The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1891-05-19
POPULAR DELUOIONS.
George W. Vending Lectures Upon
Them.
he is an Optimist and Believes the
Law of True Life is the Law of
Love-An Eloquent Speaker.

A very large audience gathered at the
Congregational Church last night to hear
George w. Vending, the orator. His
lecture was the last Of the seasons enter
tainments by the Sacramento Lecture
Association. Chairman II. Weinstock,
in introducing the lecturer, reviewed the
three years course Of the association and
expressed the hope that it had been the
instrument of good, for the diffusion of
knowledge, and for inspiring the people
with higher purposes, better tastes and
nobler aspirations.
Mr.. Vending is man of fine presence.
lie is a polished speaker and natural
orator. There is just shade Of the emo
tionaI in his manner. His command of
language is faultless, and his enuncia-
ton is a model of excellence. His voice
is clear, strong, admirably managed, and
full of feeling. That he is a thinker to a
purpose and that he speaks from the
depths of conviction, none who heard
him doubt. He held his audience in
close attention, and commanded its pro-
found respect if he did not convince all
who heard him that this is an age to live
in which all men should entertain the
most GuInuSltSJlc pfiuc.
His subject was Popular Decisions"
He began by saying that his invitation to
his auditors was to wander with him
kindly, and with love and forbearance in
their hearts, up and down some of the
avenues of human activity. Human in
tereSts are arrayed now, and always
have been. in three great divisions-po-
litical, social and religious. Business
life is but phase of the social. To speak
of politics and their relation to organiZa-
ton; of religion in its relation to a higher
power, and social conditions in the rela-
ton of men TO each other in their daily
life embraces the whole OF activity and
thought in human life.
He asked his hearers to glance first at
some of the great deIusions of history.
Only a hundred and seventy years ago
one of these shook to its center one of the
greatest nations Of earth. Louis XIV,
the most magnificent of monarchs and of
scOundrelS, had been dead scarce five
years when John Law came upon the
field and by the translation into the
French of one of his essays on finance
drew the attention of all France. He
was pronounced the most advanced
of tinanciers, and at once launched
upon one of the most brilliant and won
derful of careers. The speaker then rap
idly and lucidly Sketched the history of
the Law deluSiOn that amazed the world
by the rapidity of its rise, the sweep with
which it took in all France, the magnifi-
cent millions in which it dealt, i'll its
Louisiana and Mississippi scheme, and
the crash with which it came to earth,
carrying a whole nation into cruel wreck
with it and Impoyerishing hundreds of
thousands of people.
The English, believing themselves
more cautious and less susceptible than
the French, laughed at them in their dis
tress. But the spirit of speculation at
tackled the British Isles, and the South
Sea Company was given a new impetus
by the contagion of the Law swindle
while at its hight, and all England
plunged as madly into that chimerical
scheme. For a time the South Sea Com
pany schemes absorbed all OF attention
and nearly all of financial activity among
the people having means. The speaker
Sketched the history of the South Sea
bubble graphically. and in a fine vein of
humor depicted the craze with which it
infected the people. Its bursting was
scarcely less disastrous than that of the
Law swlndle.
But no one believed that the cautious,
low-thinking, plodding Dutch would
ever be led away by a similar delusion.
Yet among them, seven or eight genera
tons ago, was born the Tulip mania, that
gathered in its destructive arms about the
whole people, and indeed spread over the
greater part of Europe, collapSing when
it had run its course, leaving desolation,
woe and financial ruin as the sum of its
results.
Incidentally, while describing these
wild decisions in which the wisest and
best lost their bearings, he referred to n
popular and growing delusion in this
country, that magnities and eXtols the
personality Of European monarchs. This
had grown TO such an extent concerning
late emperor that he was looked upon
H. ~ IL L.
OF his being he Inherited from long line
of tyrants enmity to human freedom
The lecturer was not and never had been
knOwnOthing, and was the enemy of
secret political associations, but better
far the knownothing on American soil
than those who here bow before the name
of and worship the emperors and mon
archs Of Europe.
The next historical delusion the lecturer
took up was that Of the witchcraft mania,
and that in the sixteenth aud seventeenth
centuries sent to ignoble death 100000
human beings, and led Luther and even
Wesley to declare that it was righteous
delivery. What, he asked, DESTROYED
this great delusiOn that fingered until as
late as l172, when witches were burned in
our own land, and men by superStitious
decisions We're led TO believe that devils
inhabited human bodies To affiict men.
There is an infallible rule with which
10 defeat all deluSiOn, TO undo all super
StitiOn and prevent all injury to our fell
lows, by our acts. Certain philosophers
tell us that all these ills. these decisions
and maniaS are all due to ignorance, and
therefore the antidote is intelligence.
The speaker said that once he was de-
luded and believed that; but he believes
it no longer.
WIN education save us from delusions?
No. The brightest intellects of the world
We're victims of the greatest decisions of
the centuries. VIII the progress of sci
cnce do il? VIII free schools-'let the
hand be forever cursed that touches them
deStructively''-wi the press, myriad
voiced and omniprcSent save us from de-
IuSlOnS and manIaS grounded in selfish
ness and superstition? No; none of
these. Aids they are, their influence
rome can deny; but IS SaViOrs? No Nora
tionalism, no intcllectuality- ofthese
destroyed the witchcratt delusion. The
intallihle antidote, the one and only great
savior from the III was the supreme law
of the NaZarlne, preached for the centn-
rieS, but Embedded in ecclesiasticism that
crippled its power, but which law in the
opening of the eighteenth century gath
cred strength, moved upon the common
people, proclaimed itself not as a dogma,
but rs an everlasting truth-the great law
of self-sacriiice, Thou shalt love thy
neighbor as myself
Under il human life became human
interest, human suffering was to be
ameliOTated, human woe 10 be assuaged
human want to be supplied and out of il
grew the cry Of human hearts that slavery
was 4 human crime and II must cease
Men became more than things, woman
was exalted, children We're loved as
precious gifts, men were regarded as
having individual rights no matter what
their condition, aSylumS Sprang up hos