The Bossier banner., 1891-09-24

ClllQ S cDdlr. II UndC CHdI UC OCNuP4SN,
l 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 1T
Saul's banquet. At any rate, 1t makes
more racket. That is a strange house
that can be dull with a child in it. How
that child breaks up the worldliness OF
the place, and keeps you young to
sixty, seventy and eighty years. If
you have no child of your own
adopt one; it will open Heaven
to your soul. 1t will pay its way.
It's 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 children? Then you had
better stay out of Heaven, for there are
so many there they would fairly make
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 filled
Heaven with that kind of trouble.
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 to-
gether and they were celebrating the
Fourth with oration and poem and
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 eastern coast, and
of their wives and children far away,
and their hearts were thrilled with
home-sicllness 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,
trying to drown out the in
fantile interruption, when a 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 and subdue the soul like child's
voice. But when it goes away from you
the Lrgh chair becomes a higher
chair, and there is drsolation all about
you. In throe-fourths of the homes
of this congregation there is a 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 a
father is going away into sin, what
| is he going to do with his dead chill
dren floating about him and lowering
over his every wayward step?, Oh,
speak out, vacant high chair, and say;
Father, come back from SIM. mother,
come back from worldliness. l am
watching you. l am waiting for you.
With respect to your child, the words
of my text have been fulfilled. Thou
shalt be missed, because thy seat viii
be empty"
My hearers, have gathered up the
voices of your departed friends and trieG
to intOne them into one invitation up
ward. l set in array all the vacant
chairs of your homes and of your socia
circle, and l bid them cry out this morn
ing: ''Tfme is short. Eternity is near
Take my Saviour. Be at peace will
my God. Come up where l am
We lived together on earth, come
let us live together in Heaven" w,
answer that invitation. We come. Keel
d scat for us, as Saul kept seat fo
David, but that seat shall not be empty
And oh! when we are all through will
this world, and we have shaken hands
all around for the last time, and all ou
chairs in the home circle and in tht
outside world shall be vacant, NAV w,
be worshipping God in that place from
which we shall go out no NOR
forever. / thank God there vii
be no vacant chairs in Heaven
There we shall meet again and tall
over our earthly hcartbreallS. How
much YOU have been through since yol
saw them last On the shining shor
you talk it all over. The heartaches
The loneliness. The sleepless nights
The weeping until you had no NOR
power to weep, because the heart wa
withered and dried up. Story of empt,
cradle and little shoe only half worn ou
never to be worn again, just the shap
of the foot that once pressed If
And dreams when you thought the de
parted had come back again and tn
room seemed bright with their faces
and you started up to greet them, ant
in the effort the dream broke and yol
found yourself standing amid-room il
the midnight-alone Talking it al
over, and then, hand in hand, wallzin,
up and down in the light. No sorrow, n,
tears, no death. Oh, Heaven! beautiful
Heaven! Heaven where our friends are
Heaven where we expect to be- In tn
east they take a cage of birds and brin,
it to the tomb of the dead, and then the
open the door of the cage, and the bird
flying out and sing, And l would to-da,
bring a cage of Christian consolation t.