098. The Vacant Chair

The Vacant Chair

1Sa_20:18 : ’93Thou shalt be missed, because thy seat will be empty.’94

Set on the table the cutlery and the chased silverware of the palace, for King Saul will give a state dinner today. A distinguished place is kept at the table for his son-in-law, a celebrated warrior, David by name. The guests, jeweled and plumed, come in and take their places. When people are invited to a king’92s banquet, they are very apt to go. But before the covers are lifted from the feast, Saul looks around and finds a vacant seat at the table. He says within himself, perhaps audibly, ’93What does this mean? Where is my son-in-law? Where is David, the great warrior? I invited him. I expected him. What! a vacant chair at the king’92s banquet!’94 The fact was that David, the warrior, had been seated for the last time at his father-in-law’92s table. The day before Jonathan had coaxed David to go and occupy that place at the table, saying to David in the words of my text, ’93Thou shalt be missed, because thy seat will be empty.’94 The prediction was fulfilled. David was missed. His seat was empty. That one vacant chair spoke louder than all the occupied chairs at the banquet.

In almost every house the articles of furniture take a living personality. That picture’97a stranger would not see anything remarkable either in its design or execution, but it is more to you than all the pictures of the Louvre and the Luxembourg. You remember who bought it, and who admired it. And that hymn-book’97you remember who sang out of it. And that cradle’97you remember who rocked it. And that Bible’97you remember who read out of it. And that bed’97you remember who slept in it. And that room’97you remember who died in it. But there is nothing in all your house so eloquent and so mighty-voiced as the vacant chair. I suppose that before Saul and his guests got up from this banquet there was a great clatter of wine-pitchers, but all that racket was drowned out by the voice that came up from the vacant chair at the table. Thousands have gazed and wept at John Quincy Adams’92 vacant chair in the House of Representatives, and at Henry Wilson’92s vacant chair in the Vice-Presidency, and at Calhoun’92s vacant chair in the American Senate, and at Prince Albert’92s vacant chair in Windsor Castle, and at Thiers’92 vacant chair in the councils of the French nation; but all these chairs are unimportant to you as compared with the vacant chairs in your own household. Have these chairs any lesson for us to learn? Are we any better men and women than when they first addressed us?

First, I point out to you the father’92s vacant chair. Old men always like to sit in the same place and in the same chair. They somehow feel more at home, and sometimes when you are in their place and they come into the room, you jump up suddenly and say, ’93Here, father, here’92s your chair.’94 The probability is, it is an armchair, for he is not so strong as he once was, and he needs a little upholding. His hair is a little frosty, his gums a little depressed, for in his early days there was not much dentistry. Perhaps a cane chair and old-fashioned apparel, for though you may have suggested some improvement, father does not want any of your nonsense. Grandfather never had much admiration for new-fangled notions. I sat at the table of one of my parishioners in a former congregation; an aged man was at the table, and the son was presiding, and the father somewhat abruptly addressed the son and said: ’93My son, don’92t try to show off now because the minister is here!’94 Your father never liked any new customs or manners; he preferred the old way of doing things, and he never looked so happy as when, with his eyes closed, he sat in the armchair in the corner. From the wrinkled brow to the tip of the slippers, what placidity! The wave of the past years of his life broke at the foot of that chair. Perhaps, sometimes he was a little impatient, and sometimes told the same story twice; but over that old chair how many blessed memories hover! I hope you did not crowd that old chair and that it did not get very much in the way. Sometimes the old man’92s chair gets very much in the way, especially if he has been so unwise as to make over all his property to his children, with the understanding that they are to take care of him. I have seen in such cases children crowd the old man’92s chair to the door, and then crowd it clear into the street, and then crowd it into the poorhouse, and keep on crowding it until the old man fell out of it into his grave.

But your father’92s chair was a sacred place. The children used to climb up on the rungs of it for a good-night kiss, and the longer he stayed the better you liked it. But that chair has been vacant now for some time. The furniture dealer would not give you fifty cents for it, but it is a throne of influence in your domestic circle. I saw in the French palace, and in the throne-room, the chair that Napoleon used to occupy. It was a beautiful chair, but the most significant part of it was the letter ’93N’94 embroidered into the back of the chair in purple and gold. And your father’92s old chair sits in the throne-room of your heart, and your affections have embroidered into the back of that chair in purple and gold the letter ’93F.’94 Have all the prayers of that old chair been answered? Have all the counsels of that old chair been practiced? Speak out, old armchair! History tells us of an old man whose three sons were victors in the Olympic games, and when they came back, with their garlands, put them on the father’92s brow, and the old man was so rejoiced at the victories of his three children that he fell dead in their arms. And are you, O man, going to bring a wreath of joy and Christian usefulness and put it on your father’92s brow, or on the vacant chair, or on the memory of the one departed? Speak out, old armchair! With reference to your father, the words of my text have been fulfilled: ’93Thou shalt be missed, because thy seat will be empty.’94

I go a little further on in your house, and I find the mother’92s chair. It is very apt to be a rocking-chair. She had so many cares and troubles to soothe that her chair must have rockers. I remember it well. It was an old chair, and the rockers were almost worn out; for I was the youngest, and the chair had rocked the whole family. It made a creaking noise as it moved; but there was music in the sound. It was just high enough to allow the children to put our heads into her lap. That was the bank where we deposited all our hurts and worries. Ah! what a chair that was! It was different from the father’92s chair; it was entirely different. You ask me how? I cannot 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 wayward, father scolded, but mother cried. It was a very wakeful chair. In the sick days of children, other chairs could not keep awake: that chair always kept awake’97kept easily awake. That chair knew all the old lullabies and all those wordless songs which mothers sing to their sick children’97songs in which all pity, and compassion, and sympathetic influences are combined. That old chair has stopped rocking for a good many years. It may be set up in the loft or the garret, but it holds a queenly power yet.

Yes! right beside that mother’92s chair there was a cradle. When at midnight you went into that grogshop to get the intoxicating draught, did you not hear a voice that said: ’93My son, why go in there?’94 And louder than the boisterous encore of the place of sinful amusement, a voice saying, ’93My son, what do you do here?’94 And when you went into the house of abandonment, a voice saying, ’93What would your mother do if she knew you were here?’94 And you were provoked with yourself, and you charged yourself with superstition 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: ’93What! a prayerless pillow? Man! what is the matter?’94 This: You are too near your mother’92s rocking-chair. ’93Oh, pshaw!’94 you say. ’93There’92s nothing in that; I’92m five hundred miles off from where I was born; I’92m three thousand miles off from the church whose bell was the first music I ever heard.’94 I cannot help that: you are too near your mother’92s rocking-chair. ’93Oh,’94 you say, ’93there can’92t be anything in that; that chair has been vacant a great while.’94 I cannot help that; it is all the mightier for that; it is omnipotent, that mother’92s vacant chair. It whispers; it speaks; it weeps; it carols; it mourns; it prays; it warns; it thunders. A young man went off and broke his mother’92s 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: ’93Oh, mother! mother; what your life could not do your death shall effect. This moment I give my heart to God.’94 And he kept his promise. Another victory for the vacant chair. With reference to your mother, the words of my text were fulfilled: ’93Thou shalt be missed, because thy seat will be empty.’94

I go on a little further, and I come to the invalid’92s chair. What! How long have you been sick? ’93Oh! I have been sick ten, twenty, thirty years.’94 Is it possible? What a story of endurance. There have been in many of the families of my congregations these invalids’92 chairs. The occupants of them think they are doing no good in the world; but that invalid’92s chair is the mighty pulpit from which they have been preaching, all these years, trust in God. The first time I preached at Lakeside, Ohio, amid the throngs present, there was nothing that so much impressed me as the spectacle of just one face’97the face of an invalid who was wheeled in on her chair. I said to her afterwards: ’93Madam, how long have you been prostrated?’94 for she was lying flat in the chair. ’93O!’94 she replied: ’93I have been this way fifteen years.’94 I said: ’93Do you suffer very much?’94 ’93O yes,’94 she said: ’93I suffer very much; I suffer all the time; part of the time I was blind. I always suffer.’94 ’93Well,’94 I said, ’93can you keep your courage up?’94 ’93Oh, yes,’94 she said, ’93I am happy, very happy indeed.’94 Her face showed it. She looked the happiest of any one in the assembly. What a means of grace to the world, these invalid chairs! On that field of human suffering the grace of God gets its victory. Edward Payson the invalid, and Richard Baxter, the invalid, 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 God’92s eye and the eye of angels to rest on, is not a throne of earthly power, but it is the invalid’92s chair. These men and women who are always suffering but never complaining’97these victims of spinal disease, and neuralgic torture, and rheumatic excruciation will answer to the roll-call of the martyrs, and rise to the martyr’92s throne, and will wave the martyr’92s palm! But when one of these invalids’92 chairs becomes vacant, how suggestive it is! 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’92s 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 submission. Suffering all ended now. With respect to that invalid the words of my text have been fulfilled: ’93Thou shalt be missed, because thy seat will be empty.’94

I pass on, and I find one more vacant chair It is a high chair. It is the child’92s chair. If that chair be occupied, I think it is the most potential chair in all the household. All the chairs wait on it; all the chairs are turned toward it. It means more than David’92s chair at Saul’92s 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. It will pay its way. Its crowing in the morning will give the day a cheerful starting, and its glee at night will give the day a 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 million of them! The old crusty disciples told the mothers to keep the children away from Christ. ’93You bother him,’94 they said; ’93you trouble the Master.’94 Trouble him! He has filled heaven with that kind of trouble.

A pioneer in California said 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 a hundred miles. But the Fourth of July came, and the miners were gathered together, and they were celebrating the Fourth with oration, and poem, and a boisterous brass band; and while the band was playing, an infant’92s 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 homesickness as they heard 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 infantile interruption, when a swarthy miner, the tears rolling down his face, got up and shook his fist, and said: ’93Stop that noisy band, and give the baby a chance.’94 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 a child’92s voice. But when it goes away from you, the high chair becomes a higher chair, and there is desolation all about you. In three-fourths of our homes there is a vacant 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? It is to call you higher. What a drawing upward it is to have children in heaven! And then it is such a preventive against sin. If a 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 the spirits of his dead children floating about him, and hovering over his every wayward step. Oh, speak out, vacant high chair, and say: ’93Father come back from sin; mother, come back from worldliness. I am watching you. I am waiting for you.’94 With respect to your child, the words of my text have been fulfilled: ’93Thou shalt be missed, because thy seat will be empty.’94

I have gathered up the voices of your departed friends and tried to intone them into one invitation upward. I set in array all the vacant chairs of your homes and of your social circle, and I bid them cry out: ’93Time is short. Eternity is near. Take my Saviour. Be at peace with my God. Come up where I am. We lived together on earth, come let us live together in heaven.’94 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.

I have been very earnest, because I realize the fact that the day will come when the pastor’92s chair will be empty. From this point, how often have I looked off into your friendly faces. I have seen a great many beautiful and thrilling sights, but never anything to equal what I have witnessed when in this chair. I have looked off and seen you rise for the doxology. Seated in this chair, sometimes I have greatly rejoiced at seeing multitudes come to God, and then, again, I have trembled for fear that men would reject the Gospel. I wonder what this chair will teach when I have left it for the last time? I wish it might tell of a useful life, of an earnest ministry, of a pure Gospel preached! God grant it may! The most powerful sermon that is ever preached is by the vacant chair of a pastor, the Sabbath after he has been carried away from it. 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 worshiping God in that place from which we shall go out no more for ever. I thank God there will be no vacant chairs in heaven.

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage