The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1886-10-07

Thou shalt be missed, because thy seat
will be empty.
2. 1 go little further ON in your house,
and find the mothers chair. 1t is very
apt to be a rocking chair. She had so
many cares and troubles to soothe that it
must have rockers. remember it we'll.
1t was an old chair and the
rockers were almost worn out,
for was the youngest, and the chair had
rocked the whole family. 1t made
creaking noise as it moved, but there was
music in the sound. 1t was just high
enough to allow US children 10 put our
heads into her lap. That was the bank
where we deposited all our hurts and
worries. o, what chair that was! It
was different from the fathers chair;
entirely different. You ask me how?
can not tell, but we all felt it was differ
ent Perhaps there was alb out this chair
more gentleness, more tenderness, more
grief when we had done wrong. When
we were hayward father scoldeJ, but
mother cried. 1t was a very waSeful
chair. In the sick days of children other
chairs could not keep awake; that cha ir
always kept awake, kept easily awake.
That chair knew all the old lullabies and
all those worthless songs which mothers
sing to their sick children-songs in which
ell pity and compassion and sympathetic
influences are combined. That old chair
has stopped rocking for good many
years. 1t may be set up in the loft or the
When at midnight you went into that
frog-shop to get the Intoxicating draught,
did you not hear a voice that said:
"My son, why go in there?"
And louder then the boisterous encore
of the place of wicked amusement, a voice
saving:
"My son, what do you here?"
And when you went into the house of sin
vo;co saying:
"What would your mother do IL she
knew you were here:"
And you were provoked with yourself,
and you charged yourself with supers,i-
tion and fanaticism, and your head got
with your own thoughts, AMI you went
home and you went to bed, and no sooner
had you touched the bed than a voice
said:
"What a prayerless pillow! Man, what
is the matter?"
This: You are too near your mothers
rocking
"Oh, pshaw !" you say. 'tThe ELS moth
ing in that. Pm 500 miles of from where
was born. Pm 5000 miles off from the
church whose bell was the first music l
ever heard"
can not help that; you are too near
your mothers rocking chair.
"Oh." you say, "there can't be any thing
in that; that chair has been vacant a great
WHILE"
can not help that; it is all the mighter
for that; 1t is omnipotent, that vacant
mothers chair. 1t whispers; it speaks; it
weeps; it carols; it mourns; it prays; it
warns; it tbunders. A young man went
on and broke his mothers heart, and
while be was away from hume his mother
died, and the telegraph brought the son,
and he came into the room where she Law
and looked upon her face, and he cried
out:
"Oh, mother, mother. what your life
could not do your death shall eff set. This
moment give my heart to COL"
And he kept his promi e.. Another vic
tory Tor the vacant chair. With refer
ence to your mother the words of nv text
were fulfilled:
Thou shalt be missed, because thy seat will
be empty.
Some one sal d to Grecian general:
what was the proudest m ,ment in
your life?" M
He thought a moment anil sal Il:
''The proudest moment in my life was
when l sent word home to my parents
that had gained the victory"
And the proudest and most brilliant mo-
ment in your life will be the moment when
you can send word to your parents that
you have conquered your evil habits by
the grace of God, and become eternal vie
tor. Oh, despise parental anxiety!
The time will come when you will have
neither father nor mother, AMI you will go
around the place where they used to watch
you, and find them gone from the house,
and gone from the field, and gone from
the neighborhood. Cry as loud for for
giveness as you may over the mount in
the churchyard, they will not answer.
Dead! Dead! And then you will take out
s-AS 1.-Two AoSn VI udlf IudL was cut from
your mothers brow just before they
buried her, and you will take the cane with
which your father used to walk, and you
will think and think, and wish that you
had done just as they wanted you to, and
would give the world if you had never
thrusta pang through their dear old hearts.
God pity the young man who has brought
disgrace on his fathers name! Col pity
the young man who has broken his moth
er's heart! Better If he had never been
born; better if the lrst hour of his
life, instead of being laid against the
warm bosom of maternal tenderness, he
had been cofined and sepulchered. There
Is no balm powerful enou III to heal the
heart of one who has brought parents to a
sorrowful grave, and who wan lers about
through the dismal cemetery, rending the
hair and wringing the hands and CRYING:
Mother! Mother!" On, that to-day bv
all the memories of the past and by all the
hopes OF the future, you + Guild yield your
heart to Godi May your fathers God and
your mothers God be your God forever!
8. go on little further: 1 come TO the
invalid's chair. What? How long have
you been sick:
"Oh, have been sick ten, twenty, thir-