Reminded of His Dead Mother.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XX, Issue 2328, 17 January 1893, Page 4

Reminded of His Dead Mother.

from a private letter,) i It was thejatter part of August, 1891. A, friend and I bad' come down from Samsgate 'to Minster, to see the vener- ' able church there, which is a thousand years old. I entered the churchyard and seated myself on a nameless grave while be went in Bearch of somebody to unlock the doors of the edifice and show its wonders. In a few minutes he returned in company with an elderly lady, to whom he introduced me, saying she was the custodian and guide of the place. I gazed at* her face for '.some moments without a word. If my own dead mother, dead and gone 15 years, had come back to speak to her only son, I should '^ scarcely have been more astonished. For this woman was my mother's double ; the same size, the same face, and the same way of parting the hair and comb* ing it in smooth bands from the forehead. I told her so, and we were friends before either fairly knew the other's name. What a queer, world it is. She then conducted us through the ancient fane, [and spoke of the long vanished past, of the monks and nuns who once sang and prayed within its walls, of the quaint carvings on the hard oak seats in the chancel, of that precious relic the Oranmer Bible, which reposes in a glass box against a pillar, and of many matters beßides, drawn from the apparently erhaustlesa well of her detailed and accurate information. Finally tbe talk veered round to the whrolesomeneas of the vicinity, the bracing nature of its sea breezes and bo on. Then our guide, Mrs. Sarah Herd said :■—" I have lived here in Minster 50 years, and seen many ups and downs. One of my sons is now in America, where be is doing well. He wants me to leave England and make my home with him, but I doubt if I ever Bhall. lam somewhat like that old yew tree ont in the yard, deeply rooted to this soil, and might be the worse for palling up. Then I am getting on in life, and ills grow apace with age. In the spring of 1878 1 had a serious attack. At first I scarcely knew what to make of it. There was no disease that I recognised in particular. I felt tired in body and weary in mind. There was much pain at my chest and back, and a kind of tightness at the Bides, as though physical force were applied there to restrain me from moving. My appetite, which was usually good, fell away ; and whatever I ate or drank gave me pain, and I lived almost entirely on bread and water. I was always in pain and couldn't sleep so as to feel refreshed by it. After a time I grew so weak as to be unable to go about my work. A bitter and sickening fluid arose into my moutb, and I perBpired to snob an extent that the sweat sometimes rolled o££ my face to the floor." I (the writer) break in upon Mrs. Herd's story at this point merely to say that this tendency to sweat without the provocation of labour or of exercise is always a sign of a debilitated condition of the system. It means that the blood is impure and impoverished,the kidneys working badly, and that the body lacks nourishment and iB living feebly on what was previously stored in it. In other words the stomach has refused its duty and the other organs are m sympathy with it. Now we will let the lady proceed, begging pardon for the interruption. She went on to say -.—"For a time I tried to cure myself with various domestic remedies which sometimes anßwer. (But they failed and I consulted a physician. With all respect to the doctors, they oecasionlly failed too. This one did. You know there comes a time in all long illnesses when we get in some way used to pain and misery, and make no farther efforts to get rid of it. In fact, we don't know how, and so don't try. For about three years I remained wretched and ailing, and dull unhappy ?ears they were. My sufferings were eyond all I had ever known before, yet there seemed nothing to do but to bear them aB patiently as I could. At thij date, 1881, certain f riendß of mine spoke to me of the great benefit they had received from the übg of Mother Seigel's Syrup, for indigestion and dyspepsia. Thiß threw light on my mind, although I cannot say it made me at once a believer in Seigel'a Syrup. At length, however, in July 1881, 1 began to take it. In all ' I used six bottles, and found my health folly restored. Ten years have elapsed, and I have had no attack since. Bat if I do in future I shall know where to pat my hand on the remedy." Oar visit being virtually over, we called for a few moments at Mrs. Herd's .home, 2, High Street, Minster, Kent, and then wended our way back to Bamsgate. O. M. B. .New fork, October, 1891.