WAS IT PROVIDENCE OR ACCIDENT.

Observer, Volume X, Issue 624, 13 December 1890, Page 10

WAS IT PROVIDENCE OR ACCIDENT.

Did the finding of this article save the man' a life ? That is the question . Is there a divinity that shapes oar ends ? or are events a mere series of accidentß, which may happen to one person as well as another P Are the experiences that compose our lives links in a chain, or loose grains ot sand? As you answer these questions, aa you take the oae side or the other, so is your faith ; you are a materialist or a believer in Providence. We now propose to relate a story in illustration of this problem which may have Rome effect in arousiner those who have always thought 1 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 policeman at Hplyhead, Wales. He had a family consisting of a wife and five young children to take care of. Holyhead ia on St. George's (or the Irish) Channel, and is open to the terrific gales that so often gather upon the coast. Jones's ' post ' or ' beat ' extended back into the country, over bleak, wind-swept hills. He had to walk through this region in all weathers, day or 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 windowp, and prayed that the husband and father might take no harm in the wild tempest. This was hard lines, but in the 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 Aberffraw for medicine. It did no good. Jones's right Bide grew 1 queer ' and painf al. The doctor said it was tho 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. 'lam so tired and weary,' he would say. ' I don't know what makes me. I try to rest and sleep, but get up just as dead tired as when I go to bed.' Then worse came. He sat down to his table, but revolted from his food ; appetite was gone. There was a curious feeling at the stomach ; it was cold, dull and miserable, like a furnace which 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 g-hastly yellow colour of his eyes and skin, and once in a while he would have a spell of palpitation of the heart that made him afraid of falling dead, perhaps in some lonely plaoe. In spiLe of it all, however, Policeman Jones kept on duty as much as ever he could. Of course. So would any honest, plucky man. But he slept fitfully, with bad dreams. He cried out sometimes with the terror of them, and the frightened children said, 'Is papa going to die ?' He was, and is, one of the most patient and loving of men, yet now he was cross and surly to his family. Then something new developed. There came a pain under his left shoulder blade ; his wrists and knees grew swollen, and painful ; this was rheumatism, caused, the doctors said, by the undigested and fermented food having poisoned the blood. Kidney and bladder complaint followed— for they also are merely symptoms of indigestion and dyspepsia. The policeman now felt that he must give up, and, if he did, then what ? He could foresee nothing but destitution. Now we come to the event which suggested the question with which this short etory begins : — Was it an accident or was it a link in a saving chain ? Entering the Holyhead station-house one day, ill, depressed, weak, and miserable, he saw a pamphlet upon the table. He picked it up and began to read it. In a few moment? his mind was riveted upon its pages. In clear, plain language he found his own case fully described, just as though the book had been written for him and bim alone. It named a cure for s?A hi?, ailments, a medicine called Mother fc'eigel's Curative Syrup. The plain 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 tew weeks. This was August, 1879. Ten years hav^ passed, hut not a sign or symptom of his ailment has returned. Mr Jones entered upon a more lucrative business, and wherever he goes he spreads the fame of Seisel's Syrup, and insists that the glimpse of the l>o<)k on the table, settled the point as to whether he should go uuder the sod or be the strong new mau he has been ever since.

An alligator, trapped at Normanton, is beintr shown in Sydney. He was brought down in a wooden box 20 feet long, 4 feet wide, and about 5 feet deep, barred on top with iron. The saurian is 17 feet long, and 30 inches in width. His jawa are 2 feet 4 inches long, and his month contains 64 teeth in first-oiasa preservation. If this gentleman was in Auckland he would be requieitionised to Ptand for Parliament at the general, eleotion.