Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1891-07-24
ana the chair had rocked the whole

anu VIC Cn1lF uau rocked Cne WnOl0
family. 1t made creaking noise as it
moved, but their was music in the sound.
1t was just high enough to allow us chill
dren to put our heads into her lap. That
was the bank where we deposited all our
hurts and worries. All! what chair
that was. 1t 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, but mother cried.
1t was very wakeful chair. In the sick
days OF children other chairs could not
keep awake; that chair always kept
| awake-kept 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
| 1luences are combined.
That old chair has stopped rocking for
good many years. 1t may be set up in
the loft or the garrett, but it holds
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
there?" And louder than the boisterous
encore of the place of sinful amusement,
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 fanaticism
and yoar 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 voice said:
"What! a praycrless 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; Pm three thou
sand miles off from the church whose bell
was the first music ever heard" can
not help that; you are too near your
mothers rocking chair. 'sOh," 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: ooh, 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
or6c of f,1 loI
/ shalt be missed, because thy seat will be
empty" go on little further, and /
/ come to the invalid's chair. What? How
t long haveyou been sick? ooh, / 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
5 occupants of them think they are doing
} no good in the world, but that invalid's
9 chair is the mighty pulpit from which
they have been preaching all these years
4 trust in God. The first time preached
here at Lakeside, Ohio, amid the throng:
, present there was nothing that so mucl
J. impressed me as the spectacle Of just on
It face-the face of an invalid who wa
is wheeled in on her chair. l SAID to he
e afteward, 'Madame, how long have yo
II been prostrated?" for she was lying fla
l. in the chair. ''Oh," she replied, II hav
! been this way fifteen years" said, SD
y you suffer very much?" ''Oh, yes,'' sh
r said, 81 suffer very much. l suffer al
J. the time Part of the time I was blind
Il l always suffer-" "Well," Issaid, seal
e you keep your courage up?" "Oh, yes,
a she said, 81 am happy, very happy, in
S deed" Her face showed it. She looked
:, the happiest of any one on the ground.
hot Of 70
t world, these invalid chairs On tina
r field of human suffering the grace o
God gets its victory. Edward Payson
: the invalid. and Richard Baxter. the in
l valid, and Robert Hall, the invalid. an,
/ the ten thousand of whom the world ha
/ never heard, but of whom all Heaven i
cognizant. The most conspicuous thin!
f on earth for Gods eye and the eye of an
q gels to rest on is not throne of earthly
, power, but it is the invald's chair Oh
5 these men and women who are Away!
5 suffering but never omplaining-thest
t victims of spinal disease and neuralgia
5 torture and rheumatic eXcruciation will
t answer to the roll call of the martyrs anc
Y rise to the martyrs throne and will wave
! the martyrs palm.
But when one of these invalids' chairs
0 becomes vacant, how suggestive it is
: No more bolstering up of the weary
y head. No more changing from side tt
4 side to get an easy position. No more
$ use of the bandage, and the cataplasm
t and the prescription. That invalid'
t chair may be folded up, or taken apart
: or set away, but it will never lose it,
0 queenly power; it will always preach o
trust in God and cheerful submission
4 Suffering all ended now. With respec
u to that invalid the words of my text have
/ been fulfilled, ''Thou shalt be missed
d because thy seat will be empty"
v pass on and find one more vacan
r chair. 1t is high chair. 1t is thu
t child's chair. If that chair be occupied
j 1 think it is the most potent chair in al
, the household. All the chairs wait OF
t it; all the chairs are turned toward it
4 1t means more than Dayids chair a
t Saul's banquet. At any rate, it make
: more racket. That is strange hous
g that can be dull with child in it. How
r that child breaks up the hard worldli
!, ness of the place and keeps you young t.
d sixty, seventy and eighty years of age
d If you have no child of your own, adop
e one; it will open Heaven to your soul
? 1t will pay its way. Its growing in tn