Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 4.djvu/81

Rh the painful disease that carried him off early in the following spring. Through the whole of the winter, his sufferings must often have been extreme, though he had intervals in which he was comparatively easy. He died suddenly on the 20th of February, 1802, in the sixty-fifth year of his age.

As there has been a story told of Dr Geddes having recanted his opinions on his death-bed, it becomes an imperious duty to state the manner of his death, as related by those who were about him at the time. The rites of that communion to which he professed to belong, were, notwithstanding his avowed contempt for the greater part of them, administered to him by his friend M. St Martin, a doctor of the Sorbonne and professor of divinity. The day before his death, Dr Geddes was visited by this friend, who was anxious to recall him from those aberrations he had made from the faith, and for this purpose had a list of questions drawn up, to which he meant to insist upon having answers. The state into which by this time the Doctor had fallen, rendered this impracticable. Sensible that he was in great danger, M. St Martin endeavoured to rouse him from his lethargy, and proposed to him to receive absolution. Geddes observed that in that case it would be necessary for him to make his confession. M. St Martin, aware that this was beyond his strength, replied that in extremis this was not necessary, that he had only to examine the state of his own mind, and to make a sign when he was prepared. He could not, however, avoid putting a question or two upon the more important points upon which they differed. "You fully," said he, "believe in the Scriptures?" Geddes, rousing himself from his sleep, said "Certainly." "In the doctrine of the Trinity?" "Certainly, but not in the manner you mean." "In the mediation of Jesus Christ?" "No, no, no, not as you mean; in Jesus as our Saviour but not in the atonement." After a pause he said, "I consent to all " but of these words M. St Martin did not comprehend the meaning. The Doctor shortly after gave the sign that he was ready, and received from M. St Martin absolution in the way he had pro- posed. It was the intention of M. St Martin to have passed the night with him, but calling in the evening, found that the physician had forbidden any of his friends to be admitted. A domestic, however, in a neighbouring house, of the catholic persuasion, who knocked at the door during the night, just as he was dying, was admitted, and, according to the rites of her church, repeated over him the Creed, Paternoster, and Ave Maria. Dr Geddes opened his eyes as she had concluded, gave her his benediction, and expired.

Perhaps there is not in the history of literary men a character that calls more loudly for animadversion, or that requires a more skilful hand to lay it open, than that of Dr Geddes. He professed a savage sort of straight-forward honesty, that was at war on multiplied occasions with the common charities of life, yet amid his numerous writings, will any man take it on him to collect what were really his opinions upon the most important subjects of human contemplation? He professed himself a zealous catholic; yet of all or nearly all that constitutes a catholic, he has spoken with as much bitterness as it was possible for any protestant to have done. If it be objected that he added to the adjective Catholic the noun Christian, when he says that he admits nothing but what has been taught by Christ, his apostles, and successors in every age and in every place, we would ask how much we are the wiser. He professed to believe in Jesus Christ, and in the perfection of his code, but he held Moses to have been a man to be compared only with Numa and Lycurgus; a man who like them pretended to personal intercourse with the Deity, from whom he never received any immediate communication; a man who had the art to take advantage of rarely -occurring natural circumstances, and to persuade the Israelites that they were accomplished under his direction by the immediate power of