The Laws of Nature as Applied to the Affairs of Life. 67 
and daughters, till at last there were no buyers of children to be found. The 
living ate the dead; the mother devoured the child lying dead upon her breast, 
which had long since ceased to furnish sustenance to her once loved babe. 
The story, as told by an eye-witness, is too full of horrors to repeat further. 
Out of thirty millions of people, ten millions were dead before the next har- 
vest. Nor was this all. Society was completely demoralized; whole states 
were abandoned and grew up to jungle, and what was once the garden home 
of a happy people became the lair of wolves and tigers. Bengal did not re- 
cover for.fifty years, though the succeeding crops were bountiful. Nearly a 
hundred years after this dire calamity — that is to say in 1866, only nineteen 
years ago — a similar want of rainfall occurred and a similar famine impended. 
At this time — thanks to the growth of knowledge and a close observance of 
economic laws —a few of the governing class of England said in this case his- 
tory shall not repeat itself. Now, can you imagine what they did? I am sure 
it will astonish you as much as it did me when I read it some ten years ago. 
They sent orders to India to encouragé speculators and monopolists to the 
greatest possible extent; to lend them all the money they could, even to the 
point of danger; to build boats and sell them on credit to speculators moving 
grain; to leave trade perfectly free, leaving sellers and buyers to make their 
own bargains. Surely nothing could appear more cruel and cold-blooded than 
this. But mark the result. Rice, wheat and food-stuffs of all kinds flowed to 
this province in obedience to the laws of trade in such quantities that ware- 
houses could not be built fast enough to hold them. The government again 
sent word to lend money to the storehouse monopolists. The famine was stayed. 
Out of thirty-five millions of people less than a thousand died of starvation. 
I imagine the books were made up by the recording angel about as follows: 
Ignorance, sentiment and good intentions killed 10,000,000. Science and 
reason, obeying the laws of trade, 1,000. Balance to the credit of common 
sense, 9,999,000. Report to be sent to St. Peter without remarks. 
Another remarkable instance of the violation of the rights of the people, 
which means a violation of the laws of nature, is quite familiar to you, so far 
as the facts of history are concerned; but perhaps you have not considered it 
in the light I am trying to impress you with to-night. France had been goy- 
erned for a thousand years by priests and nobles, who owned all the land. A 
vicious court, together with a monastic priesthood, devoured everything. The 
people were slaves, or worse than slaves. Misery that would appall us at this 
day existed everywhere. The teachings of Voltaire, Rousseau and other 
thinkers, together with the example of America, finally aroused the people to 
frenzy. They guillotined their king and queen, destroyed the nobles and 
divided their lands among the people, committing in their madness many ex- 
cesses and cruelties, which humanity has good reason to regret. It hits been 
a standing rebuke and supposed to be a crushing argument to this day, when- 
ever a freethinker airs his views, to say: See what infidelity did in France, 
especially in ’98. You! perhaps remember the answer Victor Hugo puts into 
the mouth of the dying revolutionist when visited by the good. bishop. The 
old patriot defended the revolution with great force and feeling. At last the 
good priest, being driven from point to point, said with great severity: “What 
of 93?” With superhuman effort the old soldier raised himself to his feet, 
and with a countenance radiant with the memory of a hundred battles fought 
for the liberties of the people, said: ‘‘ Monsieur, a cloud had been gathering 
in France for fifteen centuries. Ninety-three was the thunderbolt.”’ Ah, yes! 
Thunderbolts are terrible things; it isnature’s way of clearing the atmosphere, 
whether in the heavens or on the earth. A cloud had been gathering in 
America for two hundred years. Sixty-one was our thunderbolt. Its rever- 
beration was heard around the globe, and when the storm cleared away a 
million men lay dead, and the habiliments of woe pervaded the land from 
ocean to ocean. 
