News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1891-07-23

| was music in the sound. 1t was JUS
! high enough to allow us children topu
our heads into her lap. That was the
bank where we deposited all our hurts
and worries. All! what a chair thai
| was. 1t was different from the fathers
| chair; it was entirely different. 4ou
ask me how. | cannot tell, but we al
| 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 a 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 sym
pathetic influences are combined.
That old chair has stopped rocking
for good many years. 1t may be set
up in the loft or the garnet, but it holds
queenly power yet. When at mid
night you went into that grog shop to
get the intoxicating draft, did you not
hear voice that said, ''My son, why
go in therer And louder than the
boisterous encore of the place of sinful
amusement, voice saying, "My son,
what do you do herew And when you
went into the house of abandonment,
voice saying, What would your
mother do if she knew you were herep
And you were provoked with yourself,
and you charged yourself with super
stition and fanaticism 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 prayer
less pillow? Man what is the matter 2"
This, You are too near your mothers
rocking chair.
"Oh, pshawI" you say. There's
nothing in that; I'm five hundred miles
off from where | was born; I'm three
thousand miles off from the church
whose bell was the first music l ever
heard" | cannot help that; you are
too near your mothers rocking chair.
"Oh," you say, there can't be any
thing in that; that chair has been va
cant a great while" Icannot help that;
it is all the mightier for that; it is ON
nipotent, 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: "Oh, mother! motherl
what your life could not do your death
shall effect. This moment l 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"
AN INVALID'S USEFULNESS.
go on a little further, and come
to the invalid's chair. What How
long have you been sick? "Oh, have
been sick ten, twenty, thirty years."
Is it possible2 What story of endur-
ANGEL There are in many of the fami-
lies of my congregation these invalids'
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 Lake
side, Ohio. amid the throngs present
there was nothing that so much i'm
pressed me as the spectacle of just one
face-the face of an invalid who was
wheeled in on her chair. l said to her
afterward, Madam, how long have
you been prostrated2' for she was lying
fiat in the chair ''Oh," she replied,
81 have been this way fifteen years.
I said. DO you suffer very much2"
"Oh, yes" she said, 81 suffer very
much. suffer all the time. Part OF
the time was blind. always suffer"
"Well," said, 'can you keep your
courage up2" "Oh, yes," she said. II
am happy, very happy, indeed" Her
face showed it. She looked the hap
piest 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 wkom the
world has never heard, but of whom
all heaven is cognizant. The most con-
spicuous thing on earth for Gods eye
and the eye of angels to rest on is not
throne of earthly power, but it is the
invalid's chair. Oh! these men and
women who are always suffering but
never omplaining-these 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 isl
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 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 its
queenly power; it will always preach
of trust in God and cheerful submis-
sion. 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"
BABY's PLACE.
| 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 household. All the chairs wait on
it; all the chairs are turned toward it.
1t means more than David's chair at
SauPs banquet. At any rate, it makes
more racket. That is a strange house
that can be dull with a 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 cheerful starting, and
its glee at night will give the day
cheerful close. You do not like chill
drenf Then you had better stay out
of heaven, for there are so many there
they would fairly make you crazy