REMINDED OF HIS DEAD MOTHER.
[extract pbok a private lettie.] It was the latter part of August, 1891, A friend and I hid come down from Ramsgate to Minster, to see the venerable church there, which is a thousand years old. I entered the churchyard and seated myself upon a nameless grave while he went ia search of somebody to unlock the doors of the edifice' and show-its wonders. In a few'minutes Ee returned In company with an. elderly lady/ to whom he introduced ms; saying she was - the custodian and guide of the place. I gazed at her face for some moments without a word. If my own mother, dead and gone fifteen years, had come back to speak to her, only son, I should scarcely have been more astonished. For this woman was almost my mother’s doable; the same size, the same face, and the same way of parting the hair end 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 dakseats in the chancel, of that precious relic, the Cranmer Bible, which reposes in a : glass box against a pillar, and of many matters besides, drawn from the apparently axhaustlesa well of her detailed and accurate information..
Finally the talk veered round to the wholeaomeness of the Vicinity, the bracing | nature of its sea breezes and so on* Then our guide, Mrs Sarah Herd said I hare 1 lived here in Minster fifty years, and seen many ups and downs. One of my tons is now in America, where he is doing well* He wants me to leave England and make my home with him, hut I doubt if I ever shall. I am somewhat like that old yew tree out in the yard, deeply rooted to this soil, and might he the worse for pulling up. Then lam getting on in life, and ills grow apace with age. In the spring of 1878 I had a serious attack. At first 1 scarcely knew what to make of it. There was no disease that I recognised in particular. I felt tired in body and wearying mind. There was much pain at my chest' and back, 1 and a kind of tightness at the sides, as though physical force were applied 1 there to restrain me from moving. My appetite, which waa usually good, fell /'. away; and whatever I ate or drank gave me pain, and 1 lived almost entirely on bread and water. 1 was always in pain and couldn’t sleep so as to feel refreshed; by it. After a time I grew so weak as to i be unable to go about my work. A bitter and sickening fluid arose into my month, and 1 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 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 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 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 answer. 'Bat they failed, and I consulted a physician. With all respect to the doctors, they occa*. aionally fail to. 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 further 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 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 this date, 1881, certain friends of mine spoke .to. me of; the great, benefit - they had received from'' the use of MotherSeigel’s Syrup,' for' indfges-, tion and dyspepsia. '. This'- threw light on* my mind; although I cannot say it. made; me at; once a believer in;Seigel'Stßifrap. At length, however, in July, 1881,1. began to take it. In all I used sis ;bobtles, and found my health fuily’restored. Ten years have elapsed,; and I have had no attack since.. But if I do in future I shall .know where to pub my hand on the remedy.”. Our visit being virtually oyer, wo oalled for a feW moments at Mrs Herd’s home; fl, ■ High ‘street* Minster, Kent, and then wendod .our way back to Ramsgate. New York, October, 1891. 0.J1.-E, SEIGEL'S SYRUP.
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Bibliographic details
Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXIX, Issue 9987, 16 March 1893, Page 2
Word Count
873REMINDED OF HIS DEAD MOTHER. Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXIX, Issue 9987, 16 March 1893, Page 2
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