Alma record. (Alma, Mich.) 1878-1928, 1891-07-24

| in on her chair. i said to her after
wards: MADAM, how long have you
been prostrated?" for she was lying
fiat in the chair. "O!' she replied: Il
have been this way fifteen years" l
said: "Do you suffer very much?' 80,
yes," she said: II suffer very
much; suffer all the time; part of the
time L was blind. i always suffer"
"Well." / said: "can you keep your
courage up?" 80 yes, she said: II am
happy, very happy indeed" Her face
showed it. Size looked the happiest of
anyone on the ground.
o! what n means of grace to the
world, these invalid chairs. On that
field of human 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 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 eye of angels to rest
on, is not throne of earthly power,
but il is the invalid's chair.
pass on, and i find one more vacant
chair. 1t is a high chair. IT is the
child's chair. If that chair be occu-
Dlths Il lDlHh ~ ID Vic llOSJ DOItuL
in all the household. All the chairs
wait on il. 1t means more than David S
chair at Saul's banquet. At any rate,
ii makes 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
n child nf a1nnt ~ tyi11
open heaven to your soul. 1t will pay
its way. It's growing in the morning
will give the day a cheerful starting,
and its Slee at night will give the day
a cheerful close. You do not like
children?
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 hum
dred miles. But the Fourth of July
came, and the miners were gathered
together, and they were celebrating the
Fourth with grafton, and poem, and n
boisterous 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 on the East
ern coast, and of their wives
and children far away, and their
hearts were thrilled with home-sick-
ness 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 infantile interruption,
when swarthy miner, the tears roll
ing 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 ia it. There is nothing to
aroese, and melt, and subdue the soul
like n chlld's voice. But when il goes
away from you, the high chair
becomes higher chair, and
there is desolation all about you.
My hearers, / have gathered up the
voices of your departed friends and
tried to intone them into one invitation
upward. set in array all the vacant
chairs of your homes and of your social
circle, and l bid them cry out this
morning: Time is short. Eternity
is near. Take my Savior. BE at peace
with my God Come up where | am.
We lived together on earth,
come let us live together in
heaven" We answer that in
vitation. We come. Keep a seat for
us, as Saul kept seat for David, but
that seat shall not be empty. And oh!
when we are all through with this
world and we 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 worshipping God in that place from
which we shall go out no more forever.
/ thank God there will be no vacant
chairs in heaven. There we shall meet
again and talk over our earthly heart
breaks. How much you have been
through since You saw them last! On
the shining shore you will take it all
over. The heartaches. The loneli-
ness. The sleepless nights. The
weeping until your had no more power
to weep, because the heart was wither-
ed and dried up. Story of empty era
die, and little shoe only half worn out
never to be worn again, just the shape
of the foot that once pressed it.
Oh, how they bound in these spirits
before the throne Some show with
| gladness Some break forth into I'M
comfortable weeping for joy. Some
stand speechless in their shock of de-
| light. They sing. They culver with
excessive gladness. They gaze on the
! temples, on the palaces, on the waters,
on each other. They weave their Joy
into garlands, they spring it into
triumphal arches, they strike in on
/ t.mbrels and then all the loved ones
| gather in a great circle around the
| throne of God - fathers, mothers,
brothers, sisters, sons and daughters,
lovers and friends, hand to hand
around about the throne of God-the
| circle ever widening-hand to hand,
! Joy to joy, jubilee to jubilee, victory to
victory, until the day break and the
! shadows flee away. Turn thou, my
beloved, and be like roe or young
! hart upon the mountains of Bother.
Songs Between Testimony.