Part 12

As my father has given an account of those friends to whose kindness and generosity he was principally indebted from the commencement of his literary career, to the time of his coming to America, I think it my duty to follow his example, and to make on his part those acknowledgements which had he lived, he would have taken pleasure in making himself. To the Revd. Theophilus Lindsey, independent of the many marks of the most sincere friendship, which he was constantly receiving, he was occasionally indebted for pecuniary assistance at times when it was most wanting. Independent of 50 £. per annum, which Mrs. Elizabeth Rayner allowed him from the time he left England, she left him by her will £2000 in the 4 per cents. Mr. Michael Dodson who is well known as the translator of Isaiah left him £500, and Mr. Samuel Salte left him 100 £. The Duke of Grafton remitted him annually 40 £. Therefore though his expences were far greater than he expected, and though his house cost him double the sum he had contemplated, the generosity of his friends made him perfectly easy in his mind with respect to pecuniary affairs; and by freeing him from all care and anxiety on this head contributed greatly to his happiness, and to his successful endeavours in the cause of truth. Besides these instances of friendly attention, the different branches of his family have been, in various ways, benefited, in consequence of the respect paid to my father’s character, and the affectionate regard shewn by his friends to all who were connected with him.

But what gave my father most real pleasure was the subscription, set on foot by his friends in England, to enable him to print his Church History, and his Notes on all the Books of Scripture. The whole was done without his knowledge, and the first information he received on the subject was, that there was a sum raised sufficient to cover the whole expence.

About the time he died, some of his friends in England understood that he was likely to suffer a loss in point of income of £. 200 per annum. Without any solicitation, about forty of them raised the sum of £. 450, which was meant to have been continued annually while he lived. He did not live to know of this kind exertion in his favour. It is my duty however to record this instance of generosity, and I do it with pleasure and with gratitude. It likewise proves that though my father by the fearless avowal of his opinions, created many enemies, yet that the honesty and independence of his conduct procured him many friends.

The first year’s subscription has been transmitted to America, to defray the expence of publishing his posthumous works.

In the year 1800 he was chiefly employed in experiments, and writing an account of them for various publications. In this year also he published his treatise in defence of Phlogiston, he revised his Church History, the two first volumes of which are now reprinted with considerable additions, and he added to and improved his Notes on the Scriptures.

He spent some time in the spring of 1801 in Philadelphia, during his stay there he had a violent attack of fever which weakened him exceedingly, and from the effects of which he never perfectly recovered. Added to this the fever and ague prevailed at Northumberland and the neighbourhood, for the first time since his settlement at the place. He had two or three attacks of this disorder; which though they were not very severe, as he had never more than three fits at a time, retarded his recovery very much. He perceived the effect of his illness in the diminution of his strength, and his not being able to take as much exercise as he used to do. His spirits however were good, and he was very assiduous in making experiments, chiefly on the pile of Volta, the result of which he sent an account of to Nicholson’s Journal and the Medical Repository.

In 1802 he began to print his Church History, in consequence of the subscription raised by his friends in England as before stated. Besides printing three volumes of that work, he wrote and printed a treatise on Baptism, chiefly in answer to the observations of Mr. Robinson on the subject. He likewise made some experiments, and replied to some remarks of Mr. Cruikshank in defence of the Antiphlogistic theory.

I am now to describe the last scene of his life, which deserves the reader’s most serious consideration, as it shews the powerful effect of his religious principles. They made him, not resigned to quit a world in which he no longer had any delight, and in which no hope of future enjoyment presented itself, but chearful in the certainty of approaching dissolution, and under circumstances that would by the world in general have been considered as highly enviable. They led him to consider death as the labourer does sleep at night as being necessary to renew his mental and corporeal powers, and fit him for a future state of activity and happiness. For though since his illness in Philadelphia in 1801 he had never recovered his former good state of health, yet he had never been confined to his bed a whole day by sickness in America until within two days of his death, and was never incapacitated for any pursuit that he had been accustomed to. He took great delight in his garden, and in viewing the little improvements going forward in and about the town. The rapidly increasing prosperity of the country, whether as it regarded its agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, or the increasing taste for science and literature, were all of them to him a source of the purest pleasure. For the last four years of his life he lived under an administration, the principles and practice of which he perfectly approved, and with Mr. Jefferson, the head of that administration, he frequently corresponded, and they had for each other a mutual regard and esteem. He enjoyed the esteem of the wisest and best men in the country, particularly at Philadelphia, where his religion and his politics did not prevent his being kindly and cheerfully received by great numbers of opposite opinions in both, who thus paid homage to his knowledge and virtue. At home he was beloved; and besides the advantages of an excellent library, to which he was continually making additions, and of a laboratory that was amply provided with every thing necessary for an experimental chemist, he was perfectly freed, as he had happily been through life, in consequence of my mother’s ability and attention, from any attention to worldly concerns; considering himself, as he used to express himself, merely as a lodger, having all his time to devote to his theological and philosophical pursuits. He had the satisfaction of witnessing the gradual spread of his religious opinions, and the fullest conviction that he should prevail over his opponents in chemistry. He looked forward with the greatest pleasure to future exertions in both these fields, and had within the last month or six weeks been projecting many improvements in his apparatus, which he meant to make use of upon the return of warm weather in the spring. Notwithstanding, therefore, the many trials he underwent in this country, he had still great sources of happiness left, unalloyed by any apprehension of any material defect in any of his senses, or any abatement of the vigour of his mind. Consistent with the above was his declaration that, excepting the want of the society of Mr. L, Mr. B. and two or three other particular friends, which however was made up to him, in some, though in a small degree by their regular correspondence, he had never upon the whole spent any part of his life more happily, nor, he believed, more usefully.

The first part of his illness, independent of his general weakness, the result of his illness in Philadelphia in 1801, was a constant indigestion, and a difficulty of swallowing meat or any kind of solid food unless previously reduced by mastication to a perfect pulp. This gradually increased upon him till he could swallow liquids but very slowly, and led him to suspect, which he did to the last, that there must be some stoppage in the œsophagus. Latterly he lived almost entirely upon tea, chocolate, soups, sago, custard puddings, and the like. During all this time of general and increasing debility, he was busily employed in printing his Church History, and the first volume of the Notes on Scripture; and in making new and original experiments, an account of which he sent to the American Philosophical Society in two numbers, one in answer to Dr. Darwin’s observations on Spontaneous generation, and the other on the unexpected conversion of a quantity of the marine acid into the nitrous. During this period, likewise, he wrote his pamphlet of Jesus and Socrates compared, and re-printed his Essay on Phlogiston. He would not suffer any one to do for him what he had been accustomed to do himself; nor did he alter his former mode of life in any respect, excepting that he no longer worked in his garden, and that he read more books of a miscellaneous nature than he had been used to do when he could work more in his laboratory, which had always served him as a relaxation from his other studies.

From about the beginning of November 1803, to the middle of January 1804, his complaint grew more serious. He was once incapable of swallowing any thing for near thirty hours; and there being some symptoms of inflammation at his stomach, blisters were applied, which afforded him relief; and by very great attention to his diet, riding out in a chair when the weather would permit, and living chiefly on the soft parts of oysters, he seemed if not gaining ground, at least not getting worse; and we had reason to hope that if he held out until spring as he was, the same attention to his diet with more exercise, which it was impossible for him to take on account of the cold weather, would restore him to health. He, however, considered his life as very precarious, and used to tell the physician who attended him, that if he could but patch him up for six months longer he should be perfectly satisfied, as he should in that time be able to complete printing his works. The swelling of his feet, an alarming symptom of general debility, began about this time.

To give some idea of the exertions he made even at this time, it is only necessary for me to say, that besides his miscellaneous reading, which was at all times very great, he read through all the works quoted in his comparison of the different systems of the Grecian Philosophers with christianity, composed that work, and transcribed the whole of it in less than three months. He took the precaution of transcribing one day in long hand what he had composed the day before in short hand, that he might by that means leave the work complete as far as it went, should he not live to complete the whole. During this period he composed in a day his second reply to Dr. Linn.

About this time he ceased performing divine service, which he said he had never before known himself incapable of performing, notwithstanding he had been a preacher so many years. He likewise now suffered me to rake his fire, rub his feet with a flesh-brush, and occasionally help him to bed. In the mornings likewise he had his fire made for him, which he always used to do himself, and generally before any of the family was stirring.

In the last fortnight in January he was troubled with alarming fits of indigestion; his legs swelled nearly to his knees, and his weakness increased very much. I wrote for him, while he dictated, the concluding section of his New Comparison, and the Preface and Dedication. The finishing this work was a source of great satisfaction to him, as he considered it as a work of as much consequence as any he had ever undertaken. The first alarming symptom of approaching dissolution was his being unable to speak to me upon my entering his room on Tuesday morning the 31st of January. In his Diary I find he stated his situation as follows: “Ill all day--Not able to speak for near three hours.” When he was able to speak he told me he had slept well, as he uniformly had done through the whole of his illness; so that he never would suffer me, though I frequently requested he would do it, to sleep in the same room with him; that he felt as well as possible; that he got up and shaved himself, which he never omitted doing every morning till within two days of his death; that he went to his laboratory, and then found his weakness very great; that he got back with difficulty; that just afterward his grand-daughter, a child of about six or seven years old, came to him to claim the fulfilment of a promise he had made her the evening before, to give her a fivepenny bit. He gave her the money, and was going to speak to her, but found himself unable. He informed me of this, speaking very slowly a word at a time; and added, that he had never felt more pleasantly in his whole life than he did during the time he was unable to speak. After he had taken his medicine, which was bark and laudanum, and drank a bason of strong mutton broth, he recovered surprizingly, and talked with cheerfulness to all who called upon him, but as though he was fully sensible that he had not long to live. He consented for the first time that I should sleep in the room with him.

On Wednesday, February 1, he writes, “I was at times much better in the morning: capable of some business: continued better all day.” He spake this morning as strong as usual, and took in the course of the day a good deal of nourishment with pleasure. He said, that he felt a return of strength, and with it there was a duty to perform. He read a good deal in Newcome’s Translation of the New Testament, and Stevens’s History of the War. In the afternoon he gave me some directions how to proceed with the printing his work in case he should die. He gave me directions to stop the printing of the second volume, and to begin upon the third, that he might see how it was begun, and that it might serve as a pattern to me to proceed by.

On Thursday, the 2d, he wrote thus for the last time in his Diary: “Much worse: incapable of business: Mr. Kennedy came to receive instructions about printing in case of my death.” He sat up, however, a great part of the day, was cheerful, and gave Mr. Cooper and myself some directions, with the same composure as though he had only been about to leave home for a short time. Though it was fatiguing to him to talk, he read a good deal in the works above mentioned.

On Friday he was much better. He sat up a good part of the day reading Newcome; Dr. Disney’s Translation of the Psalms; and some chapters in the Greek Testament, which was his daily practice. He corrected a proof-sheet of the Notes on Isaiah. When he went to bed he was not so well: he had an idea he should not live another day. At prayer-time he wished to have the children kneel by his bedside, saying, it gave him great pleasure to see the little things kneel; and, thinking he possibly might not see them again, he gave them his blessing.

On Saturday, the 4th, my father got up for about an hour while his bed was made. He said he felt more comfortable in bed than up. He read a good deal, and looked over the first sheet of the third volume of the Notes, that he might see how we were likely to go on with it; and having examined the Greek and Hebrew quotations, and finding them right, he said he was satisfied we should finish the work very well. In the course of the day, he expressed his gratitude in being permitted to die quietly in his family, without pain, with every convenience and comfort he could wish for. He dwelt upon the peculiarly happy situation in which it had pleased the Divine Being to place him in life; and the great advantage he had enjoyed in the acquaintance and friendship of some of the best and wisest men in the age in which he lived, and the satisfaction he derived from having led an useful as well as a happy life.

On Sunday he was much weaker, and only sat up in an armed chair while his bed was made. He desired me to read to him the eleventh chapter of John. I was going on to read to the end of the chapter, but he stopped me at the 45th verse. He dwelt for some time on the advantage he had derived from reading the scriptures daily, and advised me to do the same; saying, that it would prove to me, as it had done to him, a source of the purest pleasure. He desired me to reach him a pamphlet which was at his bed’s head, Simpson on the Duration of future Punishment. “It will be a source of satisfaction to you to read that pamphlet,” said he, giving it to me. “It contains my sentiments, and a belief in them will be a support to you in the most trying circumstances, as it has been to me. We shall all meet finally: we only require different degrees of discipline, suited to our different tempers, to prepare us for final happiness.” Upon Mr. ---- coming into his room, he said, “You see, Sir, I am still living.” Mr. ---- observed, he would always live. “Yes,” said he, “I believe I shall; and we shall all meet again in another and a better world.” He said this with great animation, laying hold on Mr. ----’s hand in both his.

Before prayers he desired me to reach him three publications, about which he would give me some directions next morning. His weakness would not permit him to do it at that time.

At prayers he had all the children brought to his bed-side as before. After prayers they wished him a good night, and were leaving the room. He desired them to stay, spoke to them each separately. He exhorted them all to continue to love each other. “And you, little thing,” speaking to Eliza, “remember the hymn you learned; ‘Birds in their little nests agree,’ &c. I am going to sleep as well as you: for death is only a good long sound sleep in the grave, and we shall meet again.” He congratulated us on the dispositions of our children; said it was a satisfaction to see them likely to turn out well; and continued for some time to express his confidence in a happy immortality, and in a future state, which would afford us an ample field for the exertion of our faculties.

On Monday morning, the 6th of February, after having lain perfectly still till four o’clock in the morning, he called to me, but in a fainter tone than usual, to give him some wine and tincture of bark. I asked him how he felt. He answered, he had no pain, but appeared fainting away gradually. About an hour after, he asked me for some chicken broth, of which he took a tea-cup full. His pulse was quick, weak, and fluttering, his breathing, though easy, short. About eight o’clock, he asked me to give him some egg and wine. After this he lay quite still till ten o’clock, when he desired me and Mr. Cooper to bring him the pamphlets we had looked out the evening before. He then dictated as clearly and distinctly as he had ever done in his life the additions and alterations he wished to have made in each. Mr. Cooper took down the substance of what he said, which, when he had done, I read to him. He said Mr. Cooper had put it in his own language; he wished it to be put in his. I then took a pen and ink to his bed-side. He then repeated over again, nearly word for word, what he had before said; and when I had done, I read it over to him. “That is right; I have now done.” About half an hour after he desired, in a faint voice, that we would move him from the bed on which he lay to a cot, that he might lie with his lower limbs horizontal, and his head upright. He died in about ten minutes after we had moved him, but breathed his last so easy, that neither myself or my wife, who were both sitting close to him, perceived it at the time. He had put his hand to his face, which prevented our observing it.

The above account, which conveys but a very inadequate idea of the composure and chearfulness of his last moments deserves the attention of unbelievers in general, particularly of Philosophical Unbelievers. They have known him to be zealous and active in the pursuit of Philosophical truths and to be ever ready to acknowledge any mistakes he may have fallen into. By the perusal of these Memoirs they have found that he gradually, and after much thought and reflection abandoned all those opinions which disgrace what is usually called christianity in the eyes of rational men and whose inconsistency with reason and common sense has most probably been the cause of their infidelity and of their total inattention to the evidences of christianity. These opinions he abandoned, because he could not find them supported either in the Scriptures or in the genuine writings of the early Christians. They must be sensible that the same desire for truth and the same fearless spirit of enquiry and the same courage in the open avowal of the most obnoxious tenets would have led him to have discarded religion altogether had he seen reason so to do, and there is little doubt but that he would have been subject to less obloquy by so doing than by exposing the various corruptions of christianity in the manner he did. They have seen however that in proportion as he attended to the subject his faith in christianity increased and produced that happy disposition of mind described in these Memoirs. The subject is therefore well deserving of their attention and they should be induced from so fair an example, and the weight due to my father’s opinions, to make themselves fully acquainted with the arguments in favour of christianity before they reject it as an idle fable.