Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1891-07-23


dren to put our heads into her lap Ihat
was the bank where we deposited all our
hurts and worries All! what a chair
that was. It was different from the
fathers chair; it was entirely different.
You ask me how [ can not tell but we
all felt it was different. Perhaps there
was about this chair more gentleness,
more tenderness, more grief when we
had done wrong. When we were way
ward father scolded, bat mother cried.
1t was very wakeful chair. In the sick
days of children other chairs could not
keep awake; that chair always kept
awake-kcpt easily awake. That 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 in
tluences 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 a
queenly power yet. When at midnight
you went into that grog shop to get the
intoxicating draft, did you not hear a
voice that said, my son, why go in
THEREOF 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, a 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 fanaticiSm
and yolr 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 q voice said:
"What! prayeress pillow? Man! what
is the matter?" This. You are too near
your mothers rocking chair.
''Oh, pshaw" you say, "There's moth
ing in that; I'm five hundred miles off
from where | was born; I'm three thou
sand miles off from the church whose bell
was the first music I ever heard" | cam
not nelp that you are too near your
mothers rocking chair. ''Oh," you say,
''there can't be anything in that, that
chair has been vacant great while" /
cannot 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 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: son. mother! mother! what
your life could not do your death shall
effect. This moment give my heart to
Cod 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" go on little further and l
come to the invalid's chair. What? How
long have you been sick? ooh, l have
been sick ten, twenty, thirty years" Is
it possible? What a story of endurance!
There are in many Of the families Of my
congregation these invalid chairs The
occupants of them think they are doing
no good in the world, but that invalid's
chair is the mighty pulpit from which
they have been preaching all these years,
trust in God. The first time [ preached
here at Lakeside, OHIO, amid the throngs
present there was nothing that so much
impressed me as the spectacle Of just one
face-the face Of an invalid who was
wheeled in on her chair | SAID to her
afteward, MADAME, how long have you
been prostrated?" for she was lying fat
in the chair. ''Oh," she replied, II have
been this way fifteen years" l said, 'Do
you suffer very much?" ''Oh, yes," she
said, 81 suffer very much. | suffer all
the time. Part OF the time I was blind.
/ always suffer- well" IEsaid, 'scan
you keep your courage up?" ooh, yes"
she said, Il am happy, verv happy, in
deed" 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 human suffering the grace of
God gets it's victory. Edward Payson,
the invalid. and Richard Baxter, the in
valid, 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 an
gels to rest on is not a throne Of earthly
power, but it is the invalid'S chair. Oh!
these men and women who are always
suffering but never complaining-th
victims of spinal disease and neuralgia
torture and rheumatic eXcruciatiOn 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 all easy position. No more
use Of the bandage and the cataplasm,
and the prescription. That invalid's
chair may be folded up, or taken apart,
or set away, but it will never lose it's
queenly power; it will always 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"
pass on and | find one more vacant
chair. 1t is high chair. 1t is the
chId'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 it.
1t means more than Dayid's chair at
Saul's banquet. AT any rate, it makes
more racket. That is strange house
that can be dull with child in it, How
that child breaks up the hard worldli-
ness of the nlaca and Enppc Won voun tn