Cleveland morning leader. [volume] (Cleveland [Ohio]) 1854-1865, 1863-01-31

Is DH. HoLLKEDs LECTURE Brsinard's
Han EasfIled in every part last evening te
sshssrs DR.. Hollands lecture upon Fash
ion." He began by defining the differences
between public opinion and fashion. Public
opinion may condemn the shape Of bonnet
but fashion viii place it upon the head ofev-
cry woman in America; and keep 1t there
even though twas made Of thornS. Public
opinion is democratic, fashion Is sristoeratie.
Fashion assumes the rightto guide the void,
= and in some minds the greatest defeysnco is
paid to this bold assumption Of rdPerior1ty'
The Empress sf France cOnvUses the ribbon
market of the world by csfrice. Moustaches
wax and Wane as NsFoleon's moustaehe is
waxed, and gloves blush or turn pale at
whisper from the Tuelleries.
Fashion heldsin its hands the keys ofsocial
destiny. Fhst which she embraces is sacred,
thatwhieh she spurns is profane. We have
fashions5le churches, fashionable schools,
fsshioDable colleges, fashionable ministers,
fashionable hotels, fashionable streets and
: lli fashionable names of streets. There is no
department of social life in which Fashion
does not assert its controlling powers.
The speaker proceeded to notice fashiona-
Bile styles Of man and womanhood, fashiona-
bic literature, &c. He illustrated in what
way fashionable life differs from christian
Life. Democracy and practical christianity
are Rnalogous-BOth crown men with equal
rights. Whenever a Government is essen
:, tally christian, it is essentially democratic.
A fashionable style Of man or womanhoOd
does not make christianity one of the essen
tals.
The fashionable man is often mistaken for
the polite, o. gentle man. In fact he svery
much interested in being SO mistaken. The
fashionable man is often brute-a cringing
puppy to his superiOrs, and insolent to his in
feriors. The gentleman is mahogany the
fashionable man vaneering, and heaven pity
those who cannot detect the difference. The
fashionable man breads poverty and bows
low to the vulgar rich.
He spoke Of the morality Of fashionable
circles, which is only fashionable morality.
Fashion calls men whose actions spring from
motives Of duty, fanatics. GOdliness it
calls gloom the libertine, the man of the
} world; of the wealthy sot, it only says he
lives too fast; swindling an honest mechanic
is doing the tailor"
he drew a comparison between fashionable
man and womanhood and a christian man
and womanbOod. The one is exclusive the
4 other universal. One makes the world useful
to itself, the other endeavOrs to make itself
useful to the world one abounds in sell
fshness and envy, the other is self-saorifcing
and without Jealousy or hyPOcracy; one is
sdespot; the other democrat.
Ifths speaker was called upon to estimate
form Of social life, he would wish to know
what it worshipped and what it pursued. He
unveiled the fashionable sociallife of Ameri-
ca and exposed its eorruptiOns and defOrmity.
IF American fashionable life has no heredita-
ry titles and bOnOrs it is not because it does
not desire or worship them. It has its
ereeds, customs and con ventionslities. It's
code Of morals is more or less strict, according
to circumstances, yet it is not up to the
standard Of christianity. In fashionable life
money is that ample cloak of charity which
covers multitude of sins. Fashion lavishes
its caresses upon men who have acquired
wealth by frauds, by expressing thepOor, and
By other equally wicked means.
The fashionable society of the North has
long bowed down to and envied that class in
the South whose wealth is acquired through
enslaving their fellow men. With the excep-
tiOn of few corrupt politicians, there are no
rebel sympathizers in the North save what
may be found in fashionable society. The
fashionable society of Washington mourns
the absence of the IOrdly men who for years
past have made its laws.
There now sits in Washington a most un-
fashionable man. His hands are clean from
corruption, yet he is unfasbionable With an
army at his command such as was never seen
before, and navy that has rsvolutiOnized
the world, he is Questionable. The head of
nation Of thirty millions, he is still a most
unfashionable man. Men who owe it to his
clemency that they are notconfned in grated
cells or treated to hempen crayats, hold him
In supreme contempt, he is SO Questionable,
The speaker felt to thank God that our Pres
ident is not a fashionable man.
Although Fashion and Christianity are an
tagonistic, compromises are sometimes made
between them for the accommodation of
worldly people with tender eonsciences, and
Christian people with tough ones. He gave
numerous illustrations of the manner in
which such compromises are effected.
he spoke of the influence which fashiOna-
bls society has always exerted upon the ac-
ton of Congress. No unchristian or evil
measure has drawn its Shiny way through
Congress without the aid of fashionable So
.sisty.
He was smitten with wonder, he said, to
see how sensible men bow to the assumptions
Of fashions. It ignores christian virtues,
uprightness and personal Ioveliness. It
shuts out from its sympathy the good man
because he is poor, and pets the bad man be-
cause he is rich. Itdiscards the lovely young
woman because she works for n living, and
eherishes an ugly remnant of an ugly lam
lily because she lives upon her friends.
.e Henezt considered fashionable literature,
which received some scathing criticisms. he
referred to the fact that it is not fashionable
to write OF read christian book. Fashion
able writer's caricature christianity. He
did not complain because they TidicuIe chris
tian preteDders, but that so far as you can
find in their writings, they consider all chris
tianity mock. He alluded to the almost
entire absence of the religious element in
the writings of Dickens and Thacksry, the
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