conscious of the truth, and feeling his own strength. Treating your
adversary with respect, is giving him an advantage to which he is not
entitled. The greatest part of men cannot judge of reasoning, and are
impressed by character; so that, if you allow your adversary a
respectable character, they will think, that though you differ from
him, you may be in the wrong. Sir, treating your adversary with
respect, is striking soft in a battle. And as to Hume--a man who has
so much conceit as to tell all mankind that they have been bubbled for
ages, and he is the wise man who sees better than they--a man who has
so little scrupulosity as to venture to oppose those principles which
have been thought necessary to human happiness--is he to be surprised
if another man comes and laughs at him? If he is the great man he
thinks himself, all this cannot hurt him: it is like throwing peas
against a rock.' He added 'something much too rough', both as to Mr
Hume's head and heart, which I suppress. Violence is, in my opinion,
not suitable to the Christian cause. Besides, I always lived on good
terms with Mr Hume, though I have frankly told him, I was not clear
that it was right in me to keep company with him, 'But', said I, 'how
much better are you than your books!' He was cheerful, obliging, and
instructive; he was charitable to the poor; and many an agreeable hour
have I passed with him: I have preserved some entertaining and
interesting memoirs of him, particularly when he knew himself to be
dying, which I may some time or other communicate to the world. I
shall not, however, extol him so very highly as Dr Adam Smith does,
who says, in a letter to Mr Strahan the printer (not a confidential
letter to his friend, but a letter which is published [Footnote: This
letter, though shattered by the sharp shot of Dr Horne of Oxford's
wit, in the character of 'One of the People called Christians', is
still prefixed to Mr Home's excellent History of England, like a poor
invalid on the piquet guard, or like a list of quack medicines sold by