Wesley's Theory of Earthquakes.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4614, 10 April 1893, Page 1

Wesley's Theory of Earthquakes.

■♦- " The cause of earthquakes," said John Weßley, " is sin." How he reasoned it oat is not easy for the average sinner to see. The idea of such a tremendous physical convulsion as an earthquake resulting from the violation of moral law is nonsense in the eyes of modern science. The reverse is more often true. " The cause of a deal of sin," said Hannah More, "is bile." That we can see through. Bile poisons the brain, and the brain is the organ of the mind. It is certain that all the earthquakes that ever shook this wicked world never did half the damage that is done every year by sleepy stomachs and lazy livers. Gene* rals have lo3t battles, statesmen have been beaten in diplomacy, workmen have been thrown out of jobs, clergymen, have preached poor sermons, and husbands and wivea have quarrelled for no reason under the sun but a " touch of liver complaint." The crust of society can never lie quiet with such a force as biliousness under it. This is not a runaway metaphor; it is hard, cold fact, and the man who doesn't know it has never tried to do business with another man when the second man's skin looked yellow, or asked a loan from a friend when that friend was labouring under a Bharp indigestion. Writing of a time six years ago a lady says her Bkin became first yellow and then of a saffron hue. Her breathing was difficult and short, and Bhe felt much pain in the cheat and sides. Her appetite failed, of course, for Nature never calls for food when she is cot in condition to use it. Still a trifle of sustenance must be taken. The lady took it, digested a bit of it, and suffered great distress from the presence of the rest in the torpid stomach. We scarcely need say tbafcher sleep was broken, and mind and body weary, weak, and out of tone. Now, what sort of life is this to lead P What is anybody good for while ia such, a state as that ? What wages would you give a servant who was always so? What would you wager on your own success in business if you had to pit yourself against other people's sharpness, while you had to fight with a poison-soaked head and a stomach that refused its breakfast. Not a crooked sixpence. Our correspondent continues: "At last I took to my bed. The doctor Baid my liver was wrong ; that I had the jaundics. As his medicine did no good, he advised me to go to the hospital. I objected to this, and he said, ' Try a change of air, then, and see what that will do for you.' So I went to my old home in Fairford, Gloucestershire. This did no good, and I consulted another physician, who attended me for some time, but failed to help me. My friends now thought I was in a decline. " I didn't eat enough, to feed a bird, and began to despair. Gradually growing more feeble and miserable, with no expectation of better days, I lingered on until July, 1890, when an acquaintance ur^ed jme to try Mother Saigel's Syrup. The confidence my friend Beemed to have in thia medicine made such an impression on me that I Bent my niece four miles to get it. After taking the firat bottle I felt better. A weight appeared to ba lifted from my chest, I began to relish my food, and felt better in every way. 1 will conclude by Baying that when I had used two bottles more I returned to Birmingham quite well, and have had no attack of the ' disease since. lam only sorry I did not know of tie Syrup years before. (Signed) Saeah Hawkes, of the Lion Inn, Longmore street, Birmingham." Here is certainly a lesson for the day. Probably there is not one person in a thousand who has not suffered from what is called a " bilious attack," and many are more or less bilious all the time. The symptoms are these : "Purred tongue, headache, dulneso and sleepiness, yellow eyes and skin, spells of dizzines3, hot hands and cold feet, bad taste in the mouth, loss of appetite, broken sleep, nervousness, loss of inclination to exertion or work, low spirits, irritable temper, the gulping of a nauseating wind ot gas, distress after eating, and w'anderin grains and uneasiness all over the body. These things signify liver complaint; and the cause is indigesbioa aad dyspepsia. If long neglected, there are plenty of worse consequences to follow. The success of Seigel's Syrup in curing this malady is due to the fact that it goes straight as an arrow to the very root and source of it, the paralysed digestion. Whatever may be the true theory of earthquakes we may be sure of one thing, anyway, namely, that bile in the blood, arising from an arrest of the digestive function, is the hotbed of more Borrow, pain and death than all the powers at the interior of the earth ever scattered over its .surface.