The Globe-republican., 1894-08-17
TRAGEDY OF DRESS.
Dr.. Talmage Discourses on the Vic
TINS of Fashion.
Aaleful Influences Of Inordinate Love OF
Dress-Incentive to Fraud. Distfae.
ton Of Public Worship and
the Souls Destruction.

IS MS latest sermon through IAc ~ SSS
discourse on The Tragedy of Dress,
the text selected being l. Peter, iii, ga:
"Whose adjoining let it not be that out
ward adjoining of plating his hair, and
Of wearing Of gold, or of putting on OF
apparel; but let it be the hidden man
of the heart" Following is the SER
mon:
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
q tree but He garlanded it with bios
SONS, or sky but He subdued it with
stars, or allowed even the smoke OF
furnace to ascend but He columned and
turreted and domed and scrolled it
into outlines of indescribable graceful
ness. When see the apple orchards
of the spring and the pageantry of the
autumnal 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 worship, she will never be a
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 Hecsen stay open so long, when it
might go in SO quickly? One summer
morning l saw an army OF I.OOO,OOO
spears, each one adorned with dia-
mond of the first water-I mean the
grass with the dew on it. When the
prodigal came home his father not
only put coat on his back, but jewell
ry on his hand. Christ wore a beard.
Paul, the bachelor apostle, not afflicted
with any sentlmentality, admired the
arrangement of a wOman's hair when
he said, in his epistle: IF 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 diff
ferent kind of fashion, 1t will decide
the color of the dress; and the popula-
ton of that country, by beautiful
law, will wear white I say these
things as a background to my sermon,
to show you that 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 timbrels we are all expected to
fall down and worship. The old and
new testament of her bible are the
fashion plates. Her affairs smoke with
the sacrifice of the bodies, minds
and souls of 10000 victims. In her
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
rival of the Lord of Heaven and earth,
and it is high time that we unlimbered
our batteries against this idolatry.
Men are as much the idolators of
fashion as women. but they sacrifice on
a different part of the altar. With men
the fashion goes to cigars and club
rooms and yachting parties and wine
suppers. In the United States the men
chew up and smoke $1,000 900 worth
of tobacco every year. That is their
fashion. In London. not long ago, a
man died who started in life with $780,
600. but he ate it all up in gluttonies.
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 $500. He ate up his
whole fortune and had only one guinea
left; with that he bought a woodcock,
and had it dressed in the very best
style, ate it. gave two hours for diges-
ton. then walked out on Westmin-
ster bridge and threw himself
into the Thames, and died, doing
on large scale what you
and have often seen done on small
: scale. But men do not abstain from
millinery and elaboration of skirt
through any superiority of humility.
1t is only because such appendages
would be blockade to business What
would sashes and trains three and a
half yards long do in stock market?
And vet men are the disciples of fash
ion just as much as women. Some of
them wear boots SO tight they can
hardly walk in the paths of righteous
ness. And there are men who buy eX-
peusive suits of clothes and never pay
for them. and who go through the
streets in great stripes of color like
animated checker-boards. 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. share and
share alike" As God may help me,
shall show you what are the destroy
ing and beautiful influences of in
ordinate fashion.
The first baleful influence notice is
in fraud. illimitable and CHASTITY. Do
you know that Arnold, of the revolu-
ton. 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 keep
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
Philadelphia Morton to the watering