RSMINDED OF HIS DEAD MOTHER.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 7081, 1 March 1893, Page 4

RSMINDED OF HIS DEAD MOTHER.

[BXTBACT PBOM a PBITATB IrBTTBB.] It was the latter part of August 1891. A friend and I bad come down from Ramsgate to Minster, to see the venerable church there, which is a thousand years old. I entered the \ churchyard aud seated myself upon a name* i less grave while he went in search of somebody to unlock the doors of the edifice and show its wonders. In a few minutes he returned in company with an elderly lady, to whom he introduced me, saying she was the custodian and guide of the place. I gased at her face (or some moments without a word. If my own mother, dead and gone IS years, had come back to speak to her only too, I should scarcely have been more astonished. For this woman was almost my mother's double ; the same siae, the same face, and the same way of parting tbs hair and combing it in smooth bands from the forehead. I told her so, and we were friends before either fairly knew the

other’s name. What a queer world it is. She then conducted ns through the ancient fane, and spoke of the long vanished past, of the monks and nano who once sang and prayed within its walls, of the quaint earrings on the hard oak seats in the chancel, of that precious rolio, the Cranmer Bible, which reposes in a glass box against a pillar, and of many matters besides, drawn from the apparently exhaustless well of her detailed and accurate information. Finally the talk veered around to the wholesameness of the vicinity, the bracing nature of its sea breezes and so on. Then our guide, Mrs Sarah Herd said : “ I have lived here in Minster SO years, and seen many ups and downs, One of my eons is now in America, where be is doing well. He wants me to leave England and make ray home with him, but 1 doubt if I ever shall. lam somewhat like that old yew tree out in the yard, deeply rooted to this soil, and might be the worse for pulling up. Then lam getting I on in life, and ills grow apace with age. In the spring of 1878 1 had a serious attack. At first

1 scarcely knew what to make of it. There was no disease that I recognised in particular. I felt tired in body and weary in mind. There was much pain at my chest and back, and a 1 kind ef tightness at the sides, as though | physical force were applied there to restrain 1, me from moving. My appetite, which was usually good, fell away ; and whatever I ate or drank gave me pain, and 1 lived almost entirely on bread and water. I was always in pain, and couldn’t sleep so as to feel refreshed by it. After a time 1 grew so weak as to be unable to go about my work. A bitter and sickening fluid arose into my mouth, and I perspired to snob an extent that the sweat sometimes rolled off my face to the floor.” I (the writer) break in upon Mrs Herd’s story at this point merely to say that this tendency to sweat without the provocation of labour or of exercise is always a sign of the debilitated condition of the system. It means that the blood is impure and impoverished, the kidneys working badly, and that the body lacks nourishment, and is living feebly on what was previously stored in it. In other words that the stomach has refused its duty end the

other organs are in with it. Now we will let the lady proceed, begging pardon for the interruption. She wont on to say :—“ For a time I tried to cure myself with various domestic remedies which sometimes answer. Bat they failed, and 1 consulted a physician With all respect to the doctors, they occasionally failed too. This one did. You know there comes a time in all long illnesses when we get in some way used to pain and misery, and make no further efforts to get rid of it. In faot, we don’t know how, and so don’t t ry. For about three years I remained wretched and ailing, and dull unhappy years they were. My sufferings were beyond all I had ever known before, yet there seemed nothing to do bat to bear them as patiently as I could. At this date, 1881, certain friends of mine spoke to me of the great benefit they bad received from the use of Mother Seigel'a dyrup, for indigestion and dyspepsia. This threw light on my mind, although I cannot say it made meat once a believer in Seigel’s byrap. At length, however, in July 1881, I began to take it. In all 1 used six bottles, and found ay health folly restored. i'**n years have elapsed, aad Ibave bad no attack since. But if 1 do in future I shall know whore to put my band on the remedy ” Our visit being virtually over, we called for a few moments at Mrs ttgrd’s home, 2, High Street, Minster, Kent, and then wended our way back to Bamsgate. 0. M. B. Hew York, October, 1891.