The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1886-09-16


We were wayward father scolded, bat
mother cried. 1t was a very wakeful
chair. In the sick days of children other
chairs could not keep awake; that chair
always kept awake, kept easily awake.
That chair knew all the old lullabies and
all those worldless songs which mothers
sing to their sick children-songs in which
all pity and compassion and sympathetic
Influences are combined. That old chair
has stopped rocking for a good many
years. 1t may be set up in the loft or the
garrett, but it holds queenly power yet.
When at midnight you went int that
erog-shop to get the Intoxicating dr. .ght,
did you not hear voice that said:
"My son, why go in there9"
And louder than the boisterous encore
Of the place of wicked amusement, voice
saying:
my son, what do you here?"
And when you went into the house ofsin
a voice saying:
"What would your mother do II she
knew you were hereW
And you were provoked with yourself,
and you charged yourself with supersti-
tion and fanaticism, and your head got
with your own thoughts, and you went
home and you went to bed, and no sooner
had you touched the bed than voice
said:
"What a pray erless pillowl Man, what
is the matter?"
This: You are too near your mothers
rocking-chair.
"Oh, pshaww you say. "The e's Moth
ing in that. Pm 500 miles off from where
| was born. Pm 5000 miles off from the
church whose bell was the first music 1
ever heard"
l can not help that; you are too near
your mothers rocking-c 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 mightier
for that; it is omnipotent, that vacant
mothers chair. 1t whispers; it speaks it
weeps; it carols; it mourns; it prays; it
warns; it thunders. A young man went
of and broke his mothers heart, and
while he was away from home his mother
died, and the telegraph brought the son,
and he came into the room where she lay
and looked upon her face, and he cried
out: 10.
"Oh, mother, motherI what your life
could not do your death shall effect. This
moment give my heart to God"
And he kept his promise. Another VIC
tory for the vacant chair. With refer
ence to your mother the words of my text
were fulfilled:
Thou shalt be missed, because thy seat will
be empty.
Some one said to a Grecian general:
what was the proudest moment in
your life"
He thought a moment and said:
"The proudest moment in my life was
when l sent word home to my parents
that l 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 VIC
tor. Oh, despise not parental anxiety
The time will come when you will have
neither father nor mother, and 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 mound in
the churchyard, they will not answer.
Dead Dead! And then you will take out
the white lock Of hair that 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! God pity
the young man who has broken his moth
er's hearth Better If he had never been
born; better if the first hour of his
life, instead OF being laid against the
warm bosom of maternal tenderness, he
had been cofined, and sOpulchered. There
Is no balm powerful enough to heal the
heart of one who has brought parents to a
sorrowful grave, and who wandsrs about
through the dismal cemetery, rending the
hair and wringing che hands, and crying:
"Mother MotherW Oh, that to-day by
all the memories Of tho past and by all the
hopes of the future, you would yield your
heart to God! May your fathers God and
your mothers God be your God foreverl
g. I go on a little further; I come to the
invalid's chair. What2 How long have
you been sick?
"Oh, have been sick ten, twenty, thir-
ty years"
Is it possibleS What story OF endur-
Gncel There are in many families in my
congregation those invalid chairs. The
occupants of them think they are doing no
good in the world; but that inValid's
chair is the mighty pulpit from which
they have been preaching, all thes
years, trust in God. One day on an
island just off from Sandusky, Ohio, /
preached, and there was great throng Of
people there; but the throng did not i'm
press me so much as the spectacle of just
one face-the face Of an invalid who was
wheeled in on her chair. said to her af-
terward:
"Madam, how long have you been pros
tratedW for she was lying fat in the
chair.
son." she replied, ~ have been this way
fifteen years."
said: "Do you suffer very muchw
ooh, yes" she said, 81 suffer very much;
l suffer all the time; part of the time was
blind. / always suffer-"
"Well," said, "can you Eeep your cour-
age up?"
"oh, yes" she said, 81 am happy, very
happy, indeed"
Her face showed IT, sh looked the hap
piest of any one on the ground. Oh, what
a means of grace to the world, these In
valid chairs.
On that field Of human suffering the
grace of God gets It's victory. Edward