lord to the very end. Though his sufferings were rarely paralleled for severity, he made his chamber his church, gathering round his bed in successive groups the members of his congregation, and preaching to them the gospel he so loved, and of whose sanctifying and sustaining power he was having daily a fuller experience. And never were the lessons he so taught forgotten, nor audiences ever more impressed than were those successive groups by what they heard from their suffering pastor's lips.

His sick chamber was a field of triumph. As his afflictions increased, his consolations abounded. Writing to his sister a month before he ceased to suffer, and passed into the presence of his Saviour, his language was:

"Were I to adopt the figurative language

of Bunyan, I might date this letter from the land of Beulah, of which I have been for some weeks a happy inhabitant. The celestial city is full in my view. Its glories beam upon me, its breezes fan me, its odours are wafted to me, its sounds strike upon my cars, and its spirit is breathed into my heart. Nothing separates me from it but the river of death, which now appears but as an insignificant rill, that may be crossed at a single step whenever God shall give permission. The Sun of Righteousness has been gradually drawing nearer and nearer, appearing larger and brighter as He approached; and now He fills the whole hemisphere, pouring forth a flood of glory, in which I seem to float like an insect in the beams of the sun; exulting yet almost trembling, while I gaze on this excessive brightness, and wondering with unutterable wonder why God should deign thus to shine upon a simple worm. A single heart and a single tongue seem altogether inadequate to my wants. I want a whole heart for

every separate emotion, and a whole tongue to express that emotion.

"But why do I speak thus of myself and my feelings? why not speak only of our God and Redeemer? It is because I know not what to say. When I would speak of them, my words are all swallowed up. I can only tell you what effects their presence produces, and even of these I can tell you but very little. Oh, my sister, my sister! could you but know what awaits the Christian, could you only know so much as I know, you could not refrain from rejoicing and even leaping for joy. Labours, trials, troubles would be nothing: you would rejoice in afflictions, and glory in tribulations; and, like Paul and Silas, sing God's praises in the darkest night and in the deepest dungeon. You have known a little of my trials and conflicts, and know that they have been neither few nor small; and I hope this glorious termination of them will serve to strengthen your faith and elevate your hope."

Addressing once the young men of his

congregation, who had assembled in his chamber, he said:

"My young friends, you will all one day be obliged to embark on the same voyage on which I am just embarking; and as it has been my especial employment, during my past life, to recommend to you a Pilot to guide you through this voyage, I wished to tell you what a precious Pilot He is, that you may be induced to choose Him for yours. I felt desirous that you might see that the religion I have preached can support me in death. You know that I have many ties which bind me to earth; a family to whom I am strongly attached, and a people whom I love almost as well but the other world acts like a much stronger magnet, and draws my heart away from this. Death comes every night, and stands by my bedside in the form of terrible convulsions, every one of which threatens to separate the soul from the body. These continue to grow worse and worse, until every bone is almost dislocated with pain, leaving me with the certainty that I shall have it all