fruitless are similar attempts to suppress the vanity of dress in children of a larger growth. Wherever there is a perception of beauty in form or colour, there must naturally be an inclination to produce that beauty in the things which are nearest to our persons; to this there are exceptions, though rare ones. Every traveller forms his first estimate of a people from their costume; while we read the tasteful ingenuity of the Mexicans in their feathered robes, the graceful fancy of the South Sea maidens in their wreaths and garlands, the neatness and thrift of the English peasant in her modest apparel, the wealth and rank of the princess in the form of her jewels, and the destitution of the pauper in her patch-work rags,—it is absurd to contend that it is a matter of indifference how women dress themselves, a thing unworthy of their consideration. But there is higher ground, for in Holy Scripture the subject is given a place, whether for approval or rebuke, which stamps it at once as one demanding thought and care. From the golden ornaments hung by Abraham's steward on the slender arm of the bride Rebecca, to the exhortation to Judah, Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth;' from the coat of many colours which fatally marked the father's partial love, to the clothing of silk and purple, the fine linen and scarlet, with which the virtuous woman provides her household; we find everywhere a significance attached to dress; the 'Wherewithal shall I be clothed?' would not be a parallel to the necessities of food, if it were a matter of indifference; nor would anxiety on the subject be silenced by an appeal to the beauty of the lilies, if the wish to be fresh and fair in appearance were a sinful one: and then the withering scorn with which absurdities in female attire are condemned, proves as fully that it is a subject of importance. .... .... It is the Lord's own word, recorded by His prophet, Moreover the Lord saith, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched forth necks, . . . . making a tinkling with their feet, therefore the Lord will smite. . . . . In that day the Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments, their networks, their round tires like the moon,. . . . the changeable suits of apparel, the mantles, and the wimples, and the crisping pins, . . . . the fine linen, the hoods, and the veils, . . . . And there shall be burning instead of beauty.' (Isaiah, iii.) This passage, fully read and considered, proves that there is nothing so trifling as to escape the observation of God; and nothing that He regards can be beneath His servants' care in the question of right and wrong. There is an Apostolic rule upon the subject; there is a mode of dressing which befits women professing godliness,' and there is one which does not. Let it be fully granted that dress is a subject worthy of consideration in many points of view, and is a fit field for the exercise of taste; and then let us acknowledge that its importance has a boundary which many women are prone to overpass; that it habitually fills a place in female thought and female conversation and female interest, and occupies an amount of female time, far beyond that to which it has any reasonable claim; it is worthy of some attention, but not of that degree which it ordinarily receives; and if even the most innocent of all tastes, the love of scenery or of flowers, may be exaggerated into a fault, how much more liable to such exaggeration is that which comes so very close to self that it is difficult to distinguish it from personal vanity; but in the present day it is generally acknowledged that the love of dress has in all classes become a passion, sweeping away the barriers of Christian feeling, reason, and prudence; a subject of ridicule to the satirist, of rebuke to the moralist, of grief to the pastor, and of wonder and astonishment to all. To adopt a religious costume is no remedy for the disease; except when worn as a convenient garb for special work, such a distinction savours of pride to begin with, and frequently ends in as much personal vanity as a more common dress; but there are certain principles binding upon every woman, which if duly considered must influence those women who not merely profess and call themselves Christians as inhabitants of a Christian country, but who remember that having been baptized into Christ, they are called in and by Him with an holy calling,' part of which is to 'renounce the pomps and vanities of this wicked world;' and it is for the help of those who, notwithstanding appearances, really desire to walk as women professing godliness,' that these suggestions are offered. There are Six Mirrors in which every woman may contemplate her own dress, and ask her own heart whether it is becoming her Christian profession; these are Modesty, Honesty, Becomingness, Time, Truth, and Charity. I. 'Let women adorn themselves in modest apparel with shamefacedness and sobriety.' Sufficient covering is obviously the first requisite of modest apparel; and to any woman 'professing godliness' it would seem to be an unnecessary warning, but that the eye so readily forms itself to what it frequently sees that gradually people acquiesce in a fashion which seen for the first time would scandalize; and fashionable mothers are content to exhibit their daughters in public places with an absence of covering which would horrify them if they met a peasant girl on the road in an equally unclothed state. It is this insensible influence of fashion or habit, that has led some good people to stereotype their costume, permitting no variation, so as to guard against evil innovations; but this has its error on the opposite side, for that can scarcely be called modest apparel which by its peculiarity draws every eye to the wearer; and in this respect the extremes meet of a full and early adoption or exaggeration of a prevailing fashion on the one side, and a decided contradiction of it on the other; such a medium as is not conspicuous is rather to be chosen than such a peculiarity as must attract each idle gaze. 'Shamefacedness and sobriety;' surely the comparison of these words with the reflection in the looking-glass would lead to many an addition to, and many a rejection from, a modern toilette. The natural instinct of modest youth would suffice to regulate this matter if it were not coerced by the fear of 'not looking like other people ;' but it seems almost an offence to our maidens to enlarge upon this theme; let them just remember the two words, 'shamefacedness and sobriety,' and that they were spoken by a higher authority than the fashion of this world which passeth away. II. Honesty. The passion for dress is the frequent cause of a breach of the Eighth Commandment among the lower classes; but unhappily the evil extends beyond the instances of open transgression. To the fine lady as well as to her maid the inquiry is necessary, Can I afford it? Can I honestly pay for it without delay, and without injustice to other claims? Long bills, even as the result of carelessness, where there is the full intention to pay, are a source of dishonesty, causing tradespeople to overcharge in order to remunerate themselves for possible loss, and leading the purchaser into the temptation of using for her own purposes the money of which she has received the value in material or work. Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it; say not unto thy neighbour, Go, and come again, and to-morrow I will give; when thou hast it by thee;' * let this mirror answer truly whether there may be to the lovers of female attire the awful rebuke of the Apostle, 'Behold, the hire of the labourers, . . . . which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and their cries have entered into the ears of the Lord.'† Are there any milliners, dress-makers, work-women, waiting for their wages? in short, is the dress you wear honestly your own? To spend as our own the money we owe to another, is not more honest than to take the same sum out of the tradesman's purse; he encourages the one, and would probably wink at the other, for the sake of extending his trade; but that does not justify the transaction on our part. Then, supposing the dress paid for, is it lawfully your own at too much cost to the husband or father at whose expense it is purchased? do you ever shrink from his investigation of your mercer's and milliner's and jeweller's accounts? do you wish him to be ignorant of the items? if so, you are misusing his money. There is no degree of wealth that rises above the possibility of extravagance amounting to dishonesty in personal expenditure; there are many ways in which a vain woman can dissolve pearls; and expenditure, whether small or large, must fail of honesty if it is not proportioned to the property out of which it is to come; if the lady of £500 a year imitates the dress of the possessor of ten times as much, and if she of £5000 must follow the fashion of her millionaire neighbour, each is wronging somebody of their just rights, quite independent of the claims of generosity and almsgiving; and this is one of the sins and follies of the day; each one straining, if not breaking, the boundary of her income, in order to assume the same appearance as another whose income amply authorizes it. III. Is it Becoming? is the next question the mirror is to answer; and very right it is that in colour and form the dress should be suitable to the complexion and figure, and pleasant to the eye of taste; in short, becoming' to the wearer; for the style which is prettiest for one may be disfiguring to another. Let this be arranged as carefully as you arrange the flowers in a parterre; no more, if no less; but let the mirror exhibit a further view.-Is it becoming to my age, my station, my circumstances? It really is hard to call on young people to honour the hoary head when there are no hoary heads to honour; and the disrespect and irreverence for years, of which all complain, may in a great degree be traced to the assumption of youth in the aged: it is impossible for a girl to venerate the old age of one decorated with the flowers and feathers and streamers that might adorn her grand-daughter, only multiplied, the better to conceal the ravages of time; this ghastly caricature of youth ought to have been banished from civilized society by Dickens's Mrs. Skewton, and something better than a sense of the ridiculous ought to influence any woman of sense or judgement; even a heathen could congratulate his mother-You never stained your face with walnut juice or rouge; you never delighted in dresses indelicately low; your single ornament was a loveliness which no age could destroy; your special glory was a conspicuous chastity;' and the praise of this heathen lady is, 'She was never ashamed of her children as though their presence betrayed her own advancing age; gems and pearls had little charm for her.'* How can the aged woman teach the younger to be sober and discreet,' † while her own costume is such as to excite contempt and ridicule? how can she enforce the veneration due to age, who visibly regards age as a disgrace to be concealed at any cost? There is no need that her costume should fail of refinement or elegance; but let an old woman dress like one, and the exterior of a true gentlewoman is never more marked than in observing this rule. Among women professing godliness it is hoped there would be no need of the warning, were it not that custom has gone so far in an opposite direction that it is troublesome to obtain suitable apparel in fashionable shops; but for the sake of others it is worth time and trouble to stem the tide of folly that makes old age absurd by trying to obliterate the acknowledgement that such a period exists. And at every time of life the difference of station should be recognized, though without making ostentatious contrasts. If fortune places ladies of rank on a level, it would be silly to renew in their case the sumptuary laws; but there are marked distinctions of class and position; the lady's-maid appears in the finery of the lady, and the farmer's daughter copies her; and many a dark dark history has its origin in that fatal imitation; and be it remembered that the church, as the place where rich and poor meet together, is the place where this insensible influence is most exercised.-Is it becoming to my place *Sencca-Farrar. † Titus, ii. in life, even though I can honestly obtain it? A child-it happened fifty years ago-was asked, 'What do you mean by the pomps and vanities of this wicked world?' 'Miss Caroline, Sir,' was the reply. Miss Caroline was the Squire's daughter: but do not the daughters of our country parsons sometimes afford the same impersonation to the catechumen? Surely it is one of the most obvious duties of the females of a clergyman's family to set an example of the 'modest apparel' which befits all women professing godliness.-And place, too, requires to be considered in what is becoming; if vanity is to walk our streets, and promenade in our gardens, oh! keep her from entering the porch of the church! let all there be done decently and in order; and there, above all other places, let women regard the Apostolic precept concerning shamefacedness and sobriety. Surely it cannot be right to wear at church such fantastic dresses as might be tolerated at a flower show; taking the lowest ground, it is unseemly, and forms a contrast painfully glaring, bringing a discordant element into solemn associations; but in women professing godliness the offence lies deeper. Never ought they to wear an outward appearance with which the visible expression of devotion is incongruous; the contrast between devotional gestures and the costume of those who use them is sometimes so glaring as to produce a sense of suspicion of the one and ridicule of the other; feelings as unfit for the place as is the absurd garb which excites them. We do not ask for anything gloomy or ascetic in the appearance as suitable for Christian worship; but really where the aisle is blocked up by the trailing draperies of prostrate humiliation, and the most sacred place obscured by the fantastic decorations of the worshippers, there is a distinct breach of the Third Commandment. Perhaps the wearers of these absurdities are so accustomed to the sight of things still more grotesque and fantastic, as to be insensible to the effect it produces on others, and therefore to the evil of such display; it is for this reason we put it so plainly before them; no woman professing godliness would come to a place of worship dressed as if she walked out of a milliner's show-room, if she knew what it is to unaccustomed eyes-how irresistibly it attracts the attention, and forces ideas which ought never to cross the threshold of the church. It is a mistake to suppose that shabby or ugly dress is most suitable for visiting the poor; they always like a lady to look like one, and sometimes their dress may convey pleasure, as any pretty thing may do; this is often the case in the work house, where a fresh colour breaks the monotony of which the eye is sickened; but for every reason it is obvious that for such places the gorgeous apparel, the costly array, or the grotesque fancy, in which some indulge, is not suitable; and the question remains with each, Which shall my habitual dress suit-the district or the croquet-ground? or is there not a happy medium, decent and pleasant to the sight, which would not be out of place in either? IV. Time is another mirror in which a Christian woman ought to 34 |