SPEAKING OF LONG AGO.

Hot Lakes Chronicle, Volume 5, Issue 218, 6 February 1897, Page 3

SPEAKING OF LONG AGO.

To-day, as I pen these lines, one picture from the long-vanished past rises in my memory us clearly as though it hung on a wnll before my very eyes. It is of a boy about fourteen years old, propped up in a great arm-chair with pillows and bed-clothes, and gazing through a window. He is just convalescing alter a long and dangerous illness, and is still thin, pale, and weak. The strong arms of his loving father have taken him from the bed and placed him snugly by the wiudow in order that he maysee hi- playmates at their games in the snow ; for the time is mid-winter. They wave their hands to him and he waves his hand feebly to them. The -line is from my own boyhood, forty years ago. What magic has conjured it up now? Only a .sentence from a letter. This : " 1 was so weak that for years I had to be carried upstairs to bed." A lady speaks thus of her girlhood. What a pitiable thing, it is not, what nature meant; but alas! too often what really happens in this perverted world. Children .should never suffer pain, for pain is punishment. For whoso offences, then—surely not their own do the little ones sicken and die by uncounted millions ? " From childhood," so runs the letter, ''l was always delicate. When fourteen years old 1 got a chill on the lungs'which left mo jn a weak state, indeed, I was always tired and weary, aud never knew what it was to feel strong." £vo\v, tell me, if you can, what sadder reading one is apt to eome upon than this? Fancy a young girl being] always tired, weary, and weak ! —too weak to climb the stairs to her own bed! so feeble arid lifeless as to require to be carried over the house through which she should have skipped and danced like a. fawn. What had so crushed her ? Disease ? What diseaso and how caused? "J was very pale," continues the letter ; " My feet were cold and clammy, and hot sweats now and again burst over me. My appetite was poor; and, alter eating, 1 suffered such pain at the chest aud sides that it often .amounted to agony; and the palpitation of the heart was so bad that many times I got no sleep at night on account ol it." And this is. ai mi ago when the heart should beat fpiickly only with feelings of joy and hope ; and girlish forms in their teds shuuld be as cpuiet as recumbent statues, " After a time ; ' says the \vliter, "I could take liquid nourishment only, my stomach being too weak to retain anything solid. Thus, I gradually wasted away until 1 was nothing but skin and bone. I had not even strength to walk across the floor ; and all who saw me said it was impossible that I thould ever get well. "Fiom time to lime 1 saw doctor after doctor and twice went to the fj'.lieibofnp Hospital, but received no

benefit from them At last the doctors said that both my chest and bowels were ulcerated and that there was no hope of ruy recovery. I was now so bad that I could take nothing but weak brandy and water—and thut "In this hopeless condition I lingered, on until March, JB9O, when I heard of Mother SeigeFs Curative Syrup. Although I had given up all hope of deriving any benefit from any medicine, I nevertheless, sent for a bottle of the Syrup, and after having taken it for a few days I found myself a little better. This led me to continue using it, and shortlyl was able to take solid food, and the sickness gradually left me. Holding to this medicine—the onlyono that had ever helped me—l grew stronger and stronger until I was in good health. Without Mother Seigel's Curative Syrup I should never have recovered; and you must try to imagine how grateful I feel. 1 never can put my thankfulness in words. Yours truly (Signed) Mrs Hilliar, Rimptou, near !->herborne, Dorset, March 9th, 1893." We rest at this. Here is a life history. How can we comment on it adequately ? What a pity that this woman should have so suffered! What a satisfaction to know that she suffers no more! Ah, yes! Mother Seigel had reason enough to induce her to labour as she did to relieve her sister women. Thank for her success. Mrs Hilliar's real diseaso was of the stomach—indigostiun and dyspepsia; inherited, pi'obably, made chronic bv circumstances. The remedy she finally used curel this, and so freed her from all the symptoms and results. How kindly are the arms that carjy us in our weakness. How glorious not to need them !