ge in one of the new passages he wrote for this same
edition of his _Theory_. It is in connection with his remarks on the
Calas case. He says that to persons in the circumstances of Calas,
condemned to an unjust death, "Religion can alone afford them every
effectual comfort. She also can tell them that it is of little
importance what men may think of their conduct while the all-seeing
Judge of the world approves of it. She alone can present to them a
view of another world,--a world of more candour, humanity, and justice
than the present, where their innocence is in due time to be declared
and their virtue to be finally rewarded, and the same great principle
which can alone strike terror into triumphant vice affords the only
effectual consolation of disgraced and insulted innocence."[364]
Whatever may have been his attitude towards historical Christianity,
these words, written on the eve of his own death, show that he died as
he lived, in the full faith of those doctrines of natural religion
which he had publicly taught.

FOOTNOTES:

[359] Original in possession of Professor Cunningham, Belfast.

[360] _Theory_, ed. 1790, i. 146.

[361] Magee's _Works_, p. 138.

[362] Sinclair's _Life of Sir John Sinclair_, i. 40.

[363] Add. MSS., 32, 574.

[364] _Theory_, ed. 1790, i. 303, 304.

CHAPTER XXXII

LAST DAYS

The new edition of the _Theory_ was the last work Smith published. A
French newspaper, the _Moniteur Universelle_ of Paris, announced on
11th March 1790 that a critical examination of Montesquieu's _Esprit
des Lois_ was about to appear from the pen of the celebrated author of
the _Wealth of Nations_, and ventured to predict that the work would
make an epoch in the history of politics and of philosophy. That at
least, it added, is the judgment of well-informed people who have seen
parts of it, of which they speak with an enthusiasm of the happiest
augury. But notwithstanding this last statement the announcement was
not made on any good authority. Smith may probably enough have dealt
with Montesquieu as he dealt with many other topics in the papers he
had prepared towards his projected work on government, but there is no
evidence that he ever intended to publish a separate work on that
remarkable writer, and before March 1790 his strength seems to have
been much wasted. The Earl of Buchan, who had some time before gone to
live in the country, was in town in February, and paid a visit to his
old pr