St. Landry democrat., 1886-02-27

see who will come out first. Men and
women with souls to be saved passing the
hour in wondering where that man got his
cravat, or what store that woman patron
ICES. In many of our churches the prelm-
mary exercises are taken up with the dis
cussion of wardrobes. It is pitiable. Is it
not wonderful that the Lord does not
strike the meeting houses with lightning?
What distraction of public worship. Dying
men and women, whose bodies are soon to
be turned into dust, yet before three worlds
strutting like peacocks. People sitting
down in pew or taking up hymn book,
all absorbed at the same time in personal
array, to sing:
Rise, my SOUL and stretch thy wings,
Thy better portion trace;
Rise from transitory things,
Toward Heaven. thy native placel
adopt the Episcopalian prayer and say:
"Good Lord, deliver us!'
Extravagant costume belittles the INTEL
lect. Our minds are enlarged or they
windle just in proportion to the import
lance of the subject on which we constant
ly dwell. Can you imagine anything more
dwarfng to the human intellect than the
study of dress? I see men on the street
who, judging from their elaboration,
think must have taken two hours to arr
range their apparel. After few years of
that kind of absorption, which one of Nc
Allister's magnifying glasses will be
powerful enough to make the mans char
acter visible? What will be left of
woman's intellect after giving years and
years to the discussion of such questions?
They all land in idiocy. l have seen men
at the summer watering places through
fashion the mere wreck of what they once
were. Sallow of cheek, meager of limb,
hollow at the chest. Showing no anima-
ton save in rushing across room to pick
up lady's fan. Simpering along the corr
ridors the same compliments they SIM
pered twenty years ago.
Yet, my friends, have given you only
the milder phase of this evil. 1t shuts
great multitude out Of Heaven. The first
peal of thunder that shook Sinai declared,
"Thou shalt have no other gods before
me-" and you will have to choose between
the goddess of fashion and the Christian
God. There are a great many seats in
Heaven, and they are all easy seats, but
not one seat for the devotee of costume.
Heaven is for meek and quiet spirits
Heaven is for those who thin1- more OF
their souls than of their bodies. Why il
you, with your idolatry of costume, should
somehow get into Heaven, you would be
for putting French roof on the ''house OF
many mansions" and you would be for in-
Producing the patterns of Butte,1ck's Quar-
ter1y Delineator.
Give up this idolatry of fashion or give
up Heaven. What would you do standing
beside the Countess of Huntington, whose
joy it was to build chapels for the
poor, Or with that Christian woman
of Boston, who fed fifteen hundred chill
dren of the street, at Fanueil Hall, one New
Years Day, giving out as sort of doxolo.
gy at the end of the meeting, a pair
of shoes to each one of them; or those Dor
cases of modern society who have conse.
Grated their needles to the Lord, and who
will get eternal reward for every stitch |
they take? Oh, men and women, give up
the idolatry of costume. The rivalries and
the competitions of such life are a stu.
pendous wretchedness. You will always
find some one with brighter array and
with more palatial residence and with
lavender kid gloves that make tighter fit.
And if you buy this thing and wear it you
will wish you had bought something else
and worn it. And the frets of such a life
will bring the crows feet to your temples
before they are due, and when you come
to die you will have miserable time.
My friends, we must appear in Judgment
to answer for what we have worn on
oH for hot nfo |
we have excised with our souls. On that
day see coming in Beau Brummel of the
last century, without his cloak, like which
all England got a cloak; and without his
cane, like which all England got a cane;
without his snuff box, like which all En-
gland got a snuff box-he, the fop of the
ages, particular about everything but
out the letters that down to old age he
showed in pride, to prove his early
wicked gallantries; and Absalom without
ais hair; and March ioness Pompadour
without her titles; and Mrs. Arnold, the
belle of Wall street, when that was the
center OF fashion, without her fripperies
IF vesture.
And in great haggardness they shall go
away into eternal expatriation; while
among the queens of Heavenly society
will be found Vashti, who wore the mod
,st veil before the palatial bacchanalians;
ind Hannah, who annually made little
,oat for Samuel at the temple; and Grand
mother Lois, the ancestress of Timothy,
Who initiated her virtue; and Mary, who
rave Jesus Christ to the world; and
many of you, the wives and mothers and
listers and daughters Of the present
christian Church who, through great
are entering. into the kingdom
# God. Christ announced who would
make up the royal family of heaven, when
le said:
Whosoever doeth the will of God, the
anne lie my brother, my sister, my mother.