A homely, unromantic, dull, unattractive life, you say; good, but uninteresting. So, perhaps, the neighbours said. So we all go on thinking and saying, while the angels laugh at our folly. As if God did not often conceal under the hardest, coarsest shells and husks the silkiest of downy lining and the very sweetest of fruit-kernels. Yes, outside it looked a stripped, bare, monotonous life. But within there was a whole world of beauty and pathos. God knew the tender thoughts of the dead; the rising of old cravings that woke and called once more for buried loves; the silent, speechless prayers in lonely eventides. He knew of memories that were tears to her, but turned to warmth and cheer for others; of very kindly thoughts and gentle love woven and sown into those garments. No, the neighbours did not see all this. But God's eyes looked, and saw a very garden of the Lord for beauty and fragrance. I know it must have been so, from the love her way of doing kindness won. Merely to do good is not enough to get love; one must be good. It is wonderful how some people do endless good, and yet none cares for them. Dorcas was not a machine, actively good because actively wound up. People do not weep such tears as fell when she died for the loss of a sewing-machine, useful though such might be, and working for nothing. Nor was she a woman with a mission, bustling, important, loud-voiced; useful and needed such may be, respected, but not quite loved. Nor was she a lady patroness, looking down on those upon whom she showered her benefits. Those who work like Dorcas do not work of mechanical duty, nor for fuss of fame, nor for thanks. It is but little likely that thanks were given her. People would say, "She has nothing else to do;" "She has no family to look after;" "She has plenty of time on her hands;" "It's almost a kindness to take her sewing;" "She had sooner work than not." Exactly, that was it. She was nothing more than a kindly, humble-hearted, womanly soul, that feared God and loved men, and did good in solid ways; one whose life made other women glad that she was born. What more would you have her be? Are you sure you understand what that was?