The Brookhaven leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1883-1891, 1886-03-04

speare to arise and write the Tragedy VI
human clothes
ACT I. A plain but beautiful home. En-.
ter the newly married pair. Enter SIM
plicity of manner and behavior. Enter
as much happiness as 10 ever found in one
homes
ACT III. Discomfort with the humble
home. Enter Envy. Enter Jealousy. En-
ter desire Of display.
ACT III. Enlargement Of expenses. En-.
ter ali the queenly dressmakers' Enter
the French milliners.
ACT Nv. The tip-top Of society. Enter
princes and princesses of New York life'
Enter magnificent plate and equipage'
Enter everything Splendid
ACT V. (wihding up the scene). En'
tor the assignee. Enter the sheriff. En-
ter the creditors. Enter Humiliation.
Enter the wrath of God. Enter the con-
tempt of society. Enter death. Now let
the silk curtain drop on the stage. The
farce is ended and the lights are out.
Will you forgive me if I say in tersest
shape possible, that some of the men in
this country have to forge and to perJure
and to swindle to pay for their wives
dressesS / will say it whether you for
give me or not.
Again: extravagant costume is the foe
of all Christian aims giving. Men and
women put so much in personal display
that they often have nothing for God and
the cause of suffering humanity. A
Christian man cracking his palais royal
gloves across the back by shutting up his
hand to hide the one cent he puts into
the poor box! A Christian woman at
the story of the Hottentots crying copi-
Gus tears into twenty five dollar hand
kerchisf and then giving two-cent piece
to the collection, thrusting IL down under
the bills so people will not know but 1t
was a ten dollar gold piece. One hundred
dollars for incense to fashion-two cents
for God! God gives US ninety cents out of
every dollar. The other ten cents, by
command of his Bible, belong to him. Is
not G cd liberal according to this tithing
system laid down in the Old Testament
is not God liberal in giving us ninety cents
out of a dollar when he takes but ten. We
do not like that. We want to have ninety.
nine cents for ourselves and one for God.
Again, extravagant costume is diStrac-
ton to public worship. You know very
we'll there are a good many people who go
to church just as they go to the races, to
see who will come out first. Men ana
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 prelim-
mary exercises are taken up with the dis
cussion OF wardrobes. 1t 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, INV soul, and stretch thy wings,
Thy better portion trace;
Rise from transitory things,
Toward Heaven. thy native placei
I adopt the Episcopalian prayer and says
"Good Lord, deliver US!
Extravagant costume belittles the intel.
lect Our minds are enlarged or they
DIV indie just in proportion to the imports
lance of the subject on which we constant
" dwell. Can you imagine anything more
dwarfing to the human intellect than the
study of dress? l see men on the street
who, judging from their elaboration,
think must have taken two hours to mr.
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
al thd pdmmer watering places through
f. shion the mere wreck of what they onca
were. Sallow of cheek, meager of limb,
hollow at the chest. Showing no ANNA
ZION save in rushing across a room to pick
up lady's fan. Simpering along the corr
ridors the same compliments they sim.
pered twenty years ago.
Yet, my friends, l have given you only
the milder phase of this evil. 1t shuts a
great multitude out of Heaven. The first
zeal of thunder that shook Sinai declared,
Thou shalt have no other gods before
,,e," and you will have to choose between
the goddess of fashion and the Christian
God. There are 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 think more OF
their souls than of their bodies. Why II
you, with your idolatry of costume, should
somehow get into Heaven, you would bs
for putting French roof on the "house OF
many mansions" and you would be for in
Producing the patterns of Butterick's Quar-.
terly Delineator.
Give up this idolatry of fashion or give
up Heaven. What would you do standing
beside the Countess of Huntington, whosc
Joy it was to build chapels for ths
Door, 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'
CIV at the end of the meeting, 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. Therivalries and
the competitions of such life are stu.
pendous Indebtedness. 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 life
will bring the crows feet to your temples
before they are due, and when you come
to die you will have a miserable time.
My friends, we must appear in judgment
10 answer for what we have worn on
our bodies as well as for what repentances