WAS IT PROVIDENCE OR ACCIDENT?

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIX, Issue 7, 14 November 1890, Page 31

WAS IT PROVIDENCE OR ACCIDENT?

Did the finding of that article save the man's life ? That is the question. la there a divinity that shapes oar ends 1 or are events bat a mere series of accidents, which may happen to one person as well as another? Are the experiences that compose oar lives links in a chain, or loose grains of sand ? As you answer these Questions, as yon take the one side or toe other, so is your faith ; yon are a mate* rialiast or a believer in Providence. We now propose to relate a story in illustration of this problem which may have Borne effect in arousing those who have always thought themselves the subjects of blind chance. The following facts are fully Touched for, Mid resemble occurrences in the lives of multitudes. Several years ago Griffith Jones was a policeman at Holyhtad, Wales. He had a family consisting of a wife and five young children to take care of. Holyhead is on St.George's (or the Irish) Channel, and is open to the terrific gales that so often gather in those daogerona waters and beat with violence upon the coast. Jones' "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 windows, and prayed that the husband and father might take no harm in the. wild tempest. This was hard linen, but in the family (though they were poor enough) there was still health aod comparative comfort. But in a bad storm tbe 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' right side grew "queer" and painful. The doctor said it was the liver, and he was right ; but correct opinions don'i cure disease. His head troubled him too, and he was often so giddy he could hardly walk. " I am so tired and weary," he would say^ " I don't know what makes me. I try to rest and sleep, but get np just as dead tired as when I go to bed. Then worse came. He sat down to his table, bnt revolted from his fooJ ; appetite was gone. There was a curious feeling at the stomach ; it was cold, dull, and miserable, like a furnace that 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 oallcd his attention to the ghastly 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 place. In spite of it all, however, Policeman Jones kept on duty as much as ever he conld. Of course. So wonld any honest, plucky man. But he slept fitfully, with bad dreams. He cried out sometimes with tbe 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. Taen 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 be must give up, and, if he did, then what 7 He could foresee nothing but destitution. Now we come to tbe event which suggested the question with which this short story 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 little pamphlet upoa the table. He picked it up and began to read it. In a few moments his mind was riveted upon its pages. In clear, plain language be found his own case fully described, just as though the book had been written for him and for him alone. It named a cure for all its ailments, a medicine called Mother Seigel's Curativei Syrup. Tbe plain honesty of tha 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 few weeks. This was August, 1877. Ten years have passed, but not a sign or symptom of his ailment has returned. Mr. Jones entered on a more lucrative business, and wherever he goes he spreads tbe fame of Seigel's Syrup, and insistß that the glimpse of tha book on the table settled the point as to wbe her he should go under the sod or be the strong, new man he has been ever since.