WAS IT PROVIDENCE OR ACCIDENT?

Otago Witness, Issue 1917, 13 November 1890, Page 12

WAS IT PROVIDENCE OR ACCIDENT?

Did the finding of that article save the man's life ? That is xhe question. Is there a divinity that shapes our ends ? or are events but a mere series of accidents, which may happen to one person as well as another. Are the experiences tbat compose our lives links in a chain, or loose grains of sand ? As you answer these questions, as you take the one side or the other, so is your faith ; you arc a materialist or a believer ia Providence. We now propose to relate a story in illustration of- this -problem which may have some effect in arousing those who have alwaysthought themselves the subjects of blind chance. The following facts are fully vouched for, and resemble occurrences in the lives of multitudes.

Several years ago Griffith Jones was a police* man at Holyhead, Wales. He had a family consisting of a wife and five young children to take care of. Holyhead is on St. George's (or the Irish) Channel, and is open to the terrific gales that so often gather on those dangerous waters and beat with violence upon the coast. Jones" " post " or " beat " extended back into the country, over bleak, wind-swept hills. He had to walk through this region in all weathers, day ot night. He was often out in winter nights.in cold and darkness, exposed to the storms that drive in from the sea. At such times the wife listened to the rattling windows, and prayed that the husband and father might take no harm in the wild tempest Thin was hard lines, but in tha family (though they were poor enough) there was still health and comparative comfort. But in a bad storm the policeman caught a heavy cold. Home remedies failed to cure it, and the officer sent to his old physician at Aberff raw for medicine. It did no good. Jones' right side grew queer and painful The doctor said it was the liver, and he was right ; but correct opinions don't cure disease. His head troubled him, too, and he was often so giddy he could hardly walk. " I am so tired and weary," he would say, " I don't know what makes me. I try to rest and pV"".!mt get up just as dead tired as when I go tobea."

Then worse came. He sat down to his table, but revolted from his food ; appetite was gonei There was a curious feeling at the stomach ; ifc was cold, dull, and miserable, like a furnace vhich contains nothing but ashes and cinders. A nasty and nauseous kind of gas or wind came up into his throat, like the effluvia from a tomb. His wife called his attention to the ghastly yellow colour of his eyes and skin, and once in a while ho would have a spell of palpitation oE the heart that made him afraid of falling dead— — perhaps ia some lonely place. In spite of it all, however, Policeman Jones kept? on duty as much as ever he could. Of course. So would aay honest, plucky man. But he slept fitfully, with bad dreams. He cried out sometimes with the terror of them, and tha i frightened children said, "Is papa going to die?" He wag, and is, one of the most patient and loving of men, yet now he was cross and surly to h's family. Thfin something new developed. I'bere came a pain under his left shoulder blade ; hiß wrists and knees grew swollen and painful; this was rheumatism, caused, the doctors said, by the undigested and fermented food haviug poisoned the blood. Kidney and bladder complaint followed— for they also are merely symptom? of indigestion and dyspepsia. The policeman now felt that he must give up, and, if he did, thpn what? He aould foresee nothing but destitution. _ Now we come to the event which suggested the question with which this short _ history begins : Was it an accident, or was it a link in a B aying chain ? Entering the Holyhead station house one day, ill, df-prpsfjed, weak, and miserable, he saw a Ii f tle pamphlet upon the table. He picked it up and began to read it. _ In a few moments his mind was riveted upon its pages. In clear, plain language he found his own case fully described, j <st as though the book had bren written for him, and for him alorif. Ifc natnfd a euro for all his ailments, *i medicine called Mother Seigel's Curative Syrup. The pHin honesty of the statements won his confidence. He procured half a dozen bottles through Mr Henry Wilson, of the Drug Hall, Holyhead. Taking it he began to improve, and all his aches and pains vanished in a few weekP. This was in August 1879. r J>n years have pnssed, bu 1 - not a rui?n or symptom of bia ailment has returned. Mr Jones entered upon a more lucrative business, and wherever be goes he sprf-ads tba fame of Seigel's Ryrnp, and insists that the glimpse of the book on the table settled the point as to 'vhpther he flbould go under tbet sod or be the strong new man he has been ever since. • ""*