The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1886-09-17

| worries. o, what chair that wasl 1t
was different from the fathers chair:
| entirely different. You ask me howl ]
can not tell, but we all felt It was Differ
| emit. Perhaps there wa. about til IL chair
more gentleness, more tenderness, more
| grief when we had done wrong. When
we were hayward father scolded, but
mother cried. Il was . 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 oil 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 Q good many
years. 1t may be set up in the loft or the
garnet, but it holds queenly power yet
When at midnight you went int that
erog-shop to get the Intoxicating DIR, >.Eht,
did you not hear q voice that said:
"My son, why go in theres"
And louder than the boisterous encore
Of the place of wicked amusement, q voice
saying:
"My son, what do you here?"
L
| a voics saying:
"What would your mother do il she
knew you were here?"
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 a voice
said:
"What a prayerless pillow! Man, what
is the raatter!"
This: You are too near your mothers
| rocking chair.
| "Oh, pshaw!' you say. "The~ e's Moth
ing in that. Pm 800 miles of from where
1 was born. Pm 5000 miles of from the
church whose bell was the first music 1
| 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 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
| off and broke his mothers heart, and
while he was away from hume 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:
"Oh, mother, mother! 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 20 your mother the words of my text
were fulfilled:
Thou shalt be missed, because thy seat will
be empty.
Some one said to Grecian general:
"What was the proudest moment in
your l!ie?"
He thought a moment and sail:
"The proudest moment in my life was
when 1 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 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 IL you bad never
thrust 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 heart! Better il he had never been
| born; better il the first hour Of his
life, instead of being laid against the
warm bosom of maternal tenderness, he
had been coffined and sopulchered. There
is no balm powerful enough to heal the
heart of one who has brought parents to a
sorrowful grave, and who wanders about
through the dismal cemetery, rending the
hair and wringing the hands. and crying:
"Mother! Motherw Oh, that to-day by
ell the memories of the 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 forever!
8 Ipo on little further; come to the
invalid's chair. WHAT How long have
you been sick:
"Oh, 1 have been sick ten, twenty, thir.
ty years"
Is it possible? What story Of endur.
ANGEL There are in many families in my
congregation these invalid chairs. The
occupants of them think they are doing no
good in the world; but that invalid's
chair is tho mighty pulpit from which
they have been preaching, all thes e
wears, trust in God. One day on an
island just of from Sandusky, Ohio, l
preached, and there was a 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. l said to her af-
terward:
"Madam, how long have you been pros
trated:" for she was lying fiat in the
chair.
"Oh," she replied, II have been this way
fifteen years"
said: "Do you suffer very much!"
ooh. yes" she said, 81 suffer very much;
suffer ali the time; part Of the time was
blind. always suffer-"
"well," said, "can you Keep yo1r cour-