'Tis sweet to look beyond my pains
And long to fly away.
And the same homesickness for heaven appears under a different figure in another hymn—
At anchor laid remote from home,
Toiling I cry, “Sweet Spirit, come!
Celestial breeze, no longer stay,
But swell my sails, and speed my way!”
Possessed of an ardent religious nature, his spiritual frames exemplified in a notable degree the emotional side of Calvinistic piety. Edward Payson himself, was not more enraptured in immediate view of death than was this young London priest and poet. Unquestioning faith became perfect certainty. As in the bold metaphor of “Rock of Ages,” the faith finds voice in—
A debtor to mercy alone,
—and other hymns in his collection of 1776, two years before the end came. Most of this devout writing was done in his last days, and he continued it as long as strength was left, until, on the 11th of August, 1778, he joyfully passed away.