Helpless on the Shoals

Manawatu Herald, 3 January 1899, Page 3

Helpless on the Shoals

!-• A obeat steamship, feeling her way in a fog, ran upon a low mnd bank and stuck fast, about twenty miles from her portShe had on board a valuable cargo and nearly three hundred passengers, most of whom were almost within sight of their homes. The tugs came and tried vainly to pull her into deep water. The officers were as gooji navigators as there had ever been. Bat she was helpless, and it was dead low water. Only one thing could be done — to wait. A few hours later the Captain said to his passengers, " The tide, is rising ; we Bhall be off presently ;" Sixty minutes more and the ship floated. It was now noon. At two o'clock sharp the impatient voyagera stepped ashore. They might have been delayed longer save for one fact which the captain Bad announced in four words. Perhaps this simp'e and not uncommon incident may Contain a lesson for you and 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 and postmaster at Bright Waltham, Wantage, Berks, where everybody knows him and believes in him. On December 7th, 1893, ha 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, " I 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 gwe me a sens 9 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 ' I was like this, when one day the thought }*■ came to try a medicine that so many 1 of my customers bought of me and spoke highly of. I carried out this idea, and after I had taken one bottle of it I noticed this first of all— My appetite was bett<r. I could eat ; I relished my food ; I got stronger. I took another bottle, and was as well as ever. That is three years ago, and I haven't had a touch of illness Bince. i (Signed) William Jordan." One more letter— short and right straight to the noint. Mr William S. Saunder? writes i£ He is a newsagent, and lives at O'dTown, Wottonunder-Edge, Gloucestershire. His letter is dated November 7th 1893 just one month to a day earlier thar Mr Jordan's. That merely happens so the two gentlemen having no knowledge ol each other. ••In the spring of 1891," says Mi Saunders, " I found myself out of sorts al unexpectedly. I couldn't fancy what hac come over me. I was low, weak, and tired I could eat hardly anything, and^what f did eat gave me so much pain and flistresi that I came to dread sitting down to i

meal. There were pains in my chest, sides and back, between the shoulder blades. Then I got so weak and my work was a ?ort of drag on my hands ; and even when walking I was so short of breath I had to ?top and re^t hove and there. I took medicines the doctor gave mo, and pills, &C that my friends recommended me ; but it was no use, they didn't help me. A.nd all the time, month after month, I was getting weaker and weaker. At last I ?ot a bottle of medicine from Bristol that was right. That one bottle had this effect at first. My appetite came back, and when [ got through with the second bottle I was uompletely cured. (Signed) William S. Saunders." Now for the lesson. You see what it is of course, but let's have it in words. When the ship was fast on the shoal only ODe 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 and digestion came strength and health, for the trouble was. that universal destroyer and deceiver, indigestion and dyspepsia. The tide ro.;e to the pull of the moon. The languid appetite is roused by medicine finally resorted to by both our correspondents—Mother Seigel's Curative Syrup.