The news scimitar. (Memphis, Tenn.) 1907-1926, 1920-05-21
Pleasure Seeking
Women Scored By
Priest In Sermon


The Rev. Father Parker. in his lee
ture on Woman and Fashion," deliv-
cred at st. Brigid's church Thursday
evening, said. IF the adherents Of the
modern school of immodest dress and
extravaganza living. would only stop long
enough to look and listen to the IRENE
diable moral transgressions that their
attitude toward life causes, then per-
haps they would view themselves as the
safe and sane ones view them, viz, as
the most colossal and barefaced en-
emies to progress ever recorded in
human events.
The woman who negiects her daily
duties because she is in quest Of pleas
ure or the one who is of easy virtue
SO as to, be attractive in dress, to rude
and insulting men, Is the woman who
is terminating immoral ideas and fill
ing the minds of other men and women
with ambitions hostile to the dignity of
womanhood.
"A woman whose mind is bent sole
ly on immoral and extravagant fash
ions is a perpetual menace to the re-
ligious and civic life of the community
in which she resides because such a
=. woman is not adapting herself to the
= exigencieS of her environments.
ITO effect progress a woman must
possess a thorough understanding of
the moral norm. II she has not, she
will be incapable of inspiring her heart
sential for her personal preservation
and the safeguard of those among
twhom she moves. Immodesty in wom-
ans dress engenders lascivious and
loathsome thoughts in the weak, and
portrays her as nothing more nor less
than caricature of virtue commanding
not the intellect, affections and will.
but simply arousng the emotions and
passions. Thus does woman in fol-
lowing the extreme and exaggerated
fashions incite the destructible senti-
ment of irreverence to God and all
things decent.
Woman in striving after fashion
. must remember that there Is something
more to,human energy than mere satia-
ton of passion for dress since that
alone will inevitably accomplish moth
ing but failure and disgrace.
1.-THE fashion plate will not satisfy
the cravings of the human soul because
the soul of man must be nourished
from the fountain of religion. The bar
of public opinion will never eXonerate
the immodestly dressed woman or. the
grounds of excusable weakness II an
individual life has been ruined there
by, because in our very day the gen
eral prevalency of immodest fashions
has caused a black cloud of wrath to
hover over the guilty ones who persist
in insulting the delicate sensltiveness
of modest men and women.
Therefore, in order to offset the i'll
effects produced by the insane desire
of insane women for insane attire more
gifted women should make a concerted
effort by their attitude toward eXtrava-
gance and immodest dress to effect a
realization in the minds of the fash
ion artist that at least the American
women are indispensable not only in
bodily beauty but in beauty of soul.
This they can do by a sane delib
Grafton of what should be the con-
stituent elements that go to make life
worth living in the world Of fashion"
The subject for Friday nights lee
lure will be Woman in the Educa-
4ional Realm" The novena in homer of
st. Rita will be held on Friday at 1880
pm. Saturday after the, and s
o'clock masses, and Sunday at 1850
pm, A iridium will open on F1day
at 1880 pm, for all those who have
not started this novena' or who were
late in starting the same; this will
close on Sunday evening at 1880 o'clock.