Greater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 625. Dorcas

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Greater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 625. Dorcas

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Dorcas

Literature

Adeney, W. F., Women of the New Testament (1899), 209.

Austin, A. B., Linked Lives (1913), 181.

Dickinson, C. A., in Sermons by the Monday Club, 17th Ser. (1891), 318.

Elmslie, W. G., Memoir and Sermons (1890), 108.

Joynt, R. C., Bible Readings for Class and Home (1914), 71.

Lewis, Z. H., Petros, 229.

Luckock, H. M., Footprints of the Apostles as traced by Saint Luke in the Acts, i. (1905) 258.

Mackay, W. M., Bible Types of Modern Women (1912), 33.

Maclaren, A., Christ's Musts (1894), 179.

Maclaren, A., Expositions: The Acts of the Apostles i.-xii. (1907), 288.

Maclaren, A., Last Sheaves (1903), 231.

Milligan, G., in Women of the Bible: Rebekah to Priscilla (1904), 225.

Morrison, G. H., The Footsteps of the Flock (1904), 331.

Salmond, C. A., For Days of Youth (1896), 54.

Taylor, W. M., Peter the Apostle (1891), 244.

Williams, I., Female Characters of Holy Scripture (1890), 311.

Christian Age, xlii. (1892) 354 (A. H. Bradford).

Christian World Pulpit, viii. (1875) 211 (N. H. Axtell); xxxvi. (1889) 269 (T. C. Hill); lxxxiv. (1913) 334 (H. Jeffs).

Preacher's Magazine, xvi. (1905) 32 (C. O. Eldridge).

Preachers' Monthly, v. (1883) 252.

Dorcas

Now there was at Joppa a certain disciple named Tabitha, which by interpretation is called Dorcas: this woman was full of good works and almsdeeds which she did.- Act_9:36.

The Book of Acts holds a unique place in the Bible. It tells us what occurred immediately after Christ's accession to His throne, and in this history we see how He was to conduct His government in the world which He had redeemed by His death. There was at that time introduced into human affairs a new, Divine power, which was to work with tremendous effect in renovating the human race. This new force was to turn men from sin to righteousness. It is for this reason that the raising of Dorcas to life is of such vital importance in the sacred history. It is one of the seals of the new government, a witness to the power of the new King, whose greatest claim was that He held in His hands the issues of life and death.

The last words of George Fox (founder of the Society of Friends) were:

“All is well, all is well-the Seed of God reigns over all, and over death itself. Though I am weak in body, yet the power of God is over all, and the Seed reigns over all disorderly spirits.” A little later he said, and they were his last words, “Never heed; the Lord's power is over all weakness and death.”^{1 [Note: F. W. Marvin, The Last Words of Distinguished Men and Women, 101.]}I

1. The name “Dorcas,” so familiar to us through those very useful societies in our modern churches which bear it to-day, is only the Greek translation of the Aramaic “Tabitha,” which was the actual name of the woman disciple at Joppa whose story is narrated in the Acts of the Apostles. The Septuagint translates the Hebrew equivalent wherever it occurs in the Old Testament as a common noun meaning “gazelle” by the same Greek word. Still Dorcas is the familiar name to us of the Western Church, and with that name the story must always be associated. A Christian community had been formed in the busy seaport of Joppa, no doubt after the pattern of the Mother Church at Jerusalem. In both places St. James's ideal of “pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father “was aimed at, viz., “to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.” Mary the mother of Mark seems to have been a sort of patroness of the church at Jerusalem. At all events, the brethren used to meet for prayer at her house. Dorcas appears to have been a woman of good social position at Joppa; but her service was rendered in the old-fashioned forms of almsgiving and the work of her needle. She is the type of the homeliest, simplest, and yet most directly practical form of woman's work.

2. Not much is told about Dorcas personally, but what is told is of such a kind that we may conjecture more. Little things have a significance in combination. Thus we can fill in the meagre outline that is given us, till the picture grows into completeness.

When she first comes before us it is at Joppa, apparently a lonely woman, but whether maid or widow we are not told. And we can imagine how in her loneliness Dorcas might, like so many similarly situated, have grown hard and selfish, or have given way to mourning at the bitterness of her lot. But she did neither. She was a disciple, and longed to be of use. And her zeal found an outlet in the “good works” and “almsdeeds,” of which, as the sacred historian tells us, she was “full.”

My hastening life admonishes

My often-faltering soul to try

And yet perform some goodly work,

Ere, with the years, desires fly.

What, in a world where cries for help

Must ever sound till sin shall cease,

Can be a goodlier work than this,-

Griefs to assuage, and joys increase?

To fill with light some sunken eyes.

Where reason struggles with despair:

To bring sin's pallid prisoners forth

Into the free and wholesome air:

To cheer the oppressed with righteous words,

And aid them with a labouring arm:

The slaves of tyrant ignorance

To rescue, and then shield, from harm:

To offer cups of water pure

From rocky truth's cool, plenteous well,

To souls confused with feverish woes

Unspoken and unspeakable.

To set ablaze some signal-fire

Of zealous thought, till in affright

The careless slumberers start and rise,

And rally round the true and right.

Let me remeditate the truth,

That Christ did for and with us bleed,

Then, “He is good that doeth good,”

Shall be my dear and honoured creed.^{1 [Note: T. T. Lynch, The Rivulet, 11.]}II

1. The special charm of Dorcas's charities lies in the fact that she worked for the poor with her own hands. She is celebrated for her “good works” as well as for her “almsdeeds.” If the latter means her gifts, the former would point to her personal actions. Perhaps she remembered her Lord's commendation, “I was naked and ye clothed me,” and thought that, if it was true that in clothing the poor she clothed Christ, she would do it with no other hands than her own, for it might be that she would, in spirit at least, draw virtue from the hem of His garments while she made them.

Probably Dorcas had been a fine sewer as a girl; but in her girlish days it would be fancy work. The fancy work never became real work till the pity of Jesus touched her womanly heart. She was not a speaker; she never addressed meetings. I dare say she envied the ladies who could speak. But she learned that there was a service quite as good as that, and that was the service of a consecrated needle.^{1 [Note: G. H. Morrison, The Footsteps of the Flock, 333.]

2. Dorcas was “a woman of a loving heart.” It is said that “prosperity gains friends but adversity tries them.” It was not so with Dorcas. Adversity was to her the sole passport to friendship. The house of Dorcas was Joppa's “cave of Adullam.” Wherever need or sickness, poverty or death, were stretching out pale and piteous hands, there was always one hand ready to grasp them and lift them up. It was the hand of Dorcas. In the meeting, while the others were preaching and praying, Dorcas would be silent; but when the meeting was over you would have seen her in her little home busy late and early, working there coats and garments by which she clothed the widows and orphans of Joppa. Thus, without knowing it, she became a kind of pioneer in Christian work, and made herself famous in the Church as the founder of “Dorcas societies.”

Shall I tell you what I saw the other day? It made me laugh, and yet it made me sad. I saw, in one of your parks, a poor little ragged boy, who was evidently hungry, and who was anxious to appeal successfully to the pity of the public. He was met by a tall, lean, clean man, who set his long, bony fingers together stiffly and impressively, and lectured the child in very suitable language. I overheard him say, “This is not proper. You ought to have been at school; you should not be prowling about here in this way; there are places provided for such as you, and I earnestly advise you to get away from this course of life.” Every word he said was grammatically correct, and socially very true. As he was delivering his frosty lecture to the poor lad, there came a boy-a school-boy hastening to school-who was carrying a large lump of bread and butter in his hand, which he was eating as school-boys only can eat; and when he saw the poor ragged child, he pulled his bread and butter in two, put one-half into the boy's hand, and went on. “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.” That boy, who gave his bread and butter away, will stand a better chance than the ninety-nine legally upright, who apparently need no repentance!^{2 [Note: Joseph Parker.]

3. When Dorcas died, it was felt by the whole of Joppa that she had died too soon. Not until then did the Apostles of the Church know what a treasure they had had in her. When the box was broken the odour of the precious nard filled the house. It soon appeared that the lonely woman had won for herself a loving affection which could not have been surpassed had she been the mother of the whole community of the faithful. The widows she had relieved came together, each feeling that she had a property in the heart of their dead friend. They sent for Peter in their bereavement. They sang her praises. They exhibited her works. It is all a touching, impressive lesson of the abiding influence of a true heart.}}If I might guess, then guess I would

That, mid the gathered folk,

This gentle Dorcas one day stood,

And heard when Jesus spoke.

She saw the woven seamless coat-

Half envious, for His sake:

“Oh, happy hands,” she said, “that wrought

The honoured thing to make!”

Her eyes with longing tears grow dim:

She never can come nigh

To work one service poor for Him

For whom she glad would die!

But, hark, He speaks! Oh, precious word!

And she has heard indeed!

“When did we see Thee naked, Lord,

And clothed Thee in Thy need?”

The King shall answer, “Inasmuch

As to My brethren ye

Did it-even to the least of such-

Ye did it unto Me.”

Home, home she went, and plied the loom,

And Jesus' poor arrayed.

She died-they wept about the room,

And showed the coats she made.^{1 [Note: G. MacDonald, Poetical Works, i. 314.]}III

Probably the friends of Dorcas expected nothing more than Peter's sympathy and counsel. At the same time, they can hardly have failed to hear of the miracle he had just been enabled to work on the paralysed limbs of Æneas, and may consequently have nourished a secret hope that even for Dorcas some cure was possible. At any rate they sent for him, and the urgency of their need may be taken as excusing the urgency of their message: “Delay not to come on unto us.” Nor did Peter hesitate. At once he arose, and went to them.

1. There are close resemblances between the raising of Tabitha and the raising of Jairus' daughter. Peter had never forgotten that memorable hour, and now he could not follow his Lord too closely. Peter had been boastful and self-willed and impetuous once; he had loved to suggest and dictate and take the lead. But now, with all the past graven on his heart, his passion is to follow in Jesus' steps. Had Jesus put all the mourners from the room? Then Peter must be alone with Tabitha. Had Jesus taken the maiden by the hand, and given her back again to her rejoicing friends? Then Peter will present Tabitha alive. The one point of difference is this: Peter knelt down and prayed. In that one clause there lies the difference between the work of Jesus and that of His disciple. For the power of Peter was delegated power. It was Christ who was working, and to Christ he must cry. But Jesus was acting in His inherent sovereignty. In His own right He was Lord of life and death. He has the keys of death and of Hades.

In the physical system we owe everything to the sun. The earth is just a receiver of its light and heat, and by receiving and transmuting it has become what it is. All its power comes from above. And we expect to get more and more out of the sun by better uses of it. We hear of receivers in tropical countries which, by collecting and concentrating its rays, are being used as creators of mechanical energy. All the forces indeed that are stored in the earth are sun forces.^{1 [Note: J. Brierley, Faith's Certainties, 150.]

2. One of the most remarkable things about the Gospels is that so many women of whom we know little more than the names have had their names immortalized as the founders of departments of Christian service and Christian liberality inspired by their example. But we should do injustice to womankind in general, and to the women of the old Jewish Church in particular, if we took it for granted that the charities which blossomed in the life of such a saint as Dorcas were entirely new flowers of grace quite unknown to the world before the time of Christianity. We may be permitted to suppose that the model housewife Penelope, spinning among her women while her husband Ulysses is on his travels, would find some garment to spare for the poor swineherd's widow. Almsgiving, we know, was about the principal duty of the pious Jew in the time of our Lord. It takes a prominent place as a manifestation of righteousness in the so-called “Psalms of Solomon,” a Pharisaic work of the times just before the advent of Christianity.

Still, while we make full allowance for these facts, not in any degree attempting to minimize them in order to exalt Christianity, but rather honouring them most ungrudgingly, we may go on and observe how much the gospel of Jesus Christ deepens and quickens the motive for charity. If so much kindness is seen in the world and in Judaism, how much more should be found in the Church of which brotherly love growing out of the love of God in Christ is to be the characteristic note!

3. Dorcas in some quarters to-day may be regarded as an old-fashioned type of woman, and yet, surely, the noblest type of woman is the woman who is most womanly; and there is nothing more womanly than the exercise of those specific feminine gifts in the name, and for the sake, of Christ, for the help of those who are in deep need.

By the raising of Dorcas, 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.^{1 [Note: Professor W. G. Elmslie, D.D., 116.]}}When Dorcas worked to clothe the poor,

A neighbour or a friend

Sometimes came tapping at the door,

A little help to lend;

Then Dorcas said, “Come in, my dear;

All willing hands are welcome here.”

A friendly light was in her eyes,

And pity on her tongue,

Her words were mild as well as wise;

And round her room there hung

Nice things to make the children glad,

And warm ones for the old and sad.

And everybody in the town

Knew Dorcas, as she went,

In any weather, up and down,

On doing good intent;

And blest her for her cheerful face,

The kindest woman in the place.

But tender-hearted Dorcas died;

New tears the widows shed;

For, “Who such garments can provide,

Now she is gone?” they said;

Dorcas, who by the pleasant sea

Had spent her life so usefully.

She died: they bore her as was meet,

With many a heavy sigh,

A little further from the street

And nearer to the sky:

Now in a spacious upper room

She waits the low and narrow tomb.

“O Peter, can she live again?

This is a grievous day.”

Said he, “Submit, and not complain;

But I will kneel and pray:

‘Lord, on Thy sorrowing people smile;

Give Dorcas back a little while.' ”

She came: “But not for long,” she said;

“For God will others raise

Whose lovingkindness, in my stead,

His gracious name shall praise;

I heard a voice in Paradise

Say, ‘Lovingkindness never dies.' ”

And Dorcas in her daughters lives,

Industrious and kind;

For help her good example gives

To willing hand and mind.

Lord, in our hearts her spirit stir:

She followed Thee; we follow her.^{1 [Note: T. T. Lynch, The Rivulet, 164.]}