Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1891-07-23

crleQ. III was very Wake1ul cnalr. In
the sick days of children other chairs
could not keep awake; that chair always
kept awake-kept easily awake The chair
knew all the old lullabies and all those
wordless 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 queenIy
power yet. When at midnight you went
into that grog 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
sinful amusement a voice saying, "My
son, what do you do here?" And when
you went into the house of abandonment,
voice saying, "What would your mother
do if she knew you were here?" And you
were provoked with yourself, and you
charged yourself with superstition and IA
naticism and your head got hot 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? Mani what is the
matter?" This, You are too near your
mothers rocking chair.
"Oh pshawl" you say. "There's moth
ing in that. Pm five hundred miles off
from where / was born. Pm three thou
sand miles off from the church whose bell
was the first music ever heard" I can
not help that. You are too near your
mothers rocking chair. "Oh," you say,
there can't be anything in that. That
chair has been vacant a great while" I
cannot help that. 1t is all the mightier for
that. 1t is omnipotent, that vacant moth
er's 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: ooh,
mother, mother, what your life could not
do your death shall effectl This moment 1
give my heart to God" And he kept his
promise. Another victory for the vacant
chair. With reference to your mother the
words of my text were fulfilled, ''Thou
shalt be missed, because thy seat will be
empty"
THE INvALID's CHAIR
/ go on little further, and I come to the
invalid's chair. Whatl How long have
you been sick? ooh! have been sick ten,
What a story of endurance. There are in
many Of the families of my congregation
these invalids' chairs. The occupants of
them think they are doing no good in the
world but that invalids chair is the mighty
pulpit from which they have been preach
| ing, all these years, trust in God. The first
time | preached here at Lakeside, Ohio,
amid the throngs present, there was moth
ing that so much impressed me as the spec
tacle of just one face-the face of an in
valid who was wheeled in on her chair. [
said to her afterward, Madam, how long
have you been prostrated?" for she was
lying fiat in the chair. "Ohp' she replied
Il have been this way fifteen years" I said,
"Do you suffer very much?" ooh, yes"
she said, 81 suffer very much; | suffer all
the time; part of the time | was blind. I
always suffer-" "Well," said, "can you
keep your courage up?" ooh, yes" she
said, Tam happy, very happy indeed" Her
face showed it. She looked the happiest of
any one on the ground.
Oh, what a means of grace to the world,
these invalid chairs. On that field of hui
man suffering the grace Of God gets its
victory. Edward Payson, the invalid,
and Richard Baxter, the invalid, and
Robert Hall, the invalid, and the ten thou
J
but of whom all heaven is cognizant. The
most conspicuous thing on earth for Gods
eye and the eye of angels to rest on, is not
a throne of earthly power, but it is the in
valid's chair. Oh, these men and women
who are always suffering but never COM
plaining-these victims of spinal disease,
and neuralgia torture, and rheumatic eX-
cruciatiOn 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 invalids' chairs
| becomes vacant how suggestive it is! No
more bOlstering up of the weary head. No
| more changing from side to side to get an
easy position. No more use of the band
| age and the cataplasm and the prescrip-
ton. That invalid's chair may be folded
| up or taken apart or set away, but it will
! never lose its queenly power; it will al
ways preach of trust in God and cheerful
submission. 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.
THAT EMPTY HIGH CHAIR.
pass on and | find one more vacant
chair. 1t is a high chair 1t is the child's
chair. If that chair be occupied think it
is the most potent chair in all the house
chairs are turned toward it. 1t means more
than David's hair at Saul's banquet. At
any rate it mekes more racket. That is
strange house that can be dull with 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 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 a cheerful
starting, and its glee at night will give the
day a cheerful close. You do not like chill
dren? 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 Pharisees told the mothers to keep
the children away from Christ. 'You
bother him." they said; you trouble the
Master" Trouble him! He has 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 a hundred
miles. But the Fourth of July came, and
the miners were gathered together and
they were celebrating the Fourth with ora
ton and poem and a boisterous brass band,
and while the band was playing an infant S
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 thrilled with
homesickness 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
, ba ipfantiIa interim Dtion