Professor W. G. Elmslie, D.D.: Memoir and Sermons

by William Gray Elmslie

She became ill. She did not tell how ill she felt, but lay lone and sick. She would not burden others with her pain, and to die she did not fear. Her neighbours found it out and nursed her tenderly, but she died. Then there was nothing to do but reverently to lay her out, to put flowers on her breast and in her hands; it was all the kindness they could do now; how they wished they had done more when she was alive! Then they thought what to do next. When one is dead there is so little you can do, and yet you want to do so much. Then some one thought of Peter. The Apostle was only twelve miles off. He will surely come to see poor Dorcas once again, and show honour to her memory. And so the little groups of busy, tearful talkers united in one resolve to send for Peter. They would like him to be with them, to tell him all their trouble and sorrow, and pour into his sympathetic ears an eager chronicle of Dorcas's holy deeds. It is wonderful how much good your neighbours know to tell of you when you are dead, and how much evil while you are still alive.

This was the reason why they sent for Peter; not that they expected him to restore the dead to life. Had they not laid the dead body of their benefactress out, and washed and prepared it for burial? Why should they expect a miracle on her behalf? Stephen and James had trodden their martyr path, and no voice from heaven had called them back to leadership and witness-bearing in the Church. What should they expect for Dorcas from the Apostle beyond his sorrowful compassion?

Peter came. He found the room full of weeping women, telling of her goodness, of her clever fingers; showing him on them (middle voice) the dresses and petticoats she had made. How many they seemed when gathered together in that little room! All the results of the toil of her busy hands, scattered through the town, now gathered in the chamber of death to tell of her goodness after she was gone. Herself, she did not know the whole. "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord; for their works do follow them."

We die and are not much missed. The world rolls on. Yet none is quite unwept, unnoticed. There are two sets of people who will mourn. There are those who loved you and found their joy in ministering to you; a mother, a lover: good or bad you may have been, but they will weep over your grave. Or, in heaven, they smile; in smiles or tears they love. And there are those you loved, on whose souls are the marks of your kindness, warmth, help, and cheer; they will miss you.

How came Peter to conceive the hope of recovering Dorcas to life? It was not through the message of an angel, or the narrative would tell us of it; nor was it through a special communication of the Spirit, or the sacred history would record it, as the habit of the Bible is. It seems to have been in an ordinary way, though under the Spirit's guidance. A little thing in Peter's doings suggests that he followed the train of an old memory, that he was dominated and inspired by a bygone incident. Amid those weeping women his heart was moved: he recalled an unforgotten scene. He remembered an old man coming to the Master with a white, anxious face and quivering lips, to plead for his sick child. He remembered their hurrying steps, and the eager impatience of the stricken father as they turned their faces to his house; the messenger bringing the sad tidings "dead;" the Master's face lighting up with a quiet, strange resolution as He said, "She is not dead;" and then how He put them all out and restored the maiden to her parents. Why should he not ask the Master now? He put them all out. He prayed. Confidence filled his heart. He summoned the dead woman from the shadow-land. She opened her eyes. To the weeping, mourning, loving women he gave her again—alive from the dead!

It was a tremendous deed of wonder and glory. It was done on a lonely, simple, humble woman. Why on her? Why not on James or Stephen? I cannot tell, for certain. God knows. His reasons are other than our thoughts. But I see this as possibly a cause: You observe that two narratives are conjoined. Dorcas, for her alms-deeds, receives this miracle of resurrection; while, for alms-deeds, Cornelius is acknowledged in a miracle also. Nowhere else in the Acts of the Apostles are alms-deeds made so prominent. In each story, and in the conjunction, I see design. God meant to set a mark of honour on the love that was displayed. I think He would guard the Church against undue estimation of preaching, apostles, miracle-working, deeds of show, gifts; and teach us that beyond all is love. So He singles out not an apostle, not a martyr, but this gentle, kind, womanly life, and crowns it with grandeur and glory, makes it conqueror of death, encircles it with a halo of most wonderful, Divine, loving care. Not preaching, not angel speech, not mountain-removing faith, but love is the centre. God judges differently from us. We worship the great leaders, orators, reformers, creed-makers; our statistics are of Churches, prayers, and preachers. God reckons all love for Himself and man as vaster, wider, and grander. Ah! while we think not of it, in unseen corners, in hidden nooks, He sees and garners a harvest of love and lowly service that shall be the beauty and glory of heaven. Let us think as God thinks. Let us learn to worship not gifts, but graces, not greatness, but goodness only. Bend your knee to such a woman with a reverence you will yield to no king, to no genius, however Godlike; and bend it, for you bend it to Christ. Humble, lonely, simple Christian souls, God cares for you as for her, if you are like her. Patiently toil on; God feels towards you as towards her. Go forward to death, sure that He will gather your life with equal care, not back into earth's struggle, but up into heaven's glory.

IV.
UNFULFILLED CHRISTIAN WORK.

"And unto the angel of the Church in Sardis write; These things saith He that hath the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars; I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead. Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God."—Rev. iii. 1, 2.

Reading the last clause a little more literally will more fully bring out the meaning: "For I have found no works of thine fulfilled before My God."—R.V.