The Brookhaven leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1883-1891, 1891-07-30

the household. All the chairs walt on
It; all the chairs are turned toward it.
1t means more than David's chair at
Saul's banquet. 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 worldliness of
the place, and keeps you young to
sixty, seventy and eighty years! IL
you have no child of your own
adopt one; il will 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 glee at
night will give the day cheerful close.
You do not like children? Then you had
better stay out Of Heaven, for there are
so many there they would fairly mako
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 Mas
ter" Trouble Him! He has filed
Heaven with that kind of trouble.
A pioneer in California says that for
the first year or two after his residence
single child in all the reach of hum
dred miles. But the Fourth of July
came and the miners were gathered to-
gether and they were celebrating the
Fourth with Grafton and poem and a
boisterous brass band; and whiO 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 eastern coast, and
of their wives and children far away,
and their hearts were thrilled with
inconsistencies as they hear the babe
cry. But the music went on, and the
child cried louder and louder, and the
brass band played louder and louder.
irving to drown out the in
fantile 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 well as good cheer
in it. There is nothing to arouse and
melt ard subdue the soul like child's
voice. But when it goes away from you
the high chair becomes higher
chair, and there is desolation all about
you. In three-fourths of the homes
of this congregation there is va
cant high chair Somehow you never
get over it. There is no one to put to
bed at night; no one to ask strange
questions about God and Heaven. Oh,
what is the use Of that high chair? 1t
is to call you higher. What drawing
upward it is to have children in Heaven!
And then it is such a preventive
against sin. If father is going
away into sin, he leaves his living
children with their mother; but if q
father is going away into sin, what
is he going to do with his dead chill
dren floating about him and novering
over his every wayward step? Oh,
speak out, vacant high chair, and say:
Father, come back from sin; mother,
come back from worldliness. / an
watching you. l am waiting for you. y
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, have gathered up the
voices of your departed friends and tried
to intone them into one invitation up
ward. | set in array all the vacant
chairs of your homes and of your social
circle, and I bid them cry out this morn
ing: ''Time is short. Eternity is near.
Take my Saviour. Be at peace with
my God. Come up where l am,
We lived together on earth, coma
let us live together in Heaven" We
answer that invitation. We come. Keep
a seat for us, as Saul kept a 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. l thank God there will
be no vacant chairs in Heaven.
There we shall meet again and talk
over our earthly heartbreaks. How
much you have been through since you
saw them last! On the shining shore
The loneliness. The sleepless nights
The weeping until you had no more
power to weep. because the heart was
withered and dried up. Story of empty
cradle and little shoe only half worn out
never to be worn again, just the shape
of the foot that once pressed it.
And dreams when you thought the de-
parted had come back again and the
room seemed bright with their faces,
and you started up to greet them, and
in the effort the dream broke and you
found yourself standing amid-room in
the midnight--alone. Talking it all
over, and then, hand in hand, walking
up and down in the light. No sorrow, no
tears, no death. Oh, Heaven! beautiful
Heaven! Heaven where our friends are.
Heaven where we expect to be. In the
east they take cage of birds and bring
1t to the tomb of the dead, and then they
open the door of the cage, aud the birds
fiying out and sing. And would to-day
bring a cage of Christian consolation to
the grave of your loved ones, and 1
would open tho door and let them fill
all the air with the music of their voices.
Oh, how they bound in these spirits
before the throne! Some shout with
gladness. Some break forth into un-
controllable weeping for Joy. Some
stand speechless in their shock Of
delight. They sing. They quiver
with excessive gladness. They gaze
on the temples, on the palaces,
ON the waters, on each other.
They weave their joy into gsrlsnds,