HELPLESS ON THE SHOALS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXI, Issue XXVII, 31 December 1898, Page 864

HELPLESS ON THE SHOALS.

A great steamship, feeling her way in a fog, ran upon a low mud bank ami stuck fast, about twenty miles from her port. She had on board a valuable cargo and nearly three hundred passengers, most of whom were almost within sight of their homes.

The tugs came ami tried vainly to pull her into deep water. The officers were as able navigators as there ha l ever been. But she was helpless, and it was dead low water. Only <ne thing could be done—to wait. V few hours later the captain said to his passengers, ‘The tide is rising; we

shall be off presently? Sixty minutes more and the ship floated, (t was now noon. At two o’clock sharp the impatient voyagers stepped ashore. They might have been delayed longer save for the one fact which the captain had announced in four words.

Perhaps this simple and not uncommon incident may contain a lesson for you and for me. Suppose we draw a little comparison and see. The man who learns nothing from things at his elbow will only waste his time going to college. Mr William Jordan is grocer ami postmaster at Bright Waltham, Wantage. Berks, where everybody knows him and believes in him. On December 7.1893. he wrote a letter to a friend, and by consent of both parties we print a part of it. •in the autumn of 1890? he says, T had an attack of influenza. The effects of it lingered with me. I had no heart for anything. I was tired, languid. and weary. My appetite fell away, and what I did eat gave me a sense of tightness and fullness at the chest: my bowels were very costive, and I suffered much from sick headache. Sharp pains often caught me between the shoulders.and my breathing was very bad. I kept on with my work. but. on account of my weakness. the task was doubly hard. For about four months I was like this, when one day the thought came to me to try a medicine that so many of my customers bought of me and spoke so highly of. I carried out this idea, and after 1 had taken one bottle of it 1 noticed this first of all—“My appetite was better.” I could eat: I relished my food: 1 got stronger. I took another bottle, and was as well as ever. That is three years ago. and T haven’t had a touch of illness since.—(Signed) William Jordan."

One more letter—short and right straight to the point. Mr William K. Saunders writes it. He is a news agent, and lives at Old Town, Wotton-under-Edge. Gloucestershire. His letter is dated November 7th, 1893, just one month to a day earlier than Mr Jordan’s. That merely happens so. the two gentlemen having no knowledge of each other. ’ln the spring of 1891? says Mr Saunders. ’I found myself out of sorts all unexpectedly. 1 couldn't fancy what had come over me. I was low. weak, and tired. 1 could eat hardly anything, and what 1 did eat gave me so much pain and distress that I came to dread sitting down to a meal. There were pains in my chest, sides, and back, between the shoulder blades. Then 1 got so weak that my work was a sort of drag on my hands: and even when walking I was so short of breath 1 had to stop and rest here and there. I took medicines the doctor gave me. and pills, etc., that my friends recommended: but it was no use. they didn't help me. And all the time, month after month. 1 was getting weaker and weaker. At last 1 got a bottle of medicine from Bristol that was right. That one bottle had this effect at first “My appetite came back,” and when I got through with the second bottle 1 was completely cured.—(Signed) William K. Saunders?

Now for the lesson. You see what it is. of course, but let's have it in

words. \\ hen the ship was fast on the shoal only one thing helped her—the rising tide. When these two men were fast on the shoal of illness only one thing helped them—the rising appetite. With eating ami digestion came strength and health, for the trouble was that universal destroyer and deceiver. indigestion and dyspepsia. The tide rose to the pull of the moon. The languid ap|a-tite is roused by medicine finally resorted to by l>oth our correspondents—Mother Seigel’s Curative Syrup.