And then this poor widow loved much. And in God’s sight no offering of love is too small. Love is sometimes a babbling brook, leaping, laughing, sparkling, splashing. It is beautiful then. It is sometimes a mighty river—deep, broad, swift and strong, shouldering the burdens of a continent and bearing them without a murmur. It is glorious then. But it is sometimes the boundless ocean—feeding all the brooks and rivers, bearing the commerce of the world, and yet never losing one note in its everlasting lullaby. It rolls against all its shore lines and moans, “If there were no bounds, I’d bring your ships to all your doors.” Love is sublime then. The widow’s love was like the ocean; it rolled against its farthest shore and longed to go farther. “She of her penury” had cast into the treasury all that she had, and therefore had given “more than all they,” for, not what is given, but what is left, marks the grade of self-denial. There may be trust for bread when the storehouse is full, but the faith that empties the storehouse and then trusts for bread, is a purer and diviner faith. This poor widow was a heroine of faith.
This apparently trifling event in the life of our Lord is of inestimable importance. It shows, after He had ended His oppressive day’s labor in the Temple, how he would still pause, in retiring from it, to bless the loving act of a poor widow, rendered unto the Lord in faith, and to adorn even so lowly a head with the crown of honor. We need no other proof for the celestially pure temper in which He left the inner courts of the Temple after He had pronounced His great denunciations against the hypocritical professions of Scribes and Pharisees. It is as if He could not so part, as if at least His last word must be a word of blessing and of peace.
This incident of the poor widow with the two mites is also a new proof of the power of little things, and of the gracious favor with which the Lord looks upon the least offering which only bears the stamp of love and faith. The last object on which our Lord’s eyes rested as He departed from the Temple was the widow’s two mites.
CHAPTER X.
Womanhood During the Apostolic Ministry.
Tabitha—Glorified Her Needle—The Results of Little Acts—Lydia—Her Humility—Philip’s Four Daughters—Phœbe—Priscilla—Eunice—Lois—Eudia—Syntyche—Hulda—The Hebrew Maid—Tamar—Mothers of Great Men—The Author of the Bible Woman’s Best Friend.
We now come to the blessed ministry of women during the Apostolic age. And the first of these is Tabitha. Her residence was at Joppa. She was a “disciple,” and Luke renders her name, Tabitha, out of the Aramaic into the Greek as Dorcas. We further read that she was “full of good works,” among which that of making clothes for the poor is specifically mentioned. Tabitha had, without doubt, served Christ with her needle for many years, and exercised her faith by performing works of love. But there came a day when the fingers refused longer to ply the needle, and the heart grew faint, and in weariness she laid aside the unfinished garment, just to take a little rest, and when the neighbors and “widows” came in, they quickly saw the flushed cheek, and her critical condition aroused their anxious solicitude to relieve and care for and comfort her. The fear of losing her excited and agonized them. The apprehension of their great loss, in case she should be removed from them, almost drove the little church at Joppa to distraction.
But, notwithstanding the tender ministry of loving hands and aching hearts, Tabitha daily grew worse, and finally yielded up her spirit.
“The calm moon looked down while she was dying,
The earth still held her way;
Flowers breathed their perfume, and the wind kept sighing;