The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1894-08-17


half the people in the building. Men
/ and women eofhe late so church TO show
their clothes. People sitting down ia
the pew or taking up hymn book, all
absorbed at the Same time in personal
array. to sing:
Rise my soul, and stretch my wings,
Thy better portion trace;
Rise from transitory things
Toward Heaven, thy native place!
adopt the byiseopaIian prayer and
say: Good Lord. deliver Hs!"
Insatiate fashion also belittles the in
/ tellect Our minds are enlarged or they
dwindle juse in proportion to the i'm
portsnee Of the subject on which we
constantly dwell. Can you imagine
/ anything More dwarfing to the human
/ intellect than The Study Of fashion?
see men on the street who, Judging FROM
/ their elabora ton, / think must havS
/ taken two hours to arrange their APP
/ parel After few years of that kind OF
/ absorption, which one of McAllister's
magnifying glasses will be powerful
enough to make the mans character
/ 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. SAL
/ low of cheek. Meager of limb. Hol-
low at the chest. Showing no anima-
ton save in running across a
room to pick up a lady's fan. Sim
pering along the corridors the
same compliments they simpered TWEEN
! ty years ago. A New York lawyer at
the United States hotel, Saratoga,
within our hearing, rushed across a
room to say to a sensible woman: you
are as sweet as peaches!'' The fools of
fashion are myriad Fashion not only
destroys the body, but it makes idiotic
| the intellect
Yet my friends, 1 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
1 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 putting
French roof on the ''house of
many mansions. Give up this
| idolatry of fashion, or give up
Heaven. What would you do stand
! ing beside the countess of Huntington,
whose Joy it was to build chapels for
| the poor, or with that Christrian wo-
man of Boston, who fed one thousand
five hundred children of the street at
Faneuil hall ON New Years day, Civ.
ing out as d sort of doxology at
the end of the meeting a pair
of shoes to each one of them; or
those Decreases of modern society who
have have cOnsecrated their needles to
the Lord, and who will get eternal re-
ward for every stitch they take. Oh!
men and women, give up the idolatory
| 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
lavender 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 a 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. I have seen men and women of
| fashion die, and [ never saw one of
them die well. The trappings of, there
| they lay on the tumbled pillow, and
there were just two things that both.
cred them-a wasted life and coming
eternity. 1 could not pacify them,
for their body, mind and soul
had beer exhausted in this wor-
shin of fashion, and they could
not appreciate the Gospel. When
lnelt by their bedside they were mum
bling out their regrets and saying:
''Oh God! o Godr Their garments
hung up in the WARDROBE, never again
to be seen by them. Without any ex-
ception, so far as my memory serves
me, they died without hope, and went
into eternity unprepared.
The most CHASTITY 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 an
swer for what we have worn on our
| bodies, as well as for what repent
ances we have exercised with our
souls. On that day l see coming in,
Beau Brummel of the last century,
without his cloak, like which all En-
gland got cloak; and without his
cane, like which all England got cane;
without his snuff-box, he, the fop of
the ages, particular about everything
| but his morals; and Aaron P-1rr,
without the letters that down to old
age he showed in pride, to prove his
early wicked gallantries; and Absalom
without his hair; and Warehouses
Pompabour without her title; and Mrs.
Arnold, the belle of Wall street, when
that was the center of fashion, without
her fripperies of vesture.
And in great haggardness they shall
| go away into eteral expatriation; while
among the queens of heavenly society
will be found Vashti, who wore the
modest veil before the palatial bac-
chanalians; and Hannah, who annually
made a little coat for Samuel at
the temple; and Grandmother
Lois, the ancestress of Timothy,