Acts 9:40

But Peter put them all forth,— Herein the servant followed not only the path, but the very steps of his Lord, in dismissing all witnesses, that nothing might look like vain-glory, that nothing might interrupt the fervour of that address which he was to pour out before God. First, he bends his knees in prayer to the Lord of life; and knowing certainly by a divine impulse that his prayer was heard, he directs his voice with a divine efficacy to the dead: but who can fully conceive the surprize of Dorcas when thus called back again to life, or of her pious friends when they saw her alive! for their own sake, and the sake of the indigent and distressed, there was cause of rejoicing, and much more in the view of such a confirmation given to the gospel, and such a token of Christ's presence with his servants. Yet to herself it must have been matter of resignation and submission, rather than exultation, that she was called back to these scenes of vanity, which surely would have been scarce tolerable, had not a veil of oblivion been drawn over those glories which her separate spirit had enjoyed. But we please ourselves with the charitable and reasonable hope, that the remainder of her days were yet more zealously and vigorously spent in the service of her Saviour and her God; yielding herself to him as in a double sense alive from the dead. Thus would a richer treasure be laid up for her in heaven, and she would afterwards return to a far more exceeding weight of glory, than that from which so astonishing a Providence had for a short interval recalled her.