The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1908-01-05
you have always been a staunch friend of

you have always been a staunch friend of
your pastors.
In this day when ministers are too
often estimated from the commercial
standpoint, 1t is a blessed sight to find
our Lydias. The church of the Lord
Jesus Christ loses spiritual power when
she looks upon Gods ambassadors sim
ply from a mercenary standpoint, as
when man buys a house or a piece of
land. Thank God for the Philippian wo
man who extended the hospitality of her
home to tired Paul Thank God today for
the multitude of women who are SO true
to their churches and their pastors all
over the land. Are not the Lydias who
are spreading Gods tidngs, great
host?'
The Duties of Martha.
But there is still another name upon
that New England tombstone, "A Martha
to her guests We all know who Martha
was. We can all see her bustlng about
the kitchen. We see ner hot flushed
face and her anxious look. We hear her
mutter, "Oh, what shall | do with so
many guests coming to dinner and moth
ing yet prepared?" Because Christ re-
buked her for lacking lone thing we are
apt to forget how DESTROYS she was to put
all her friends at ease and make her
home a haven of rest for Jesus and his
around does she not remind you of your
Christian mother working in the old
home? Can you not see her striving to
put the friends of your fother and the
friends of her children at their ease and
to make the home haven of rest for all
the associates of her dear ones?
And then your mother was a Dorcas to
the poor. All, yes, you did not realize
how much she was doing for the poor
and the helpless until after she died!
When you turn to the ninth chapter of
Acts and read how, after Dorcas death,
the women gathered In the outer room
and began to show the garments she had
made and to tell about the many err
rands of mercy she had gone on 1t seems
as though Luke were writing about the
obsequies of your own mother. Your
mother was a plain woman and lived in
small sphere, some people might sup
pose, but no house would have been
large enough to hold that throng. And
the beautiful part of that gathering was
that not only the rich came, but the
poor we'll Those who attended your
mothers funeral were all mourners. They
did not come perfunctorily; they came be-
cause they wanted to come. Can you not
see those mourners now? Can you not see
that old man hobbling along on his cane
whom she had saved from going to the
poor house? And there was the aged wo-
man whom your mother persuaded to
take her daughter back home after that
scandal, and her daughter Is there by her
side. And there was the weeping wash
erwoman whose children she had so often
clothed. And there was that poor con-
sumptive girl, grateful for the delicacies
your mother gave her, who came from
her sick bed to look at the face of her
dear benefactor once more. Your father
sometimes used to get angry because
your mother did SO much for the poor.
He would say: Mother, 1t doesn't pay.
Stay home and let up on that extra
work" But at your mothers funeral your
father knew 1t did pay. For the first
time he and the children began TO catch
a glimpse of how much your mother had
done for others. Thank God that your
mother was Dorcas. Thank God that
the women who publish the tidngs of
great joy among the poor and the help
less and the suffering are a great host
Would you not like to be a Sarah to
your husband, Eunice to your children
a Lois to your grandchildren, a Lydia to
Gods ministers, Martha to your guests,
a Dorcas to the poor and an Anna to your
God! In other words would you not like
to expend your life in Christian service
for others, as your mother did, rather
than live a selfish, worldly life? Happi-
ness is not found in the frivolous life and
the trifles of the social world, where so
many think it is found.
Would you not thank God II some day