Then this epic of the text was composed to celebrate the grand womanly triumph: “Awake, awake, Deborah; awake, awake!”
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!”