Morning journal and courier., 1881-08-26

They were OOJ0cbS OI Cu11OBlGY ana SOmG- times Of public ridicule. About 1850 some young gentlemen of Independent means be- gan to wear mustaches. No clerk was per- mitted to initiate them. In the latter part of 1850 case was referred to us where sales man in Q dry goods commission house, then loeated in Pine street, had been engaged ;at 2 certain salary Sfor twelve months, or within that time during good behavior" and his employer insisted that wearing the whole beard Ca fashion the young man had just adopted) was violation of the agreement, and gave him the right to discharge the of fender. The merchant protested that it was great damage to his trade to have such 8 clerk in his store, and that it was not good behavior ito exhibit such heathenish face"
 However childish and trifing such dis cussion may now seem, 1t was then real controversy. and we only settled the dispute by vindicating the young man as a question of right, but inducing him to shave his upper lip as concession to the popular prejudice. About the same date number of leading merchants in our city, by sort of concerted action, gave notice to all in their service that no one would be employed by them who at
 tempted this growth of hair beneath bis nose. In the office of this paper the senior (now sleeping with his fathers) required his cash fer as late as 1851 to shave the incipient mustache (somewhat of a tawny hue we re- member) he had begun to grow, on the pen alty of immediate dismission i; and his own son was made at the same date to submit to the tonsorial razor. Banks, insurance com panies and other similar corporations made similar rules regarding those in their service.
 In the church the prejudice against the new fashion was stronger than in mercantile circles and the dispute even fercer, all of the older laity being intolerant of the inno- vation. The clergy, for wonder, were more lenient than the seniors of their flock. Perhaps they recalled the time, only few
 hofo cid rvhi hQA
 been prohibited in the pulpit, and therefore had less sympathy with this form of intoler- ance -.-...-.- -.-.-.4
 We remember special scene in the church
 on the Heights, Brooklyn, whose pastor was
 the Rev. Dr Bethune. A gentleman who
 was an elder in the church had been afflicted
 with a lame wrist, which had kept him from
 both his pen and the use of razor. Dlslk.
 ing to submit to barber, he had allowed his
 whole beard to grow for few weeks, and finding increasing comfort therefrom was ac-
 tually wearing the prescribed mustache, be-
 ing the only member of that communion who
 thus far dared the public censure in th1s re- spect.
 The offense become apparent from the presence of the offender in the elders pew. Some of the brethren waited upon Dr. Be-
 thune to enlist his aid in the effort to suppress this rebellion against the prevalent rules of Christian propriety To their surprise the
  departure. He led the applicants to his we'll stored library, and showed them how elo- quently many of the early fathers of the church had pleaded against the habit of shaw ing or marring the beard. He turned to Lactantius, Theodoret, St. Augustine and St. Cyprian, who had stoutly contended for the growth of the whole beard. He quoted from Clement of Alexandria the assertion that "Nature adorned men like lion, with a beard, as the mark of strength and power" When one of the visitors asked him how he would like it if the clergy assumed the mus tache, Dr. Bethune referred him to decision of the Fourth Council of Carthage GA. D. 252, can. 44), in which it was positively en- acted that a cleric shall not shave his beard, and to statement made by Luther in dis cussing this subject, that "all the Protestant martyrs were burned in their full boards. sss 7s
 At a subsequent date few of the elder la- dies of the church gathered around the doe tor and the elder in question at the close of a
 service, determined to put down the innova-
 tion. The good ladies piled their pastor with every possible argument against the wearing of hair on the upper lip. To all this Dr.
 Bethune answered that he thought if the Lord had not designed it to grow there the lip of man would have been as smooth as
 that of woman. "But imagine" said one old lady, "a Chalmers or Newton with such an unsightly growth" The doctor gently answered ''When you come to example, my dear woman, imagine St Paul or our Savior without it, if you canl p
 For several months the elder was the only member of the church who appeared in the sanctuary with full beard. The first to fol low his example in that ecclesiastical connec- tion was the late Livingston K. Miller, then a rising young lawyer, and newly-elected deacon in that communion. In few months more the usage was common, and the opposi- tion to if so weak as to be of little account. After a few years the clergy of the various denominations adopted it, and now the wear ing of the whole beard is made mere ques- tion of taste or convenience.
 Not few of our young friends, some of whom may have been struggling for many years to raise 8 respectable growth of hair on the upper lip, will wonder that there should have been strong prejudice against the usage, and that, too, at such 8 comparatively recent date. We are speaking however, only of that which is within our own knowledge. The elder who led the fashion in his church has never applied 8 razor to his face since the day when his incipient mustache drew upon
 him such a host of censorious eyes. His beard is now somewhat silvered with the
 frosts of thirty succeeding winters, but he
 believes that the growth thus cherished has
 added not little to his health and comfort.
 A face and head well protected with hair is as much cooler in the midsummer heats for
 this covering as it is warmer in the bleak
 winds of northern winter. The hair is 8 shield alike against heat and cold, and we rest with Dr. Bethune in the creed that na- ture's design in this peculiar growth is both wise and benefcent.