Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 1.djvu/64

 within him; and that his spirit and courage were far above the other. In this correct estimate James completely agreed.

From this period, the life of Adamson was but a brief and mournful record. After his late discomfiture, he became weary of teaching in the college, and seems to have remitted it in a great measure to his successful rival. The ministrations of the pulpit could not console him, as the audiences either avoided him as an excommunicated man, or tarried and listened as to the voice of an intruder. Fresh complaints were made against him in the church courts, of having collated unworthy persons to benefices within his diocese. And, to crown all, he finally lost the favour and protection of the king, whom he had served only too well but who was now weary of an archbishop buried under debt and disgrace, and whose season of working seemed well nigh over. Broken in health as well as in spirit, it might have been thought that James would at least have suffered such a faithful servant to depart in peace; but as if his own ungrateful hand, and no other, ought to deal the final blow, he alienated from him whatever of the revenues of his diocese he was still permitted to enjoy, and bestowed them upon the young Duke of Lennox, the son of his early favourite. In 1591, Adamson was dying a heart-broken man, and unable to procure for himself and his family even the common necessaries of life. But besides hollow friends, he had generous enemies, and these last came forward in the hour of his extremity. Such especially were the two Melvilles, whom he had persecuted in the season of his ascendancy, but who now supported him for several months, at their own expense. At last, he was reduced to such miserable shifts, that he entreated a charitable collection to be made for him among the brethren in the town of St Andrews; and as an inducement, he offered to repair to the pulpit, and there make open confession of his offences. This, indeed, his sickness prevented him from accomplishing; but he rendered an equivalent, in a distinct "Recantation," which he subscribed, and sent to the synod of St Andrews. Besides thus showing how little he had cared for Episcopacy, and how much he had used it for his own aggrandizement, he evinced the force of his early and long-concealed convictions in favour of Presbyterianism, by the remorse which he now felt at the thought of his excommunication, and his earnestness to be absolved from the sentence; and to this effect he sent a supplication to the presbytery of St Andrews. They deputed two of the brethren, one of whom was James Melville, to examine him, and, if they judged fit, to release him. As soon as the dying man saw Melville, he rose up in bed, plucked the night-cap from his head, and exclaimed, "Forgive, forgive me, for God's sake, good Mr James, for I have offended and done wrong to you many ways! " Melville spoke to him of his sin against Christ and his church, exhorted him to repentance, with the assurance of mercy from God if he repented, and forgave him with all his heart. His excommunication was then spoken of, and he was asked if he acknowledged its lawfulness. To this, his emphatic reply, which he repeated again and again, was, "Loose me, for Christ's sake!" His state and petition were fully reported to the presbytery, and he was forthwith absolved. Even yet, as appears from his "Recantation," he had hoped to struggle through this his last illness; and he professed in it his earnest desire and purpose to commence a better life, and repair the evils he had inflicted upon religion and the church. But his newborn sincerity was not to be thus tried, and he died in the lowest depths of his humiliation and repentance. His character is thus strongly and briefly summed up by James Melville, who knew him well, and witnessed his career from its