Part 12

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!

EHUD.

Ehud was a ruler in Israel. He was left-handed, and, what was peculiar about the tribe of Benjamin, to which he belonged, there were in it seven hundred left-handed men; and yet, so dextrous had they all become in the use of the left hand, the Bible says they could sling stones at a hair’s breadth and not miss.

Well, there was a king by the name of Eglon, who was an oppressor of Israel. He imposed upon them an outrageous tax.

Ehud, the man of whom I first spoke, had a divine commission to destroy that oppressor. He came, pretending that he was going to pay the tax, and asked to see King Eglon. He was told the king was in the Summer house, the place to which his majesty retired when the heat was too great to sit in the palace. This Summer house was a place surrounded by flowers, springing fountains and trees--the latter filled with warbling birds.

Ehud entered the Summer house, and said to King Eglon that he had a secret errand with him. Immediately all the attendants were waved out of the royal presence. King Eglon rises up to receive the messenger. Ehud, the left-handed man, puts his left hand to his right side, pulls out a dagger, and thrusts Eglon through until the haft went in after the blade. Eglon falls.

Ehud comes forth to blow a trumpet of right amidst the mountains of Ephraim; and a great host is marshaled, and proud Moab submits to the conqueror, and Israel is free.

I learn first, from this subject, the power of left-handed men. There are men who, by physical organization, have as much strength in their left hand as in their right hand; but there is something in the writing of the fifteenth verse of the third chapter of Judges that implies Ehud had some defect in his right hand, which compelled him to use the left.

Oh, the power of left-handed men! Genius is often self-observant, careful of itself, not given to much toil, burning incense to its own aggrandizement; while many a man, with no natural endowments, actually defective in physical and mental organization, has an earnestness for the right, a patient industry, an all-consuming perseverance, which achieve marvels for the kingdom of the Lord. Though left-handed as Ehud, they can strike down a sin as imperial as Eglon.

But I do not suppose that Ehud, the first time he took a sling in his left hand, could throw a stone a hair’s breadth, and not miss. I suppose it was practice that gave him the wonderful dexterity.

Go forth to your spheres of duty, and do not be discouraged if, in your first attempts, you miss the mark. Ehud missed it.

ESAU.

Esau had the birthright given him.

In the olden times this meant not only temporal but spiritual blessing.

One day Esau took this birthright and traded it off for something to eat. Oh, the folly! But let us not be too severe upon him, for some of us have committed the same folly.

After Esau had thus parted with his birthright, he wanted to get it back. Just as though you, tomorrow morning, should take all your notes and bonds and government securities, and should go into a restaurant, and in a fit of restlessness and hunger throw all those securities on the counter and ask for a plate of food, making that exchange.

This was the exchange Esau made.

He sold his birthright for a mess of pottage, and he was very sorry about it afterward; but “he found no place for repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.”

There are sins which, though they may be pardoned, are in some respects irrevocable; and you can find no place for repentance, though you seek it carefully with tears. After wasting forty years, you can not get back the neglected advantages of boyhood and youth.

FELIX AND DRUSILLA.

A city of marble was Cesarea--wharves of marble, houses of marble, temples of marble. This being the ordinary architecture of the place, you may well imagine something of the splendor of Governor Felix’s residence.

In a room of that palace--floor tesselated, windows curtained, ceiling fretted, the whole scene affluent with Tyrian purple, and statues, and pictures, and carvings--sat a very dark-complexioned man by the name of Felix, and beside him sat a woman of extraordinary beauty, whom he had stolen by breaking up another’s domestic circle.

She was only eighteen years of age, a princess by birth, and unwittingly waiting for her doom--that of being buried alive in the ashes and scoria of Mount Vesuvius, which in sudden eruption, one day, put an end to her abominations.

Well, one afternoon Drusilla, seated in the palace, weary with the magnificent stupidities of the place, says to Felix:

“You have a very distinguished prisoner, I believe, by the name of Paul. Do you know he is one of my countrymen? I should very much like to see him, and I should very much like to hear him speak, for I have heard so much about his eloquence.

“Besides that, the other day, when he was being tried in another room of this palace, and the windows were open, I heard the applause that greeted the speech of Lawyer Tertullus, as he denounced Paul. Now, I very much wish I could hear Paul speak. Won’t you let me hear him speak?”

“Yes,” said Felix, “I will. I will order him up now from the guard room.”

The clank of a chain is heard coming up the marble stairway, there is a shuffle at the door, and in comes Paul--a little old man, prematurely old through exposure--only sixty years of age, but looking as though he were eighty.

Paul bows very courteously before Governor Felix and the beautiful woman by his side. They say:

“Paul, we have heard a great deal about your speaking. Give us, now, a specimen of your eloquence.”

Oh, if there ever was a chance for a man to show off, Paul had a chance there!

He might have harangued them about Grecian art, about the wonderful water-works which he had seen at Corinth, about the Acropolis by moonlight, about prison life in Philippi, about “What I Saw in Thessalonica,” or about the old mythologies.

But, instead, Paul said to himself: “I am now on the way to martyrdom, and this man and woman will soon be dead; so this is my only opportunity to talk to them about the things of eternity.”

And, just there and then, there broke in upon the scene a peal of thunder. It was the voice of Judgment Day speaking through the words of the decrepit apostle. As the grand old missionary proceeded with his remarks, the stoop begins to go out of his shoulders, and he rises up, and his countenance is illumined with the glories of a future life, and his shackles rattle and grind as he lifts his fettered arm, and with it hurls upon his abashed auditors the bolts of God’s indignation.

Felix grew very white about the lips. His heart beat unevenly. He put his hand to his brow, as though to stop the quickness and violence of his thoughts. He drew his robe tighter about him, as under a sudden chill. His eyes glare and his knees shake, and, as he clutches the side of his chair in a very paroxysm of terror, he orders the sheriff to take Paul back to the guard room.

“Felix trembled, and said: ‘Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee.’”

I propose to give you two or three reasons why I think Felix sent Paul back to the guard room and adjourned this whole subject of religion.

The first reason was: He was unwilling to give up his sins. He looked around; there was Drusilla. He knew that, when he became a Christian, he must send her back to Azizus, her lawful husband; and he said to himself: “I will risk the destruction of my immortal soul sooner than I will do that.”

Delilah sheared the locks of Samson; Salome danced Herod into the pit; Drusilla blocked up the way to Heaven for Felix.

Another reason why Felix sent Paul back to the guard room and adjourned this subject was: He was so very busy. In ordinary times he found the affairs of state absorbing, but those were extraordinary times. The whole land was ripe for insurrection. The Sicarii, a band of assassins, were already prowling around the palace, and I suppose he thought: “I can not attend to religion while I am so pressed by affairs of state.” It was business, among other things, that ruined his soul.

Aye, with thousands of the present day, it is the annoyance of the kitchen, and the sitting room and the parlor--the wearing economy of trying to meet large expenses with a small income. Ten thousand voices of “business” drown the voice of the Eternal Spirit.

GALLERY OF CHARACTERS.

I see the Gallery of the Prophets and Apostles.

Who are those mighty ones up yonder? Hosea, Jeremiah, Daniel, Isaiah, Paul, Peter, John and James.

There sits Noah, waiting for all the world to come into the ark.

Moses is waiting till the last Red Sea shall divide.

Jeremiah is waiting for the Jews to return.

John of the Apocalypse is waiting for the swearing of the angel that Time shall be no longer.

Glorious spirits! Ye were howled at; ye were stoned; ye were spit upon. They have been in this fight themselves, and they are all with us. Daniel knows all about lions. Paul fought with beasts at Ephesus. For Joseph, a pit; for Daniel, a wild beast den; for David, dethronement and exile; for John the Baptist, a wilderness diet and the executioner’s ax; for Peter, a prison; for Paul, shipwreck; for John, desolate Patmos; for Vashti, most insulting cruelty.

In that gallery, prophetic and apostolic, they can not keep their peace. Daniel cries out: “Thy God will deliver thee from the mouth of the lions!” David exclaims: “He will not suffer thy foot to be moved.” Isaiah calls out: “Fear not! I am with thee. Be not dismayed.” Paul exclaims: “Victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!”

I see the Angelic Gallery. There they are. There is the angel that swung the sword at the gate of Eden, the same whom Ezekiel saw upholding the throne of God, and from which I look away, for the splendor is insufferable. Here are the guardian angels. That one watched a patriarch; this one protected a child. That one has been pulling a soul out of temptation. All these are messengers of light. Those drove the Spanish Armada on the rocks. This turned Sennacherib’s living hosts into a heap of one hundred and eighty-five thousand corpses. Those, yonder, chanted the Christmas carol over Bethlehem, until the chant awoke the shepherds. These, at Creation, stood in the balcony of Heaven, and serenaded the new-born world wrapped in swaddling clothes of light.

And there, holier and mightier than all, is Michael, the archangel. To command an earthly host gives dignity; but this one is leader of the twenty thousand chariots of God, and of the ten thousand times ten thousand angels.

I think God gives command to the archangel, and the archangel to the seraphim, and the seraphim to the cherubim, until all the lower orders of Heaven hear the command and go forth on the high behest.

GIDEON.

The seventh chapter of the Book of Judges contains a detailed report of the strangest battle ever fought.

God had told Gideon to go down and thrash the Midianites, but his army is too large; for the glory must be given to God, and not to man. And so proclamation is made that all those of the troops who are cowardly, and want to go home, may go; and twenty-two thousand of them scampered away, leaving only ten thousand men.

But God says the army is too large yet; and so He orders these ten thousand remaining to march down through a stream, and commands Gideon to notice in what manner these men drink of the water as they pass through it. If they get down on all-fours and drink, then they are to be pronounced lazy and incompetent for the campaign; but if, in passing through the stream, they scoop up the water in the palm of the hand and drink, and pass on, they are to be the men selected for the battle.

Well, the ten thousand men march down into the stream, and the most of them come down on all-fours, and plunge their mouths, like a horse or an ox, into the water and drink; but there are three hundred men who, instead of stooping, just dip the palm of their hands in the water and bring it to their lips--“lapping as the dog lappeth.”

Those three hundred brisk, rapid and enthusiastic men are chosen for the campaign. They are each to take a trumpet in the right hand and a pitcher in the left hand, and a lamp inside the pitcher; and then at a given signal they are to blow the trumpets, throw down the pitchers and hold up the lamps. So it was done.

It is night. I see a great host of Midianites, sound asleep in the valley of Jezreel.

Gideon comes up with his three hundred picked men, and when every thing is ready the signal is given, and they blow the trumpets, throw down the pitchers and hold up the lamps.

The great host of Midianites, waking out of a sound sleep, take the crash of the crockery and the glare of the lamps for the coming on of an overwhelming foe; and they run, and cut themselves to pieces, and most horribly perish.