AT THE FALL OF THE LEAF

Auckland Star, Volume XXVIII, Issue 301, 29 December 1897, Page 2

AT THE FALL OF THE LEAF

Why do the leaves fall? 'Bless me, I don't know,' you answer. 'I suppose because it is one of nature's arrangements.' -

Precisely. But why did nature so arrange ? Why not have summer time always, with perpetual foliage? What is the meaning of denuded branches, withered flowers, daylight fading ia mid-afternoon, and winter's cold and desolation? When you find but why the leaves fall you will have discovered one of nature's deeest secrets —vfhy men die.

Suppose we try an easier, problem. Why should Mr William StteeV;"sstti written such a sentence as this?- LAi the fall of the leaf every year I got into such a state that I took no pleasure in anything.

No doubt there are minds so highly strung- as to feel keenly the influence of outward conditions, changes of tie weather and of the seasons, and so on. But they are rare, and for practical purposes they ought to be rare. Our friend Mr Steel, happily for him, was not one of them. ■ All the same he was a miserable man every time the leaves began to rattle to the ground. Here's the way he puts it:—'At the fall of the. leaf every year I felt languid, tired and weary, and took no pleasure in anything. My appetite was poor, and after everything I ate I had pain and fulness at the chest and sides. Then there was a horrible pain at the pit of the stomach, which nothing relieved.' Now, this sort of "thing would spoil a man's pleasure any time of the.year, but the oddity in Mr Steel's case is that it always coincided with what you may call nature's bedtime. 'After, a few months,' he says, 'the pain and distress would be easier for a while, but as autumn approached I became as bad as ever. In September, 1890, I had an unusually bad time of it. I couldn't touch a morsel of food, and presently g-ot so weak I was unable to stand on my legs. Every few hours I had to be poulticed, the paia was so bad. I went to bed and stayed there for a week, with a doctor attending me. He relieved me a little, but somehow he didn't succeed in getting to the bottom of my ailment.' That may be, but it doesn't quite follow that the doctor was in the dark as to Mr Steel's ailment. He W{ have understood it right__en<>ugh; ye* failed to cure it because he had, no remedy for it among his drugs. That happens all the while. Still, the reader may. ask, What's the good of knowing the nature of a complaint if we possess no medicine to cure it?- There you have us; no use at all, to be sure. Well, Mr Steel goes on to saj'--'For some time I continued very feeble and was hardly able to walk across the floor. If I took a short walK 1 felt so tired and done up I «<"»• know where to put myself. This was year after year for six years. Finally, I read about the popular medicine called Mother Seigel's < Curative Syrup, and made up my mind w try it. So I began and kept on vrtf* it for some time. The result was tJJ 5 the pain left me, and my appeal waked up. and my food tasted gW and digested well; and presently I strong and hearty as ever. That vr three years ago, and the trouble n» never returned. (Signed) WiDJJ Steel, Hambleton, near Oakham, w landshire, December 5, 1893. Mr Steel is grocer and pos^ma£<_ at Hambleton, and his case is w known there. His complaint isn hard to see through. It was mdi«» tion and dyspepsia. But why dm come on only in the autumn. *» had the fall of the leaf to do with isLet the reader study on that V olfMeanwhile, it is a comfort to. w» that Mother Seigel's Syrup will cv it no matter when it comes on. _