The enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 188?-1899, 1894-08-08


love OF bonnet" says someone. what
perfect frightw says five hundred.
For the most merciless critics 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 wo-
man patronizes. In many OF our
churches the preliminary exercises are
taken up with the discussion Of ward
robes 1t is pitiable. Is itnot wonder
ful 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, the
awful question of the souls destiny |
submerged by the question of navy |
blue velvet and long fan-train skirt,
long enough to drag up the church
aisle, the husbands store, Office, shop,
factory, fortune and the admiration OF
half the people in the building. Men
and women come late to church toshow
their clothes, People sitting down in
pew or taking up 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!'
Insatiate fashion also belittles the
intellect. Our minds are enlarged or
they dwindle just in proportion to the
Importance of the subject on which we
constantly dwell. Can you imagine
anything more dwarfng to the human
intellect than the study of fashion? |
see men on the street who, judging
from their elaboration, l think must
have taken two hours to arrange their
apparel. After a few years of that
kind of absorption, which one of Meal
listers magnifying glasses will be pow
erful enough to make the mans char
acter visible? They all land in idiocy.
/ have seen men at the summer water
ing places, through fashion the mere
wreck of what they once were Shallow
of cheek. Meager of limb. Hollow at
the chest. Showing no animation save
in rushing across room to pick up a
lady's fan. Simpering along the corri
dors, the same compliments they sim
pered twenty years ago. A New York
lawyer at United States hotel, Sara
toga, within our hearing, rushed across
a room to say to sensible woman
"You are as sweet as peaches" Th'
fools of fashion are myriad. Fashion
not only destroys the body, but i
makes idiotic the intellect.
=. Yet, nay friends, have given yo'
= only the milder phase of this evil. |
shuts great multitude out of Heaven
:, The first peal of thunder that shoo
Sinai declared: "Thou shalt have n
:. other God before me-" and you vii
!, have to choose between the goddess c
:. fashion and the Christian God. Their
q are a great many seats in Heaven, an
;, they are all easy seats, but not on
| StdB Ullc ucNOVCC VI ldohlOhs l1CdNC
is for the meek and quiet spirits
Heaven is for those who think MOI
: of their souls than of their bodie
. Heaven is for those who hav
:, more JOY in Christian charity than
: = dry goods religion. Why, if you wit
y your idolatry of fashion should SOM
how get into Heaven, you would
T., putting French roof on the ''house
r many mansions" Give up this idolatr
. of fashion or give up heaven. Whi
T. !, would you do standing beside IL
- Countess of Huntington, whose joy
:, was to build chapels for the poor,
a a with that Christian woman of Bosto
;" who fed fifteen hundred childre
of the street at Faneuil hall {
81 >. New Years day. giving out
- - sort of doxology at the ell
% % of the meeting pair of sho
= to each one of them; or tho
'o Dorcases of modern society who ha
consecrated their needles to 'ttae Lor
:, - and who will get eternal reward f
~ every stitch they take. Oh! men al
y y women, give up the idolatry of fashio
The rivalries and the competitions
:, such life are stupendous wretche
80 ness. You will always find someo
e with brighter array and with more I
latial residence, and with lavender k
:. ' gloves that make a tighter fit. And
- you buy this thing and wear it you W
- wish you had bought something el
/" and worn it.. And the frets of such
y, y, life will bring the crows feet to yo
m .o temples before they are due, and VIII
= you come to die you will have mis-,
!, = able time. Ihave seen men and won
=. of fashion die, and / never saw one
y them die well. The trappings off, the
u they lay on the tumbled pillow, a
= - there were just two things that bot
~ cred them-a wasted life and comi
q eternity. / could not pacify them,
u IS their body, mind and sonl had been
~ = hausted in the worship Of fashion, a
y. !" they could not appreciate the gosp
~ When knelt by their bedside tn
were mumbling out their regrets a
~ ~ saying, 20 God! o God!" Their e
-. "a ments hung up in the wardrobe, ne'
%' q again to be seen by them. Witht
~ y, any exception, so far as my memo
~ ~ serves me, they died without hope a
~ =" went into eternity unprepared.
10 70 The most CHASTITY death beds on eal
n, M are, the one where man dies of
- !. lirium tremens and the other wher
80 % woman dies after having sacrificed
ah s her faculties of body, mind and soul
- - the worship of fashion. My frien
A A