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.”