Bible Characters

by Dwight Lyman Moody; Joseph Parker; T. De Witt Talmage

DORCAS.

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.

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.

I am glad that there is not a page of the world’s history which is not a record of feminine benevolence. God says to all lands and peoples: “Come, now, and hear the widow’s mite rattle down into the poor-box.”

The Princess of Conti sold all her jewels, that she might help the famine-stricken. Queen Blanche, wife of Louis VIII. of France, hearing that there were some persons unjustly incarcerated in the prisons, went out and took a stick and struck the door, as a signal that all might strike it; and down went the prison door, and out came the prisoners. Queen Maud, the wife of Henry I., went down amidst the poor and washed their sores, and administered to them cordials. Mrs. Retson, at Matagorda, appeared on the battle field while the missiles of death were flying around, and cared for the wounded.

But why go so far back? Why go so far away?

Is there a man or woman in this house who has forgotten the women of the sanitary and Christian Commissions? Has any one forgotten that, before the smoke had gone from Gettysburg and South Mountain, the women of the North met the women of the South on the battle field, forgetting all their animosities while they bound up the wounded and closed the eyes of the slain? Have you forgotten Dorcas, the benefactress?

I come now to speak of Dorcas the lamented. When death struck down that good woman, oh, how much sorrow there was in Joppa!

I suppose there were women living in Joppa possessing larger fortunes; women, perhaps, with more handsome faces; but there was no grief at their departure like this at the death of Dorcas. There was not more turmoil and upturning in the Mediterranean Sea, dashing against the wharves of that seaport, than there were surgings to and fro of grief in Joppa because Dorcas was dead.

There are a great many who go out of life and are unmissed. There may be a very large funeral; there may be a great many carriages and a plumed hearse; there may be high-sounding eulogiums; the bell may toll at the cemetery gate; there may be a very fine marble shaft reared over the resting place. But the whole thing may be a falsehood and a sham.

By this demise the Church of God has lost nothing; the world has lost nothing. It is only a nuisance abated; it is only a grumbler ceasing to find fault; it is only an idler stopped yawning; it is only a dissipated fashionable parted from his wine cellar—while, on the other hand, no useful Christian leaves this world without being missed. The Church of God cries out like the prophet: “Howl, fir tree, for the cedar has fallen.” Widowhood comes and shows the garments which the departed had made. Orphans are lifted up to look into the calm face of the sleeping benefactress. Reclaimed vagrancy comes and kisses the cold brow of her who charmed it away from sin, and all through the streets of Joppa there is mourning—mourning because Dorcas is dead.

I suppose you have read of the fact that when Josephine was carried out to her grave there were a great many men and women of pomp and pride and position that went out after her; but I am most affected by the story of history that on that day there were ten thousand of the poor of France who followed her coffin, weeping and wailing until the air rang again, because when they lost Josephine they lost their last earthly friend.

Oh, who would not rather have such obsequies than all the tears that were ever poured in the lachrymals that have been exhumed from ancient cities! There may be no mass for the dead; there may be no costly sarcophagus; there may be no elaborate mausoleum. But in the damp cellars of the city, and through the lonely huts of the mountain glen, there will be mourning—mourning because Dorcas is dead.

I speak to you of Dorcas the resurrected. The apostle came to where she was, and said: “Arise!” And “she sat up.” In what a short compass the great writer put that: “She sat up!”

Oh, what a time there must have been when the apostle brought her out among her old friends! How the tears of joy must have started! What clapping of hands there must have been! What singing! What laughter! Sound it all through that lane! Shout it down that dark alley! Let all Joppa hear it! Dorcas is resurrected!

You and I have seen the same thing many a time—not a dead body resuscitated, but the deceased coming up again after death in the good accomplished. If a man labors up to fifty years of age, serving God, and then dies, we are apt to think that his earthly work is done. No! His influence on Earth will continue till the world ceases. Services rendered for Christ never stop.

Here is a Christian woman. She toils for the upbuilding of a church through many anxieties, through many self-denials, with prayers and tears, and then she dies. It is fifteen years since she went away. Now the Spirit of God descends upon that church; hundreds of souls stand up and confess the faith of Christ.

Has that Christian woman, who went away fifteen years ago, nothing to do with these things? I see the flowering out of her noble heart. I hear the echo of her footsteps in all these songs over sins forgiven—in all the prosperity of the church. The good that seemed to be buried has come up again. Dorcas is resurrected.

After a while all these womanly friends of Christ will put down their needles for ever. After making garments for others, some one will make a garment for them; the last robe which we shall ever wear—the robe which is for the grave.

You will have heard the last cry of pain. You will have witnessed the last orphanage. You will have come in worn out from your last round of mercy. I do not know where you will sleep, nor what your epitaph will be; but there will be a lamp burning at that tomb and an angel of God guarding it, and through all the long night no rude foot will disturb the dust. Sleep on—sleep on! Soft bed, pleasant shadows, undisturbed repose! Sleep on!