Connecticut western news., 1894-08-09
THE lDOLOF FASHION
REV, OR, TALMAGE DEPICTS THE
 TRAGEDY OF DRESS.

come . Rival of the Lord of Heaven and
 EArsh-An Eloquent Discourse on the
 Evtls of Dress.
 BROOKLYN, Aug. 5.-Rev. Dr. Tal- mage, who is now in Melbourne on his round the world tovr, has chosen as the subject of his sesmon today thxough the press 1.-The Tragedy of Dress, the text selected being Peter iii, 8, 4, ''Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plating the hair and the wearing of gold or of putting on of ap- parel, but let it be the hidden man of the heart
 That we should all be clad is proved by the opening of the first wardrobe in paradise. with its apparel of dark green. That We should all, as far as our means allow us, be beautifully and gracefully appareled is proved by the fact that God never made a wave but he gilded it with golden sunbeams, or tree but he gar landed 1t with blossoms or sky but he studded it with stars, or allowed even the smoke of furnace to ascend but he cofumned and turreted and domed and scrolled it into outlines of indescribable gracefalness. When see the apple or chards of the spring and the pageantry of the autulnnal forests, I come to the conclusion that, if nature does ever join the church, while she may be Quaker in the silence of her worship, she never will be Quaker in the style of her dress. Why the notches of fern leaf or the stamen of water lily? Why, when the day departs, does it let the folding doors of heaven stay open so long when it might go in so quickly?
 One summer morning 1 saw an army of 8 million spears, each one adorned with 8 diamond of the first water-I mean the grass, with the dew on it. When the prodigal came home, his fa- ther not only put coat on his back, but jewelry on his hand. Christ wore a beard Paul, the bachelor apostle, not afflicted with any sentimentality, ad mired the arrangement of a woman's hair when he said in his epistle, If a woman have long hair, it is glory un to her."
 There will be fashion in heaven as on earth, but it will be a different kind of fashion. It will decide the color of the dress, and the population of that country, by beautiful law, will wear white. I say these things as back ground to my sermon to show you that have no prim, precise, prudish or cest iron theories on the subject of human apparel But the goddess of fashion has set up her throne in this world, and at the sound of the timbrels we are all ex- pected to fall down and worship. The Old and New Testament of her Bible are the fashion plates. Her altars' smoke with the sacrifice of tho bodieA minds temple four people stand in the organ loft, and from them there comes down a cold drizzle of music, freezing on the ears of her worshipers This goddess of fashion has become Q rival of the Lord of heaven and earth, and it is high time that we unlimbered our batteries against this idolatry. When come to count the victims of fashion, find as many masculine as feminine. Men make an easy tirade against woman, as though she were the chief worshiper at this idolatrous shrine, and no doubt some men in the more conspicuous part of the pew have already cast glances at the more retired part of the pew. their look 8 prophecy of a generous distribution. My sermon shall be as appropriate for one end of the pew as for the other
 Men are as much the idolators of fash ion as women, but they sacrifice on Q different part of tho altar. With men the fashion goes to cigars and clubrooms and yachting parties and wine suppers. In the United States the men chew up and smoke $1O0, 900, 900 worth of to- baoco every year. That Is their fashion. In London not long ago man died who started in life with $7 90, 900, but he ate it all up in glnttonies, sending his agents to all parts of the earth for some rare delicacy for the palate, sometimes one plate of food costing him $500 or $4OO. He ate up his whole fortune and had only guinea left With that he bought woodcook and had it dressed in the very best style, ate it, gave two hours for digestion, then walked out on Westmipster bridge and threw himself into the Thames and died, doing on a large scale what you and have often seen done on & small scale. But men do not abstain from millinery and elabora- tion of skirt through any superiority of humility. It is only because such ap- pendages would be blockade to busi- ness. What would sashes and trains Laa ] yards long do in stock market? And yet men are the disciples of fashion just as much as women. Some of them wear boots 90 tight they can hardly walk in the paths of righteousness. And there are men who buy expensive suits of clothes and never pay for them, and who go through the streets ill great stripes of color like animated checker boards. I say these things because l want to show you that am impartial in my discourse, and that both sexes, in the language of the surrogate s office, shall ''share and share alike" As God may help me, shall show you what are the destroying and deathful influences of inordinate fashion.
 The first baleful influence I notice is in fraud, illimitable and ghastly. Dc you know that Arnold of the Revolu. tion proposed to sell his country in or der to get money to support his wife's wardrobe? declare here before God and this people that the effort to keeI up expensive establishments in this country is sending more business men to temporal perdition than all other causes combined. What was it that sent Gilman to the penitentiary, and Phila delphia Morton to thewatering of stocks, and the life insurance presidents to per. jured statements about their assets, and has completely upset our American finances? What was it that overthrow
 the United States secretary at Washing
 ton, the crash of whose fall shook tn
 continent? But why should go to thes
 famous defaultings to show what mel
 will do in order to keep up great hom
 style and expensive wardrobe when yo
 and know scores of men who are pu