John Medaille contributes:
Here is the passage from TMS. I leave the interpretation to others:

[The rich] consume little more than the poor, and 
in spite of their natural selfishness and 
rapacity, though they mean only their own 
conveniency, though the sole end which they 
propose from the labours of all the thousands 
whom they employ, be the gratification of their 
own vain and insatiable desires, they divide with 
the poor the produce of all their improvements. 
They are led by an invisible hand to make nearly 
the same distribution of the necessaries of life, 
which would have been made, had the earth been 
divided into equal portions among all its 
inhabitants, and thus without intending it, 
without knowing it, advance the interest of the 
society, and afford means to the multiplication 
of the species..In ease of body and peace of 
mind, all the different ranks of life are nearly 
upon a level, and the beggar, who suns himself by 
the side of the highway, possesses that security 
which kings are fighting for .[1]

[1] Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, 
6th ed., The Conservative Leadership Series 
(Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing Co., 1997), IV.I p. 249.

 

Smith's statement is so insensitive to the straits of the poor, and so blind
to the extravagances of the rich, that I am tempted to wonder if the
publisher, Regnery, didn't tamper with it. Maybe some Smith scholar will
check earlier editions lacking the tendentious title of "The Conservative
Leadership Series".

Mason Gaffney