Reminded of His Dead Mother.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XX, Issue 2329, 18 January 1893, Page 4

Reminded of His Dead Mother.

from'a private letter.) . It was the latter part of August, 1891. A.~f riend and I.Miad come down from Ramagate to Minster, to see the venerable church there, which is a thousand years old. I entered tbe churchyard and seated myself on a nameless grave while he went in search of somebody to unlock ,±ha dootß of the edifice and show its * wonders. In a few-minutes he returned

in. pompany 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 momentß without a word. If my own dead mother, dead and gone 15 years, had come back to Bpeak to her only son, I should scared y have been more aatonißhed. For this woman was my mother's doable ; the same size, the same face, and the same way of parting the hair and combing 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 beßideß, drawn from the apparently exhaustless well of her detailed and accurate information.

Finally the talk veered round to the waolesomenesß o£ the vicinity, the bracing nature of its sea breezes and so on. Then oar guide, Mrß. Sarah Herd said :— " I have lived here in Minster 50 years, and seen many tips and downs. One of my sons is now in America, where he is doing well. He wants me to leave England and make my home with him; but I doubt if I ever shall. lam somewhat like that old yew tree out in the yard, deeply rooted to this soil, and might be the worse for pulling pp. 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 oheßt and back, and a kind of tightness at the sides, 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 abont my work; A bitter and sickening fluid arose into my mouth, and I perspired to such an extent that the sweat sometimes rolled off my face to the floor."

I (the writer) break in upon Mrs. Herd's story at this point merely to saj that this tendency to sweat without the provocation o£ 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 is living feebly on what was previously stored in it. In other words the stomach has refused its duty and the other organs are in sympathy with it. Now we will let the lady prooeed, begging pardon for the interruption. She went on to say :— "For a time I tried to cure myself with various domestic remedies which sometimes answer. But they failed and I consulted a physician. With all respect to the doctors, t&ey occasionlly failed too. This one did. You know there comeß a time in all long illnesses when we get in some way used to pain and misery, and make no further effortß to get rid of it. In fact, we don't know how, and so don't try. For about three years I remained wretohed and ailing, and dull unhappy years' they were. My sufferings were beyond all I had ever known before, yet there seemed nothing to do but to bear them as patiently as I could. At thia date, 1881, certain friends of mine spoke io me of the great benefit they had received from the use of Mother Seagal's Syrup, for indigestion and dyspepsia. This threw light on my mind, although I cannot say it made me at once a believer in Seigel's Syrup. At length, however, in July 1881, 1 began to take it. In all I used six bottles, and found my health fully restored. Ten years have elapsed, and I have had no attack Bince. But if I do in future I shall know where to put 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 Ramsgate. O. M. R. New York, October, 1891.