66 The Laws of Nature as Applied to the Affairs of Life. 
been pounded. An accident, if you please to call it, befell Charles Goodyear. 
Some of you remember the first rubber shoes, one-half an inch thick, melting 
in the sun and congealing in the cold to the hardness of cast iron. Goodyear 
was an unlearned inventor; ‘‘every effort to make his mixture pliable in both 
heat and cold had proved a failure; he had exhausted his resources, the pa- 
tience of his friends, and reduced his family to the greatest poverty. 
“At Woburn one day in the spring of 1839 (says his biographer), he was 
standing with his brother and several others near a very hot stove; he held in 
his hand a mass of his compound of sulphur and gum, upon which he was 
expatiating in his usual vehement manner. In the crises of his argument he 
brought the mass in contact with the stove, which was hot enough to melt 
India rubber instantly. Upon looking at it a moment later he perceived that 
his compound had not melted in the least degree. The result was absolutely 
new to all experience.” The possible application of this seeming accident 
flashed like lightning through this man’s brain; the color ieft his face; he 
could not speak. After many trials he applied the law deduced from this 
accident to his compound. His children no longer cried in vain for bread, and 
the whole world is to-day reaping the fruit of that poor man’s scientific 
brain. Do you call that an accidental discovery? 
Another result of these investigations, beyond all the advantages to man- 
kind in the greater supply of his comforts; and relief from labor, is another 
good, better perhaps than all the rest. The relegating of all things to univer- 
sal law, has emancipated man in a great measure from a mass of superstitions 
and theological terrors. Comets, and strange appearances of the heavens, are 
no longer thought to be exhibitions and warnings of an angry God, or the 
lashings of the tail of an escaped demon. Kingly crowns, phylacteries, robes, 
or a militia general’s uniform, no longer impress the looker-on with the idea 
of divine power. The form may still exist, but it is known to be a shell de- 
pending for influence, not upon robes and epaulets, but upon the character of | 
the man beneath them. Slowly but surely this great truth is gaining ground, 
permeating through all classes of society, lifting them to a higher plane of 
thought, making them eager to discuss new truths, hoping thereby to harmon- 
ize themselves with the forces surrounding them. Also enlarging their views 
of nature, and exalting beyond anything heretofore dreamed of, their concep- 
tion of the Creator, and as a necessary sequence, a diminished respect for his 
mundane advisers. There is also manifest a growing desire on the part of 
many enlightened legislators, to get the laws of the land in harmony with the 
natural movements of the people, so that great hopes are expressed that the 
phrase, “‘ History repeats itself,” will not last forever. A memorable instance 
of growing knowledge in that direction occurred in the English government 
but a f€w years since. In the year 1770 no rain fell in the province of Bengal, 
India. This fine country is situated mostly on the Ganges river, and contained 
at that time thirty millions of people, who were without bread. There was 
no grass and the cattle began to die. Food products rapidly advanced in 
price, and the people began to murmur and cry out against the monopolists 
and forestallers of food. They demanded that the government should imme- 
diately put a check upon their inhuman conduct of making merchandise of a 
starving people. The government of Great Britain did what I think nearly 
all good men and women in America would to-day heartily approve of. They 
caused laws to be passed in that province severely punishing all who should 
speculate upon the sufferings of the people, and sent soldiers to see that these 
laws were obeyed. The clergy in all the pulpits of England thanked the goy- 
ernment in the name of God and humanity for their prompt action to a dis- 
tressed nation. Notwithstanding all this, and all the charities sent them, the 
people began to die. The husbandmen sold their cattle, and then sold their 
implements of agriculture. After consuming everything, they sold their sons 
