USED WHILE IN PRAYER.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIV, Issue 208, 2 September 1893, Page 6

USED WHILE IN PRAYER.

" Another man was found in a kneeling posture, his Jucc buried in his hands, as if ha had died in prayer."

I clip t-his pathetic sentence from an account of the St. Etienne coal mine disaster which occured in France, in December, IS9I. The firo had been smouldering for years in a remote part of tho mine, but its further advanca had been stoppod by barriers. Yet they proved insufiicenb at last, and the terrible fire-damp exploded, scattering death throughout the mine. Such incidents are too well known in England to need further explanation or comment.

Has ib ever struck you that the interior of trie human body is like the interior of a coalmine? Well, ib is. All its operations go on in aolitudo and darknoss. Gases are engendered in it that are just as dangerous as fire-damp. Generally they—yet hold on, let's have tho little story first.

It's about a wom&n, In fact, it's from hor, too, and is sure to interest; somobody; may be you. Sliß says that a long run of time, 'from childhood to years after her marriage, she uevor knew what illness was ; that is, so as to rcmomber it, or to have it make n mark on her, as we may say. But mighty fow folks manage to escape tho old slave driver altogether. Nor did she. "It was in tho summer of 1590," sho says, "when I began to feel bad. My appetite was poor, and what I did eat gavo mo groat pain and distress. Aly food seemed to lie like load ; and after every meal, no matter how simplo the food was, 1 had the most oxcrutiating pain you can imagine. I had a nagging, thudding pain at my eliost, and, through my shoulders, bhab was very hard to boar. So bad was it thab I thought something (perhaps a tumour) was growing within me. As soon as ever food entered my stomach I used to say, ' It is boginning,' moaning tho gnawing pain.

" I took all kinds of Miings for relief and applied mustard plasters to tho chest, but nothing did me any good. After a timo I dared not take a proper meal; I was afraid to eat, and got very thin and weak. It was as much as I could do to goabeut my house work. In October of this yoar (1891) Mrs James Mercer, of 176, High-streot, Longton, recommonded me to try Mother Seigol's Curative Byrup, and I got a bottle and commenced to take it. After a few doses I felt relief. iMy food ngreed with me, and by tho time I had taken one largo bottlo all tho pain, had loft mo, and I now feel as well as ever I did."—Yours truly (signed), Mrs Er.tzAiiKTir Wriuht, 12, King - street, Hanley, Staffordshire, November J9, 1891.

You aak mo what tho Bad fato of the miners has to do wibh tho case of Mra Wright. I'll toll you in half o miuuto. This hidy says she was takon ill in tho summer of 1890. Now, do you suppose the illness and tbo cause of the illness camo yip at tho same time. By no means. Cause first, effect afterwards — that's the order, always. And aao horo! A cause * may bo at work for wooks or years beforo you notico any results : and until you do notico results, you don't know that there's aught gone wrong. Isn't that so ? The miners, to be sure, know there was a fire in the niino. But it was fonced oil from them and they thought they were safe. The barriers leaked, and death gripped them in tho twinkling of an-eye.

Tho body is like a mine as I have aaid. Disoaso and death are caused by the action of the poisonous gases and acids inside it. They all Btart from tho stomach and then creop into every part; somotimes fast, sometimes slow. In some acute diseases very fast. The doctors very often call gout an " explosion" of uric acid. The source of all these deadly things is indigestion and dyspepsia. Slight symptoms first, then tho more terrible and alarming. Watch tho way it comoa on. This wa9 Mrs Wright's ailmont. She suffered 15 months bofcrs ehe found out what tlio matter was and what to do. Gracious, morcy, if we only know tho sort of things that go on in our bodies, we'd understand that it'a about as dangerous to work in a kitchen as in a coal mine.