ountry rector in Shropshire. It is written in the
form of a letter to an anonymous correspondent, who had, in spite of
his "good sense, candour, and learning," and on grounds "many of them
peculiar to himself and not borrowed from books," "reasoned himself
into an unfavourable opinion of the evidences of Christianity"; and
this anonymous correspondent is said in Chalmers's _Biographical
Dictionary_ to have been "since known to be Adam Smith." From
Chalmers's _Dictionary_ the same statement has been repeated in the
same words in subsequent biographical dictionaries and elsewhere, but
neither Chalmers nor his successors reveal who it was to whom this was
known, or how he came to know it; and on the other hand, Macdonald,
the son-in-law and biographer of Douglas, makes no mention of Smith's
name in connection with this work at all, and explicitly states that
the book was written for the satisfaction of more than one of the
author's friends, who had been influenced by the objections of Hume
and others to the reality of the Gospel miracles.[94] This leaves the
point somewhat undetermined.

Smith was certainly a Theist, his writings leave no doubt of that, but
he most probably discarded the Christian miracles; and if Douglas's
book is addressed to his particular position, discarded them on the
ground that there is no possible criterion for distinguishing true
miracles from false, and enabling you to accept those of Christianity
if you reject those of profane history. The Earl of Buchan,
apostrophising Smith, asks, "Oh, venerable and worthy man, why was you
not a Christian?" and tries to let his old professor down as gently as
possible by suggesting that the reason lay in the warmth of his heart,
which always made him express strongly the opinions of his friends,
and carried him in this instance into sympathy with those of David
Hume. That is obviously a lame conclusion, because Smith's friendship
for Hume never made him a Tory, nor even on the point of religion were
his opinions identical with those of Hume; but Lord Buchan's words may
be quoted as an observation by an acute man of a feature in Smith's
character not without biographical interest. "Had he (Smith) been a
friend of the worthy ingenious Horrox," says his lordship, "he would
have believed that the moon sometimes disappeared in a clear sky
without the interposition of a cloud, or of another truly honest and
respectable man, that a professor of mathematics at Upsala