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Testimonies for the Church Volume 1
enough to keep clear of the filth of the street without being raised, and
would be sufficiently short for all working purposes. Reports have
been circulated that ‘Sister White wears the American costume,’ and
that this style of dress is generally adopted and worn by the sisters
in Battle Creek. I am here reminded of the saying that ‘a lie will go
around the world while truth is putting on his boots.’ One sister gravely
told me that she had received the idea that the American costume was
to be adopted by the Sabbathkeeping sisters, and that if such a style
of dress should be enforced, she would not submit to it, for she never
could bring her mind to wear such a dress.
[464]
“In regard to my wearing the short dress, I would say, I have but
one short dress, which is not more than a finger’s length shorter than
the dresses I usually wear. I have worn this short dress occasionally.
In the winter I rose early, and putting on my short dress, which did not
require to be raised by my hands to keep it from draggling in the snow,
I walked briskly from one to two miles before breakfast. I have worn
it several times to the office, when obliged to walk through light snow,
or when it was very wet or muddy. Four or five sisters of the Battle
Creek church have prepared for themselves a short dress to wear while
doing their washing and house cleaning. A short dress has not been
worn in the streets of the city of Battle Creek, and has never been worn
to meeting. My views were calculated to correct the present fashion,
the extreme long dress, trailing upon the ground, and also to correct
the extreme short dress, reaching about to the knees, which is worn by
a certain class. I was shown that we should shun both extremes. By
wearing the dress reaching about to the top of a woman’s gaiter boot
we shall escape the evils of the extreme long dress, and shall also shun
the evils and notoriety of the extreme short dress.
“I would advise those who prepare for themselves a short dress for
working purposes to manifest taste and neatness in getting it up. Have
it arranged in order, to fit the form nicely. Even if it is a working dress,
it should be made becoming, and should be cut after a pattern. Sisters
when about their work should not put on clothing which would make
them look like images to frighten the crows from the corn. It is more
gratifying to their husbands and children to see them in a becoming,
well-fitting attire than it can be to mere visitors or strangers. Some
wives and mothers seem to think it is no matter how they look when
about their work and when they are seen only by their husbands and