The Globe-republican., 1894-08-17

ono what perfect frightr' say i've
hundred. For the most merciless crit
les in the world are fashion critics.
Men and women with souls to be saved
passing the hour in wondering where
that man got his cravat. or what store
that woman patronizes. In many OF
our churches the preliminary exercises
are taksl up with the discussion Of
wardrobes. 1t is pitiable. Is it not
wonderful that the Lord does not strike
the meeting houses with lightning at
that distraction of public worship!
Dying men and women, whose bodies
are soon to be turned into dust. yet be-
fore three worlds strutting like pea
cocks, the awful question of the souls
destiny submerged by the question Of
navy-blue velvet and long fan-trained
skirt, long enough to drag up the
church aisle, the husbands store. of
fee, shop, factory, fortune. and the
admiration of half the people in the
building. Men and women come late
to church to show their clothes. PeO-
pie sitting down in the 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!
I adopt the Episcopalian prayer and
say: Good Lord, deliver us.''
Insatiate fashion also belittles the
intellect. Our minds are enlarged or
they are dwindled just in proportion to
the Importance of the subject on which
we constantly dwell. Can you imagine
anything more dwarfing to the human
intellect than the study of fashion? I
see men on the street who, judging
from their elaboration, l think must
have taken two hours to arrange
their apparel. After few years
of that kind of absorption, which
one of McAllister's magifying
glasses will be powerful enough to
make the mans character visible?
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 God before me-" 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 fashion.
Heaven is for meek and quiet spirits.
Heaven is for those who think more of
their souls than of their bodies. Heaven
is for those who have more joy in
Christian charity than in dry goods
religion. Why. if you with your
idolatry of fashion should somehow
get into Heaven. you would be for put,
ting French roof on the house OF
many mansions" Give up this idol
airy 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 1900 children of the street at
Faneuil hall on New Years day, Civ
ing out as a sort of doxology at the end
of the meeting pair of shoes to each
one of them; or those Decreases of m cd.
ern society who have consecrated
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
fashion. The rivalries and competi.
tions of such life are stupendous
wretchedness. You will always find
some one with brighter array and with
more palatial residence. and with Law
ender 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. 1 have
seen men and women of fashion
die, and l never saw one of
them die we'll. The trappings
off, there they lay on the tumbled
pillow, and there were just two things
that bothered them-a wasted life and
a coming eternity. l could not pacify
them, for their body. mind and soul had
been exhausted i'll the worship of fash
ion, and they could not appreciate the
gospel. When l knelt by their bed
side they were mumbling out their re-
grets and saying: ''Oh God! o God!"
Their garments hung in the wardrobe,
never again to be seen by them. With
out any exception. so far as my men,
DRY serves me, they die without hope,
and went into eternity unprepared.
The most ghastlg death-beds on
earth are, the one where a man dies of
delirium tremens. and the other where
a woman dies after having sacrificed
all her faculties of body. mind and
soul in the worship of fashion. My
friends. we must appear in Judgment
to answer for what we have worn on
our bodies as we'll as for what repent.
ances we have exercised with our
souls. On that day 1 see coming
in, Beau Brummel of the last
century, without his cloak, like
which all England got cloak;
and without his cane, like which all
England got cane: without a snuff
box, he, the TOP of ages, particular
about everything but his morals; and
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