The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-09-12

you suffer muchq" "Oh yes,a she said, 'T suf-
fer very much. suffer ell the time. Part of
the time was blind. / always suffer" "Well,"
said. 'can you keep your courage upl" ION,
yes" she said: 81 am happy, very happy, in
deed" Her face showed it. She looked the hap
piest of any one the ground. Oh, what a
means of grace to the world, these invalid-chairs
FOURTH pass on and / find one more vacant
chair. It is high chair It is the child's chair.
If that chair be occupied think it is the most
potent chair in all the household. All the chairs
wait on it; all the chairs are turned toward 1t.
1t means more than David's chair at SauPs ban
quet AT any rate, it makes more racket.
That is a strange house that can be dull with
child in it. How that child breaks up the
hard worldlness of the place, and keeps
you young to sixty, seventy, and eighty years
of age. If you have no child of your
own, adopt one; it will open heaven to your soul.
1t will pay its way. Its growing in the morning
will give the day cheerful starting, and its glee
at night will give the day cheerful close. You
do not like childrenl Then you had better stay
out of heaven, for there are so many there they
would fairly make you crazy! Only about five
hundred millions OF them! The old crusty dis
ciples told the mothers to keep the children
away from Christ ''You bother Him." they
said; ''you trouble the Master" Trouble Him.
He has heaven filed 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 il all the
reach of a hundred miles Bot the Fourth of
July came and the miners were gathered togetn-
or, and they were celebrating the Fourth with
grafton. and poem, and boistrous brass band,
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 the Eastern coast,
and of their wives and children far away. and
their hearts were filled with homesickness as
they heard the baby 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 infantile 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 we'll as good cheer in it!
There is nothing to arouse, and melt, and sub
due the soul like childs voice.
But when it goes away from you, the high
chair becomes higher chair, and there is desc
lation all about you. In three-fourths of the
homes of my congregation there is q vacant high
chair. There is no one to put to bed at night;
no one to ask strange questions about God and
-eaven. oh, what is the use of that high chairf
1t is to call you higher. What a drawing up
ward it is to have children in heavenl And then
It is such preventive against sin. If a father
is going away into sin he leaves his living
children with their mother; but if father is
going away into sin, what is he going to do with
his dead children floating about him and hover
ing over his every hayward stepY Oh. speak
out, vacant hgh-chair. and say: Father, come
back from sin; mother, come back from worldli-
ness. / am watching you. am waiting for
YOU" With respect to your child the words of
my text have been fulfilled 'Thou shalt be
missed, because thy seat will be empty"
My hearers, I have gathered up the voices of
your departed friends. and tried to intone them
into one invitation upward. I set in array all
the vacant chairs of your homes, and of your
social circle. and l bid them cry out: "Time is
short Eternity is near. Takemy Savior. Be at
peace with my God. Come up where am. We
lived together earth; come, let us live together
hAAV0nH invitation.
come. Keep a seat for US, as Saul kept a seat
for David; but that seat shall not be empty.
When we are all through with this world, and
have shaken hands all around for the last time,
and all our chairs in the home circle, and in the
outside world shall be vacant, may We be wor
Shipping God in that place from which we shall
go out no more forever. thank God there will
be no vacant chairs in heaven.