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But, alas! to whom should he intrust the task? She whose fingers would have revelled in it, Rachel the mother, was no more; her warm heart was cold, her busy fingers rested in the tomb. Would his sister, would Dinah execute the work? No; it was but too probable that she shared in the jealousy of her brothers. No matter. The father apportions the task to his handmaidens, and himself superintends the performance. With pleased eye he watches its progress, and with benignant smile he invests the happy and gratified child with the glowing raiment.

This elaborate piece of work, the offering of paternal affection to please a darling child, was probably the simple and somewhat clumsy original of those which were afterwards embroidered and subsequently woven in various colours, and which came to be regarded as garments of dignity and appropriated to royalty; as it is said of Tamar that "she had a garment of divers colours upon her: for with such robes were the king's daughters that were virgins apparelled." It is even now customary in India to dress a favourite or beautiful child in a coat of various colours tastefully sewed together; and it may not perhaps be very absurd to refer even to so ancient an origin as Joseph's coat of many colours the superstition now prevalent in some countries, which teaches that a child clothed in a garment of many colours is safe from the blasting of malicious tongues or the machinations of evil spirits.

In the Book of Samuel we read, "And Hannah his mother, made him a little coat." This seems a trivial incident enough, yet how interesting is the

scene which this simple mention conjures up! With all the earnest fervour of that separated race who hoped each one to be the honoured instrument of bringing a Saviour into the world, Hannah, then childless, prayed that this reproach might be taken from her. Her prayer was heard, her son was born; and in holy gratitude she reared him, not for wealth, for fame, for worldly honour, or even for her own domestic comfort,—but, from his birth, and before his birth she devoted him as the servant of the Most High. She indulged herself with his presence only till her maternal cares had fitted him for duty; and then, with a tearful eye it might be, and a faltering footstep, but an unflinching resolution, she devoted him to the altar of her God.

But never did his image leave her mind: never amid the fair scions which sprang up and bloomed around her hearth did her thoughts forsake her first-born; and yearly, when she went up to the Tabernacle with Elkanah her husband, did she take him "a little coat" which she had made. We may fancy her quiet happy thoughts when at this employment; we may fancy the eager earnest questionings of the little group by whom she was surrounded; the wondering about their absent brother; the anxious catechisings respecting his whereabouts; and, above all, the admiration of the new garment itself, and the earnest criticisms on it; especially if in form and fashion it should somewhat differ from their own. And then arrives the moment when the garment is committed to its envelope; and the mother, weeping to part from her little ones, yet longing to see her absent boy, receives their adieux

and their thousand reminiscences, and sets forth on

her journey.

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, in-wrought 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.

This "raiment" descended from father to son, as a chased goblet and a massy wrought urn does now; and was naturally and necessarily inventoried as a portion of the property. The practice of making presents of garments is still quite usual amongst the eastern nations; and to such an excess was it carried with regard to those who, from their calling or any other circumstance, were in public favour, that, so late as the ninth century, Bokteri, an illustrious poet of Cufah, had so many presents made him, that at his death he was found possessed of a hundred complete suits of clothes, two hundred shirts, and five hundred turbans.

Horace, speaking of Lucullus (who had pillaged Asia, and first introduced Asiatic refinements among the Romans), says that, some persons having waited on him to request the loan of a hundred suits out of his wardrobe for the Roman stage, he exclaimed-" A hundred suits! how is it possible for me to furnish such a number? However, I will look over them and send you what I have."-After some time he writes a note and tells them he had five thousand, to the whole or part of which they were welcome.

In all the eastern world formerly, and to a great

*Persia had great wardrobes, where there were always many hundred habits, sorted, ready for presents, and the intendant of the wardrobe sent them to those persons for whom they were designed by the sovereign; more than forty tailors were always employed in this service. In Turkey they do not attend so much to the richness as to the number of the dresses, giving more or fewer according to the dignity of the persons to whom they are presented, or the marks of favour the prince would confer on his guests.

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