HE MIGHT HAVE ESCAPED ANY DAY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1184, 9 November 1894, Page 19

HE MIGHT HAVE ESCAPED ANY DAY.

There was once a man who, on account of his religious convictions, was arrested by a despotic Government and thrown into prison. Looking at the strong stone walls that shut him in he naturally concluded that he must spend the rest of his days in this lonely and dismal place. Yet wretched as the prospect was, there was some comfort in the thought that he was a victim of oppression, and not undergoing punishment as a violator of any good and righteous law. All the same, he would have been glad to get out, as he had a right to do if he could.

Nevertheless there he stayed and languished for sixteen years. At nearly the end of that period it occurred to him one day to climb up on a projecting stone in the wall and take a peep through the window above his head. He did so, and found the iron bars removable and the sash not fastened. An idea struck him, of course. Why not escape ? He opened the window, jumped six feet to the ground, and left that district immediately. He might have done so at any time during his protracted occupancy of the place, if he had only been blessed with a more inquiring mind and not taken so much for granted.

Nowhere cGmes an incident both like and unlike that of the martyr; like it because there was loss of free action, unlike it because the sufferer was not imprisoned as he was.

i The story is the form of a letter, one of those letters we all prefer to get —short and made up of short words. The writer, a lady, says : " For the last 16 years I have been greatly afflicted with bilious complaints and weakness. I was always tired, weak, and low-spirited. I had no appetite, and when food was placed before me I could not touch it. For days I could scarcely eat anything. At times I was troubled with sickness and heaving at the stomach, spitting up a thick phlegm. I had a troublesoma covigh, with pain at my ohest and difficulty of breathing. I got very weak, and could scarcely drag myself in and out of the shop. In December, 1891, I began to take a medicine I had heard well spoken of by many of my customers, called Mother Seigel's Curative Syrup. After I had taken only a few doses I felt relief, and I had not used the medicine for a fortnight when I felt better than I had done for years. Thus encouraged, I kept, on with it until I was restored to good health. My son Arthur had suffered off and on for a year-from pain and heaviness after meals, with a sinking feeling at bhe pit of the stomach. He was indticed to try Mother SeigeFs Curative Syrup and the result was the same as in my own case. I know several persons in this district who have been cured by the Syrup after all oilier means had failed. You are at liberty to ptiblish my letter if you think it might be of benefit to others afflicted as I was. Yours truly (signed) (Mrs) M, Ward, 174, Ilkeston road, Radford, Nottingham, April Ist. 1892." We congratulate Mrs Ward upon her deliverance from a distressing and dangerous disease. What a pity she did not sooner learn how easily and certainly she could be cured. Sixteen years is too large a slice out of one's life' to be spent in bodily and mental misery. Very few of us can have wealth in any case, but health should bo a blessing common and universal as sunshine. And it might be if everybody knew how to preserve it when they possess it, or to regain it when lost. This, lady's disease was of the digestive organs indigestion and dyspepsia the most afflictive and perilous of all because it involves every function of the body, scattering its poison at every point through the medium of the blood. Nearly all ailments are but the differently named results and symptoms of this prolific parent of evil. That the remedy she mentions should have cured her will not surprise those who know its well-founded reputation. Many worse cases constantly yield to it.

Our friend the martyr abode in his cell a weary time because he was ignorant of the simple way out. If the reader of these lines is a captive to disease he has no excuse for remaining so. In her short and honest letter our correspondent points to the open door.