The Message of the Spear.

Thames Star, Volume XXX, Issue 9259, 23 December 1898, Page 4

The Message of the Spear.

Away back in. the year .54 b.c. — 1,948 years ago—a little detachment of Boman soldiers was besieged by a host of Gauls at Charleroi, in the north of what is now called France. Believing that no help: could possibly reach them, the Romans expected to fight until they were all stricken down. One day a short spear came whizzing over the ramparts and stuck in one of the wooden towers. '■■ Nobody paid any attention to it at first. They just went on slaughtering Gauls and getting slaughtered themselves. At length an officer saw something waving from that spear.' It proved to be a note from Julius Csesar—written in Greek. He said he was on his way with an army to relieve the garrison. That note had been there, unheeded for several days. In due time Ceesar came and made short work 1 of the Gauls. That people should suffer and struggle hopelessly when help is sear at hand is sad to thinfc of, but th«^

must know of the coming help before they can draw courage from it. Take the torments and dangers of disease for example. We fight them with all the weapons we have. Sometimes we hit on the right thing, and more often we don't, even when it is as close as the spear'in the tower was to the exhausted garrison. If Mr Eobert Lavis, postmaster at High Ham, Langport, Somerset, could have found a remedy for indigestion, dyspepsia, and liver complaint he certainly would not have jsuflered from it, as he did, for twenty yean. Why that is more than half an average lifetime. A single day of illness is always long enough, goodness knows. But fancy such an experience stretching itself into weeks, months, and years ! Common enough ? Yes, dreadfully common. So is poverty ; but does that fact, reconcile anybody to either ? Mr. Lavis is not a man to sit tamely down and brood over a misfortune. Besides being a postmaster he is a grocer, with work enough to keep him busy. Under what difficulties this work was done he tells us in a letter dated November Bth, 1893. "I had a bad taste in the mouth," he says, " particularly in the morn* ing, and my mouth was dry, and I spat up thick, tenacious phlegm. After eating even the simplest food I , had great pain in the chest and around the heart, 1 suffered greatly from ! sick headache and giddiness, and if I exercised much, I'gotout of breath." [This was asthma, caused by the , stupefying action of toul blood upon j the nerves that move the lungs; the impurities in the blood having come from the festering mass of undigested food in the stomach. The heart trouble, the sick headache, and the giddiness, were symptoms of the same thing.] .:-.-■. "As time went on," continues Mr Lavis, "I became very low, weak, and mentally discouraged and depressed." [A doctor, writing about this case forya learned medical journal, would use many tough Latin words, but he would not make the facts as plain as Mr Lavis himself has made them • Naturally a man who can eat but little—which little mostly rots in his stomach—will lose flesh and strength and come to be of small use to himself or to anyone else. We can all see that even by candle light ] "I tried many medicines,' he says finally, " but, they did me no rea good. At last I heard of Mother Seigel'a Curative Syrup, and used it. I am happy to. tell you that it soon relieved and cured me. Whenever I feel a sign of my old ailment I resort to the Syrup at once, and the disease gets no further hold upon me. Pub. lish my statement if you like, and believe me yours, &c, (Signed) Robert Lavis."

The Roman, soldiers left Oaesars's message unregarded tor days. It was written on parchment and fluttered from a spear, as I have said. But, see ! We live in the age, of print. Are yoa ill and in pain as Mr Lavis was ? Every newspaper, • every magazine, almost all the publications your eye falls on, contains accounts of what Mother Seigel's Syrup has done, and daily does, for those who suffer. Read the messages. This is one; and, having read it, you know where to look for help.