Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1886-07-30

princes and princesses of New York life.
Enter magnificent plate and equipags.
Enter everything splendid.
ACT v. ("Tinding up the scene). En-
Ter the assignee. Enter the sheriff. En-
ter the creditors. Enter Humiliation.
Enter the wrath of God. Enter tho 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 1 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
dresses? / will say it whether YOU for.
give me or not.
Again: e%xtravagant costume is the foe
of all Christian alms-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 ono cent he puts into
the poor box! A Christian woman at
the story of the H%ottentots crying copi.
Gus tears into a twenty-five dollar hand.
kerchief and then giving a two-cent piece
to the collection, thrusting it down under
the bills so people will not know but it
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 God 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 ore for God.
Again, ~extravagant costume is distrac.
ton to public worship. You know very
well 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 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 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 q pew or taking up a 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 place!
adopt the ~Episcopalian prayer and say:
"Good Lord, deliver us!"
Extrava CANT costume b~elittles the intel.
lect. Our minds are enlarged or they
dwindle just in proportion to the imports
tance of the subject on which we constants
ly dwell. Can yc- imagine anything more
dwarfing to the human intellect thar the
study Of dress? l see men on the street
who, Judging from their elaboration, I
hin must have taken two hours to ar
range their apparel. After a 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 a
woman's intellect after giving years and
years to the discussion of such questions?
They all land in idiocy. I 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 a room to pick
up a lady's fan. Simpering along the COR
ridors the same compliments they sim.
pered twenty years ago.
Yet, my friends, I have given you only
the milder phase of this evil. 1t shuts q
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 think more Of
their souls thar of their bodies. Why if
you, with your idolatry of costume, should
somehow get into Heaven, you would be
for putting a French roof on the "house of
many mansions" and you would be for in
Producing the patterns of Butte,ick's Quar-
terly 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:Hau, one New
Years Day, giving out as a 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 a life are a stu
pendous Indebtedness. You will always
find some one with brighter array and
with more palatial residence and with
lavender kid gloves that make a 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 nave a miserable time.
My friends, we must appear in judgment
to ans wer for what we have worn ON
our bodies as well as for what repentances
we lave excised with our souls. On that
A.