St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1886-09-25
I said: "Do YOU suffer verv nuch?'

said: "Do you suffer very much?"
"Oh, yes" she said, ~ suffer very much;
| suffer all the time; part Of the time | was
blind. l always suffer-"
"Well,' said, "can you keep yo1r cour-
age up?''
"Oh, yes" she said, ~ am happy, very
happy, indeed"
Her face showed it. She 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
| Payson, the invalid, and Richard Baxter.
the invalid, and Robert Hall, tie invalid,
and the ten thousand of whom the world
has never heard, but of whom all Heaven
is cognizant. The most conspicuous thing
on earth for Gods eye and the eve Of
angels to rest on is not throne of earthly
| power, but it is the invald's chair. Oh,
| these men and women who are ALWAYS
! suffering, but never cOmplaininr--thess
victims of spinal disease, and neuralgic
torture, and rheumatic exruciation will
answer to the roll call of the martyrs, and
rise to the martyrs throne, and will wave
the martyrs palm! But when one of these
lnValid's chairs becomes vacant how sug-
gestlve 1T is! No more bolstering uD Of
the weary head. No more changing from
side to side to get an easy pos ton. No
more use of the bandage, and the cata-
plasm, and the prescription. That in
valid's chair may be folded up, or taken
apart, or set away, but it will never
lose its queenly power; it will always
oh of fr,1ct cI Nd o,o
mission. Suffering all ended now. With
respect to that invalid the words of my
text have been fulfilled:
Thou shalt be missed, because thy seat will
be empty.
4. Ipass on and | find one more vacant
chair. 1t is high chair. 1t is the child's
chair. If that chair be occupied, think it
is the most potent chair in all the house,
hold. All the chairs wait on it: and the
chairs are turned toward it. 1t means
more than David's chair at Saul's banquet
AT any rate, it makes more racquet. That
is strange house that can be dull with a
child in it. How that child breaks up the
hard worldliness of the place, and keeps
you young to sixty, seventy and eighty
years of age! If you have no child Of
' oui S"ht aAOpb OIleS IL VII open
Heaven to your soul 1t will paw
its way. It's Growing in the morning will
give the day q cheerful starting, and
its glee at night will give the day a
cheerful close. You do not like children?
Then you had better stay out of Heaven,
for there are so many there they would
fairly make you crazy! Only about $780,
600, 900 of them! The old crusty disciples
told the mothers to keep the children
away from Christ.
"You bother Him." they said, you
trouble the Master"
Trouble Him He had filled Heaven !
with that kind of trouble.
A pioneer in California says that for the |
first year or two after his residence in |
Sierra Nevada County there was not a |
single child in all the reach of hundred |
miles. But the Fourth of July came,
and the miners were gathered to-
gether, and they were celebrating the
Fourth with grafton and poem and a |
boisterous brass brand; and while the
band was playing, an infants voice
was heard crying, and all the miners
were startled, and the swarthy men
began to think of their homes
on the Eastern coast and of their
wives and children far away, and their
hearts were filled with inconsistencies as
they heard the babe cry. But the music
went on, and the child cried louder and
louder, and the brass band played louder
and louder, trying to drown out the in.
fantile interruption, when swarthy
miner, the tears rolling down his face, got
up and shook his fist, and said:
"Stop that noisy band, and give the
baby chance"
Oh, there was pathos in it as well as
good cheer IN it! There is nothing to
arouse, and melt, and subdue the soul like
a child's voice.
But when it goes away from you, the
high chair becomes higher chair, and
there is desolation all about you. In
three-fourths of the homes of my congre-
cation there is a vacant high chair. Some
how you never get over it. There is no
one to put to bed at night; no one to ask
strange questions about God and
Heaven. Oh, what is the use of that
high chair? 1t is to call you higher. What
a drawing upward it is to have children
in Heaven. And then it is such a pre-
ventive against sin. If father is going
away into sin he leaves his living chill
1ren with their mother; but if father is
going away into sin what is he going to
10 with his dead children floating about
him and lowering over his every hayward
step? Oh, speak out, vacant high chair,
and say:
FEATHER, come back from sin; mother.
come back from worldlness. I am watch-
ng you. am waiting for you"
With respect to your child the words Of
ny text have been fulfilled: