The Bossier banner., 1894-09-20
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
Fashion Claims as Many Masculine
as Feminine Victims.
Bsleful Influences of Inordinate Love OF
Dress-The Incentive to Fraud, the
Distraction of Public Worship
and the Ruin of the Soul.

his reading congregation this week.
The subject is: 'The Tragedy of Dress"
being based on the text:
Whose adorning let it not be that outward
adorning of plating his hair, and of wearing
of gold, or of putting on of apparel but let 1t
be the hidden man of the heart-Peter iii, 3-4.
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
a tree but He garlanded it with bios
SONS, or a sky but He studded it with
stars, or allowed even the smoke of a
| furnace to ascend but He columned and
| turreted and domed and scrolled it into
outlines of indescribable gracefulness.
| When l see the apple orchards of the
spring and the pageantry of the au-
tumnal forests, l come to the con-
clusion that if nature ever does
| join the church, while she may be a
Quaker in the silence of her wor-
ship, she will never be Quaker in
the style of her dress. Why the
notches of a fern leaf, or the stamen of
a water lily? Why, when the aday de-
parts, does it let the folding doors of
Heaven stay open so long, when it
might go in so quickly? One summer
morning | saw an army of one million
spears, each adorned with a diamond
of the first water-I mean the grass
with the dew on it. When the prodi-
gal came home his father not only put
coat on his back, but jewelry on his
hand Christ wore beard. Paul, the
bachelor apostle, not afflicted with any
sentimentality, admired the arrange
ment of a woman's hair when he said,
in his epistle, eff a woman have
long hair it is glory unto
her" There will be a fashion in
Heaven as on earth, but it will be a
different kind of fashion. 1t will de-
eide the color of the dress; and the pop
ulation of that country, by beautiful
law, will wear white. 1 say these
things as background to my sermon
to show you that l have no prim, pre-
else, prudish or cast-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 timbr els we are expected to fall
down and worship. The Old and New
Testament of her Bible are the fashion
plates. Her affairs smoke with the sac
rifice of the bodies, minds and souls o:
ten thousand victims. In her temple
four people stand in the organ
loft, and from them there comes
down cold drizzle of music
freezing on the ears of her worshipers
This goddess of fashion has become
: rival of the Lord of Heaven and earth
and it is high time that we unlimbereC
our batteries against the idolatry
When | come to count the victims o
fashion, l find as many masculine a
feminine Men make an easy TRAD
against woman, as though she wer
the chief worshiper at this idolatrou
! shrine, and no doubt some men in tn
most conspicuous part of the pew hav
, already cast glances at the more re
> tired part of the pew, their look
prophecy of a generous distribution
: My sermon shall be as appropriate fo
e one end of the pew as for the other.
Men are as much the idolators {
= fashion as women, but they sacrafic
on different part of the altar. Wit
men the fashion goes to cigars an
8 club rooms and yachting parties an
), wine suppers. In the United State
:, the men chew up and smoke one hun
dred million dollars worth of tobacc
every year. That is their fashion. ]
London, not long ago. man died wh
/ started in life with seven hundred an
fifty thousand dollars, but he ate it a
. up in gluttonies, sending his agents
all parts of the earth for some raj
: delicacy for the palate, sometimes OF
, plate of food costing him three hui
Il dred or four hundred dollars. He a
Il up his whole fortune and had only OF
:! guinea left; with that he bought
u !. woodcock, and had it dressed in the vel
q best style, ate it, gave two hours f
c digestion, then walked out on Yves
& minister bridge and threw himself in
e the Thames, and died, doing on a lar!
scale what you and | have often SCI
done on small scale. But men do n
~ abstain from millinery and elaborate
- of skirt through any superiority of h
- mility. 1t is only because such a
pendages would be blockade to bu
y ness. What would sasher a
- trains three and half var
'o o long do in a stock? And yet m
= are the deciples of fashion jr
:. as much as women. Some
- them wear boots so tight they C
- hardly walk in the paths of righteol
- ness And there are men who buy {
pensive suits of clothes and never
for them, and who go through t
streets in great stripes of color Ii
,e animated checker-boards. / say the
r things because I want to show
~ that / am impartial in my diseour
r. and that both sexes, in the langua
AZ of the surrogate's Office, shall ''shs
ye and share alike.n AS God may h
ne, ! shall show you what are the