WAS IT PROVIDENCE OR ACCIDENT?

Temuka Leader, Issue 2126, 18 November 1890, Page 1

WAS IT PROVIDENCE OR ACCIDENT?

Did the finding of that article sire the man’s life ? That is the question. Is there a divinity that shapes cur ends f or are events but a mere series of accidents, which may happen to one person as well as another ? are the experiences that compose our lives links in a chain, or loose grains of sand f As you answer these questions, as you take the one side or the other, so is your faith ; you are a materialist or a believer in Providence, We how propose to relate a story in illustration of this problem, which px&y have some effect in arousing those who have always thought themselves the subjects of blind chance. The following facts are fully vouched for, and resemble occurrences in the lives of multi* tudes. Several years ago Griffith Jones was a policeman at Holyhead, 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 on those dangerous waters and beat with violence upon the coast. Jones’s “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 w-m----dows and prayed that the husband and father might take no ham in the wild tempest This was hard lines, but in the family (though they were poor enough) there was still health and comparative comfort. But ia a bad storm the 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’s right side grew “ queer ” and painful. The doctor said it was the liver, and he was right; but correct opinions d-m’t cure, disease. His head troubled him too, and he was often so giddy' be 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 up just as dead tired as when I go to bed.” Then worse came. He sat down to his table, but revolted from his food; appetite was gone. There was a curious feeling at the stomach; it was cold, dull, and miserable, like a furnace which ooptains nothing but ashes and cinders. A nasty and nauseous kind of gas or wind came up info his thrort, like the effluvia from a tomb. His wife called bis attention to the ghastly yellow color of his eyes and skin, and ones 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 could. Of course. So would any honest, plucky man. But he slept fitfully, with bad dreams. He cried out Sometimes with the terror of them, and the frightened children raid, “ Is papa going to die f ” He was, and is, one of the most patient and loving of men, yet now he was cross and surly to his family. Then something new developed. There came a pain under bis left shoulder blade; his wrists and knees grew swollen and painful; this was rheumatism* caused, the doctors by the undigested and fermented food having poisoned the blood. Kidney and bladder complaint followed—fpr they alio are merely symptoms of indigestion and dyspepsia. The policeman now felt that he must give up, and if he did, then whatf He could see nothing but destitution.

Now we oom« to the event which suggested the 'question with which thii short history begins. Was it an anoidenfc, or waa it a link in a saving chain ? Entering the Holyhead station-house one day, 111, depressed*weak, and miserable, he saw a little pamphlet on the table. He picked it up and began to read it. In a few minutes his mind was riveted upon its pages. In clear, plain, language he found his own case fully described, just as though the book bad been written for him, and for him alone. It naked a cure for all biaailmecti, a medicine called Mother Seigel’s Curative Syrup. The plain honesty of the 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, 1879. Ten years have passed, but no sign or symptom of his ailment has returned. Mr Jones entered upon a more lucrative buiiuosr, and wherever he goes he spreads the fame of Seigel’s Syrup, and insists that the glimpie of the book on the table settled the point as to whether he should go under the sod or be the strong man he has been over since.