St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1886-09-25

enough to allow US children to put oul
heads into her lap. That was the banL
where we deposited all our hurts and
worries. o, what a chair that was! L
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 about this chair
more gentleness, more tenderness, more
grief when we had done wrong. When
we were wayward father scolded, but
mother cried. 1t was a very wakefu
chair. In the sick days of children other
chairs could not keep awake; that chat
| 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
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
garnet, but it holds queenly power yet.
When at midnight you went into that
erog-shop to get the Intoxicating draught,
| did you not hear voice that said:
"My son, why go in there?"
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 of sin
voice saying:
"What would your mother do if 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 pray erless pillow! Man, what
is the matter?"
This: You are too near your mothers
rocking-chair.
"Oh, pshaw" you say. "The- els moth
ing in that. Pm 800 miles off from where
I 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 great
while.''
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 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:
''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 to 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 life?"
He thought moment and said:
"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 vic
tor. Oh, despise net 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
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 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 sepulchered. 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! Mother!" Oh, that to-day by
all the memories of the past and by all the
hopes of the future, you would yield your
heart to Godl May your fathers God and
your mothers God be your God foreverl
8. go on little further; I come to the
invalid's chair. What? How long have
you been sick!
"Oh, have been sick ten, twenty, thir-
ty years"
Is it possible? What a story of endnr.