I wish that the wives and mothers and daughters and sisters of this congregation would imitate Dorcas in her discipleship. Before you sit with the Sabbath class, before you cross the threshold of the hospital, before you carry a pack of tracts down the street, before you enter upon the temptations and trials of tomorrow, I charge you, in the name of God and by the turmoil and tumult of the Judgment Day, O women, that you attend to the first, last and greatest duty of your life--the seeking for God and being at peace with Him.
Now, by the courtesies of society, you are deferred to, and he were far less than a man who would not oblige you with kind attentions; but when the trumpet shall sound, there will be an uproar, and a wreck of mountain and continent, and no human arm can help you. Amidst the rising of the dead, and amidst the boiling of the seat and amidst the live, leaping thunders of the flying heavens, there will be no chance for these courtesies.
But, on that day, calm and placid will be every woman’s heart who has put her trust in Christ; calm, notwithstanding all the tumult, as though the fire in the heavens were only the gildings of an autumnal sunset--as though the peal of the trumpet were only the harmony of an orchestra--as though the awful voices of the sky were but a group of friends bursting through a gateway at eventime with laughter, and shouting: “Dorcas the disciple!”
Would to God that every Mary and every Martha would this day sit down at the feet of Jesus!
Further, we see Dorcas the benefactress.
History has told the story of the crown; the epic poet has sung of the sword; the pastoral poet, with his verses full of the redolence of clover-tops and arustle with the silk of the corn, has sung the praises of the plow. I tell you the praises of the needle.
From the fig-leaf robe prepared in the Garden of Eden to the last stitch taken last night on some garment for some church fair, the needle has wrought wonders of kindness, generosity and benefaction. It adorned the girdle of the high priest; it fashioned the curtains in the ancient Tabernacle; it cushioned the chariots of King Solomon; it provided the robes of Queen Elizabeth; and in high places and in low places, by the fire of the pioneer’s back-log and under the flash of the chandelier--everywhere, it has clothed nakedness, it has preached the Gospel, it has overcome hosts of penury and want with the war-cry of: “Stitch, stitch, stitch!” The operatives have found a livelihood by it, and through it the mansions of the employers have been constructed.
Amidst the greatest triumphs in all ages and lands, I set down the conquests of the needle.
I admit its crimes; I admit its cruelties. It has had more martyrs than the fire; it has butchered more souls than the Inquisition; it has punctured the eye; it has pierced the side; it has struck weakness into the lungs; it has sent madness into the brain; it has filled the potter’s field; it has pitched whole armies of the suffering into crime, wretchedness and woe.
But, now that I am talking of Dorcas and her ministries to the poor, I shall speak only of the charities of the needle.
This woman was a representative of all those women who make garments for the destitute, who knit socks for the barefooted, who prepare bandages for the lacerated, who fix up boxes of clothing for Western missionaries, who go into the asylums of the suffering and destitute bearing that Gospel which is sight for the blind and hearing for the deaf, and which makes the lame man leap like a hart, and brings the dead to life with immortal health bounding in their pulses.
What a contrast between the practical benevolence of this woman and a great deal of the charity of this day!
Dorcas did not spend her time planning how the poor of Joppa were to be relieved; she took her needle and relieved them. She was not like those persons who sympathize with imaginary sorrows, and go out in the street and laugh at the boy who has upset his basket of cold victuals; nor was she like that charity which makes a rousing speech on the benevolent platform, and goes out to kick the beggar from the step, crying: “Hush your miserable howling!”
The sufferers of the world want not so much theory as practice; not so much tears as dollars; not so much kind wishes as loaves of bread; not so much smiles as shoes; not so much “God bless yous!” as jackets and frocks. I will put one earnest Christian man, who is a hard worker, against five thousand mere theorists on the subject of charity.
There are a great many who have fine ideas about church architecture who never in their lives helped to build a church. There are men who can give you the history of Buddhism and Mohammedanism who never sent a farthing for the evangelization of the adherents of those religions.
There are women who talk beautifully about the suffering in the world who never had the courage, like that of Dorcas, to take up the needle and assault it.