13. Earnest Praying and Excessive Fasting.

Earnest Praying and Excessive Fasting

Mr. Payson pursued his studies with almost unceasing prayer, studying theology on his knees, and pleading the promises in a prostrate position, with the Bible open before him.

He added much fasting to prayer. His seasons of fasting were long and frequent, so much so as to injure his bodily health. In after years he saw and lamented his error of fasting too long. But he was at the time a student and candidate for the holy ministry, and desired to comply with the precept, "Mortify the flesh, with the affections and lusts." He felt that as a servant of Christ he should be the master of his own passions and propensities, and resorted to this scriptural way to gain that mastery.

It is safer, perhaps, to go to an extreme in this direction, than to neglect altogether this essential discipline of the body.