Again she treads the hallowed courts, again she meekly renews her vows, and again a mother's longings, a mother's hopes are quenched in the full enjoyment of a mother's love. Beautiful and good, the blessing of Heaven attending him, and throwing a beam of light on his fair brow, the pure and holy child appears like a seraph administering at that altar to which he had been consecrated a babe, and at which his ministry was sanctioned even by the voice of the Most High himself, when in the solemn stillness of midnight he breathed his wishes into the heart of the child, and made him, infant as he was, the medium of his communications to one grown hoary in the service of the altar. The solemn duties ended, Hannah invests her hopeful boy with the little coat, whilst her willing fingers lingeringly perform their office, as if loth to quit a task in which they so much delight. And then with meek step and grateful heart she wends her homeward way, and meditates tranquilly on the past interview, till the return of another year finds her again on her pilgrimage of love--the joyful bearer of another "little coat." And a high tribute is paid to needlework in the history of Dorcas, who was restored to life by the apostle St. Peter, by whom "all the widows stood weeping, and showing the coats and garments which Dorcas made while she was with them." "In these were read The monuments of Dorcas dead: These were thy acts, and thou shalt have These hung as honours o'er thy grave: And after us, distressed, Should fame be dumb, Thy very tomb Would cry out, Thou art blessed!" But it is not merely as an object of private and domestic utility that needlework is referred to in the Bible. It was applied early to the service of the Tabernacle, and the directions concerning it are very clear and specific; but before this time, and most probably as early as the time of Abraham, rich and valuable raiment of needlework was accounted of as part of the _bona fide_ property of a wealthy man. When the patriarch's steward sought Rebekah for the wife of Isaac, he "brought forth jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and _raiment_." This "raiment" consisted, in all likelihood, of garments embroidered with gold, the handiwork, it may be, of the female slaves of the patriarch; such garments being in very great esteem from the earliest ages, and being then, as now, a component portion of those presents or offerings without which one personage hardly thought of approaching another. Fashion in those days was not quite the chameleon-hued creature that she is at present; nor were the fabrics on which her fancy was displayed quite so light and airy: their gold _was_ gold--not silk covered with gilded silver; and consequently the raiment of those days, inwrought with slips of gold beaten thin and cut into spangles or strips, and sewed on in various patterns, sometimes intermingled with precious stones, would carry its own intrinsic value with it.