The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-05-01
BEECHER'S TALK.
No Miracles In These Days-The Saint of
the Needlewumen.


the Needlewumen.
Extracts from Prayer Meeting Talk.
1t is preposterous to look for miracles in
our days. There has been some reported of
late, and such as they are think they are very
much less impressive than any that were
wrought in antiquity. They are subject to
every degree of superstition, and whenever
you see anybody maintaining himself by
selling his spiritual knowledge at so much a
head, wherever the hand stretched out with
power is followed by the hat to take up a
collection, you have good reason to suspect
that the miracle, if it be one, is from the
lower world and not from the upper one.
Miracles, now that the whole machinery of
colleges, churches and schools is diffused
throughout the, land, are anachronisms Men
sometimes ask why we don't have miracles
now, as in the days of the apostles. They
might almost as well ask why we don't dress
as they did then, and why we don't have our
preachers walk around the country. All
these things took on their forms from the in
situations of the people at that time, but we
have swept on thousands of years, and the
power of the teachings of God adapts itself
to the wants OF all men and of all times. In
our time miracle, so far from being cor
roboration, is much more the ground of sus-
picion and of repusion.
| A word as to the woman Dorcas. Was she
maid, or woman, or wife2 1t is not told
| But all we know is that she was a needlewo-
Lldll, anu her name was DOTCaS. 1neTe was
| no evidence that she had tongue. She was
not speaker; she was not great counselor
There is no evidence that she reared fam
| lily, or held any such position as Deborah, or
the many heroic women of the Hebrew race
But her name has become none the less IA
NOUS She is Saint Dorcas, the saint of all
| needlewomen. Her name has become cele-
brated through all time. Her inscription Is
etched with the point of needle
| My dear friends, there are 1856 900 women in
! the city of New York who support themselves
| by services of one kind or another Two
| thirds of these support themselves by the
needle, By the power of this little glitter
ing instrument they support not only them
| selves, but their families, and with it alone
many of these women defend themselves
from the infections of vice and damnation
| They are paid oh, how wretchedyl Thirty
cents they get for making one dozen shirts!
Extravagant prices! Thus they struggle
along day after day. month after month and
| year after year, in poverty, and finally die in
wretchedness; yet everywhere they go as
ilustrious instances of heroic patience, faith,
courage endurance, victory, beneficence.
If We go in search of heroines, my friends
we need not look to the circles of refinement
and power. The truer heroines are in the
lower walks of life. When Christ comes to
make up his glorious kingdom, you and l
may not be there; we are in the upper places
now, and in that day the first shall be last.
and the last first. But there will be thou
sands of shining souls, brilliant in the luster
of their well-earned glory, whom on earth
men passed by as unworthy of their notice.