AT THE PALL OF THE LEAF.

Otago Witness, Issue 2287, 30 December 1897, Page 15

AT THE PALL OF THE LEAF.

Why do the leaves fall ¥ " BtesA me, I den'i know," you answer ; " I suppose because 7 it it one of N*ture's arrangements."

Prccist'ly ; but why did Nature ho arrange ? Why not have summer time always, with perpetual foliage? What is the meaning of denuded branches, withered flowers, daylight fadiug in mid-afternoon, and winter's cold and desolation ? When you find out why the leaves fall you will have discovered one cf Nature's deepest secrets — why men die. Suppose we try an easier problem. Why ahould Mr William Steel have writteu such * souteuea as this?— "^ the fall of the leaf even/ year 1 got into mch a state that I took no pleasure in anything." No doubt there are minds so highly strung as to feel keenly the influence of outward condition? — changes of the weather and of tho seasons, and to on. But they are rare, and for practical purposes they ought to be rare. Our friend Mr Steel, happily for him, was not ono of them. All the same, he was a miserable man every time the loaves began to rattle to the ground. Here's the way he puts it : "At the Fall of the leaf every year I felt lasguid, tired, and weary, and took no pleasure in anything. My appetite w.a9 poor, aud after everything I ate I had pain and fulness afc the chest and gide». Then there was n. horrible pain afc the pit of the fitornacn, which nothing relieved." Now this sort of thing would spoil a man's pleasure nny time of year, bat the oddity in Mr Steel's case is that it always coincided with what you may c&H'Nature's bedtime. "After a few months," he says, |'the paia and distress would bo easier for awhile, but as autumn approached I became as bad as ever. In September 1890 I had an unusually bad time of it. I couldn't touch a morsel of food, and presently got so weak I was unable to stand on my legs. Every few hours I had to be poulticed, the pain was so bad. I went to bed and stayed there for a week, with a doctor attending me.He relieved rae a little, but somehow he didn'ft succeed in getting to tb.e bottom of my ail* ment. "

That may be, but it doesn't quite follow that the doctor was in the dark aa to Mr Steel's ailment. He might have understood it right enough, yet failed to cure it because he had no remedy for it among his drugs. That happens all the while. Still, the reader may ask, What's the good of knowing the nature of a complaint if we possess no medicine to cure it ? There you have us ; no use at all, to be sure. Well, Mr Steel goes on to say : " For soma time I continued very feeble, and was hardly able to walk across the floor. If I took a short walk I felt so tired and done up I didn't kuow where to put myself. This was year after year for six yearg. •' Finally I read about the popular medicine called Mother Seigel'a Curative Syrup, and made up my mind to try it. So I began and kept on with.it for some time. The result was that the pain left me and my appetite waked up, and my food tasted good and digested well ; and presently T was strong aad hearty as ever. That was three years ago, and the trouble has never returned. (Signed) William Steel, Hambletou, near Oakham, Rutlandshire, December 5, 1893."

Mr Steel is grocer and postmaster at HambletoD, and his case is "well known there. His complaint isn't hard.tosee through.; it was indigestion and dyspepiia. But why did it come on oDly in the autumn ? What had the fall of the leaf to do with it P Let the reader study on that point.

Meanwhile it is a comfort to know that Mother Seigel's Symn will cure it no mattes when it comes on.