The germ of those associations of women, which are one of the glories of Christianity, thus existed in the first churches of Judea. At Jaffa commenced that series of the veiled women, clothed in linen, who were destined to continue through centuries the tradition of charitable acts. Tabitha was the mother of a family which will have no end as long as there are miseries to be solaced and good feminine instincts to assuage them. It is related further on, that Peter raised her from the dead. Alas! death, utterly senseless, utterly revolting as it is in such a case, is inflexible. When the most exquisite soul has evaporated, the decree is irrevocable; the most excellent woman can no more respond to the invitation of the friendly voices which would fain recall her, than can the vulgar and frivolous. But ideas are not subject to the conditions of matter. Virtue and goodness escape the fangs of death. Tabitha had no need to be resuscitated. For the sake of three or four days more of this sad life, why disturb her sweet and eternal repose? Let her sleep in peace; the day of the just will come! In these very mixed cities, the problem of the admission of pagans to baptism was propounded with much urgency. Peter was strongly preöccupied with it. One day while he was praying at Joppa, on the terrace of the tanner's house, having before him this sea that was soon going to bear the new faith to all the empire, he had a prophetic ecstasy. Plunged into a state of dreamy reverie, he thought he experienced a sensation of hunger, and asked for something to eat. Now while they were making it ready for him, he saw the heavens opened, and a cloth tied at the four corners come down thence. Looking inside the cloth he saw there all sorts of animals, and thought he heard a voice saying to him: "Kill and eat." And on his objecting that many of these animals were impure, he was answered: "Call not that unclean which God has cleansed." This, as it appears, was repeated three times. Peter was persuaded that these animals represented the mass of the Gentiles, which God Himself had just rendered fit for the holy communion of the kingdom of God.[11.22]