Another and a pleasing peculiarity in the benevolence of Dorcas, is, that, so far as appears from her brief history, her benefactions were _personally bestowed_. She is represented as _making_ the garments given to the poor widows herself; and doubtless to ascertain what they wanted, and the proportion of their respective necessities, she was in the habit of visiting their habitations, for the purposes of inquiry and inspection. These visits, besides, would afford favourable opportunities for pious conversation. How often she wept over their sorrows--what words of peace and consolation she uttered--what salutary instructions she communicated--what fervent petitions she uttered, cannot indeed now be ascertained; but there is a book which has recorded them in imperishable characters, and a day approaching when they shall be disclosed and rewarded. "For we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad." It would be easy to specify many reasons why the charitable should _visit_ the poor. Independently of the inferiority of the impression which is produced on the mind by the mere recital of the sufferings of others, it is scarcely possible to obtain correct information respecting their actual and diversified necessities, without repairing to their cottages. The most faithful narrator will not deem it necessary or proper to enter into certain particulars, which the vigilant eye of sympathizing benevolence would at once discover, and the heart of pity must deeply feel. Owing to the different effects which the same distress produces on persons whose natural constitutions are dissimilar, it may often happen that the most afflicting part of their condition is overlooked; and the prompt assistance which would otherwise be afforded, is lost through some omission or unintentional misstatement. "To visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction," is no less represented by an apostle as constituting the best exemplification of "pure religion," than "to keep himself unspotted from the world;" and in the transactions of the final judgment, the supreme Arbiter is described as noticing with peculiar approbation, as even making the very determining point of his people's character and destiny, their _visiting_ the sick and those in a state of imprisonment, in order to supply them with the necessaries or comforts of existence.