Women -- Religious aspects -- Christianity; Women in the Bible
The Lord having restored Tabitha to life through the prayers of Peter,
the Apostle called to the saints and widows, and presented to them the
woman, who had been raised up by the power of God.
This great miracle, we are further told, produced an extraordinary
effect in Joppa, and was the occasion of many conversions. “Many,” Luke
says, “believed in the Lord.”
Doubtless, Tabitha, when she realized what the Lord had done for her,
for the remainder of her life, said:
“I shall go softly,” since I’ve found
The mighty arm that girds me round
Is gentle, as it’s sure and strong;
“I shall go softly” through the throng
And with compulsion calm and sweet
Lead sinners to the Saviour’s feet.
Tabitha, in her good works and alms-deeds, and in her garments that she
made, is not a fashion-plate, but a model for every Christian woman. We
may learn, in her life, the glorification of little things. She was not
rich, at least we are not told that she was, and yet how she glorified
her needle, until a whole city is moved to bitter weeping at her death.
Her needle brought her unsought fame. Little acts are the elements of
all true greatness. They test our disinterestedness. The heart comes
all out in them. It matters not so much what we have, as to what use we
put that which we have. A man who had made an immense fortune out of a
factory in which its builder had sunk $75,000 and failed, said, “I am
always here to watch the little things, to pick up a bunch of cotton,
to tighten a screw, to turn on a nut, to regulate a machine, to mend a
band, to oil a dry place, and so prevent breakages and stopping of the
work. These little wastes of material and machinery in time will eat up
the profits of any business. These little things I attend to myself. I
can hire men to attend the large things.”
This is the secret of success in every department of business and
walk of life. The principle is equally applicable to women’s work.
Perhaps no class of people ought to look after little things more than
the house-wife. Certainly every woman ought to know that careless
extravagance, and the little wastes in many ways, destroy the profits.
There are a thousand ways in which opportunities for good may be
wasted. Never wait for the evil to increase. “A stitch in time saves
nine,” saves a rent, and, under the well-trained eye of Tabitha, saved
a garment. Heavy doors turn on small hinges. Fortunes turn on pivots.
Look out for small things. They are the atoms, the trifles, that make
up the large things. A stitch is a small thing, but led by the needle
of Dorcas, the garments and coats multiplied.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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