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.
Many unbelievers have, no doubt, borne with great patience severe calamities; they have suffered death with great fortitude when engaged in a good cause, and many have courted death to serve their friends or their country. It must however be allowed that there is no great merit in meeting death with fortitude when it cannot be avoided, and likewise that the above cases cannot be absolutely calculated upon, as there is no sufficient motive to account for their conduct. But upon a truly practical christian there is the greatest dependance to be placed for acting well in all the situations in which he may be found, his highest interest being connected with the performance of the greatest duties; and even supposing that many persons, who are not christians, from favourable circumstances attendant upon their birth and education, and from a naturally happy temperament of body and mind, may, and, it must be allowed do acquire a habit of disinterested benevolence and may in general be depended upon to act uniformly well in life, still the christian has a decided advantage over them in the hour of death, as to consider death as necessary to his entering upon a new and enlarged sphere of activity and enjoyment, is a privilege that belongs to him alone.