However we may forget or disregard it, the fact still remains, that every departure from strict truth, no matter under what soft name it may hide itself, leaves a stain upon the soul which nothing but the blood of Christ can wash away. In the long list of "idle words" for which men "must give account in the day of judgment," who can doubt that false words are among the most injurious and offensive in the sight of God?

"Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord; but they that deal truly are his delight.' "The lips of truth shall be established for ever; but the lying tongue is but for a moment."

Words are the clothing we give to thought, and not one of the foolish and untrue words uttered at random is ever lost. They all live in the book of God's remembrance, and unless blotted out by repentance and faith in the Saviour, will confront us before an assembled universe, to our everlasting shame and condemnation.

Some historians assign to it a date anterior to the deluge; but certain it is that its antiquity extends back to the very dawn of history. The town is built on a high ridge or

promontory, from which a ledge of rocks extending out into the sea forms a harbor, which, though small and insecure, gives to Joppa the dignity of a seaport, almost the only one now found on the coast of Palestine. The materials of which the temple was built were brought hither from Tyre and Lebanon, and the foreign commerce of the early Jews was carried on through this port.

It was to Joppa that the prophet Jonah went to embark when he fled from the presence of the Lord to Tarshish. It was there too that Simon Peter once lodged in the house of Simon the tanner; and the residence of this obscure fisherman has given the place an interest with which the visit of the greatest emperor on earth could never have invested it.

Besides this, Joppa is dear to the Christian heart, from having been the home of a noble woman, called in the Scriptures Tabitha, or Dorcas the one a Syriac, the other a Greek word, signifying a "gazelle or antelope," a name probably given to females on account of the beauty and gentleness of the animal thus designated. Of the rank or station of this

woman we are ignorant. We only know that, like her divine Master, she spent her life in doing good-a record more honorable than that which marks the existence of a Semiramis, a Cleopatra, or a Zenobia.

It was a few years only after the resurrection and ascension of our blessed Lord, when all Joppa was ringing with the sad news of the death of Dorcas, the friend and benefactress of the poor and needy throughout the city.

There lay the lifeless body, with a smile on the sweet face, looking as if it came right from heaven; and around it were crowds of women and children, weeping and lamenting their loss, and no one to speak a word of comfort to the poor creatures, for all needed consolation themselves.

That same day messengers were sent to Lydda, a neighboring city, where the apostle Peter was then laboring; and on the following morning they returned, accompanied by the apostle. The body of Dorcas had been prepared for interment by loving hands, and laid in an upper room, set apart in all the houses of the higher classes for that and similar pur

poses; and the apartment was filled with the friends and neighbors of the deceased, recounting her goodness and lamenting their bereavement. As the apostle entered the room, his calm voice rose above the wailing: "What is it ye do, my friends, and wherefore mourn ye thus over the death of the righteous, as if there were in it no hope?"

"Sir," we may hear them reply, "it is not only our own loss that we lament, though Dorcas was a nursing mother to the little band of believers here; but in her the poor and destitute mourn the loss of a benefactress whose life was spent in doing them good. These coats and garments, some of which are still unfinished, were the latest work of those kind hands that now for the first time rest from their labors; and these weeping mourners could tell how she has denied herself rest and ease, that she might help and comfort them. She was a burning and shining light, and we cannot but lament the untimely removal of so great a blessing. God only knows what that blessed child of his who lies lifeless there hath been to us."