Impressed as I am with the mosque at Joppa, the first I ever saw, and stirred as I am with the fact that this harbor once floated the great rafts of Lebanon cedar from which the Temple at Jerusalem was builded, Solomon’s oxen drawing the logs through this very town on the way to Jerusalem, nothing can make me forget that this Joppa was the birthplace of the sewing society that has blessed the poor of all succeeding ages in all lands.
The disasters to Joppa when Judas Maccabæus set it on fire and when Napoleon had five hundred prisoners massacred in this neighborhood can not make me forget that one of the most magnificent charities of the centuries was started in this seaport by Dorcas--a woman who with her needle embroidered her name ineffaceably into the beneficence of the world.
I see her sitting in the village home. In the door way and around about the building, and even in the room where she sits, are the pale faces of the poor.
She listens to their plaint.
She pities their woe.
She makes garments for them, and she adjusts the manufactured articles to suit the bent form of this invalid woman and to that cripple who comes crawling upon his hands and knees. She gives a coat to this one and sandals to that one. With the gifts she mingles prayers and tears and Christian encouragement.
Then she goes out to be greeted on the street corners by those whom she has blessed, and all through the way of her walk the cry is heard: “Dorcas is coming!”
The sick look up gratefully in her face as she puts a hand on the burning brow, and the lost and the abandoned start up with hope as they hear her gentle voice, as though an angel had addressed them; and as she goes out the lane, eyes half put out with sin think they see a halo of light about her brow and a trail of glory in her pathway.
That night a half-paid shipwright climbs the hill and reaches home. There he sees his little boy well clad, and he asks: “Where did these clothes come from?” They tell him: “Dorcas has been here.”
In another place, a woman is trimming a lamp; Dorcas brought the oil.
In another place, a family that had not been at table for many a week are gathered now, for Dorcas brought them bread.
But there is a sudden pause in that woman’s ministry. They say: “Where is Dorcas? Why, we have not seen her for many a day. Where is Dorcas?”
Then one of these poor people goes up and knocks at the door, and finds the mystery solved. All through the haunts of wretchedness the news comes:
“Dorcas is sick!”
No bulletin flashing from the palace gate, telling the stages of a king’s disease, is more anxiously waited for than the news from this sick benefactress. Alas for Joppa! There is weeping and wailing. That voice which has uttered so many cheerful words is now hushed; that hand which had made so many garments for the poor is cold and still; that star which had poured light into the midnight of wretchedness is dimmed by the blinding mists that go up from the river of death.
In every God-forsaken place in that town; wherever there is hunger and no bread; wherever there is guilt and no commiseration; wherever there is a broken heart and no comfort--there are despairing looks, streaming eyes and frantic gesticulations as they cry:
“Dorcas is dead!”
They send for the apostle, Peter. He edges his way through the crowd around the door, and stands in the presence of the dead. What expostulation and grief all about him!
Here stand some of the poor people, who show the garments which this good woman had made for them. Their grief can not be appeased.
Peter, the apostle, wants to perform a miracle. He will not perform it amid the excited crowd, so he kindly orders that the whole room be cleared. The door is shut against the populace.
The apostle stands now with the dead. Oh, it is a serious moment, you know, when you are alone with a lifeless body! The apostle gets down on his knees and prays, and then he comes to the lifeless form of this one all ready for the sepulcher, and in the strength of Him who is the resurrection he exclaims:
“Tabitha, arise!”
There is a stir in the fountains of life; the heart flutters; the nerves thrill; the cheek flushes; the eye opens; she sits up!
We see in this subject Dorcas the disciple, Dorcas the benefactress, Dorcas the lamented, Dorcas the resurrected.
If I had not seen that word disciple in my text, I yet would have known this woman was a Christian. Such music as that never came from a heart which is not both chorded and strung by Divine grace.
Before I show you the needle-work of this woman, I want to show you her regenerated heart--the source of a pure life and of all Christian charities.