Simplicity in Dress
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meekness, the quiet spirit. It is only when we seek in all things to
conform to the will of God that peace and joy will reign in the soul.
The love of dress endangers the morals and makes woman the
opposite of the Christian lady characterized by modesty and sobriety.
Showy, extravagant dress too often encourages lust in the heart of
the wearer and awakens base passions in the heart of the beholder.
God sees that the ruin of the character is frequently preceded by the
indulgence of pride and vanity in dress. He sees that the costly apparel
stifles the desire to do good.
The more means persons expend in dress, the less they can have to
feed the hungry and clothe the naked; and the streams of beneficence,
which should be constantly flowing, are dried up. Every dollar saved
by denying one’s self of useless ornaments may be given to the needy
or may be placed in the Lord’s treasury to sustain the gospel, to send
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missionaries to foreign countries, to multiply publications to carry
rays of light to souls in the darkness of error. Every dollar used
unnecessarily deprives the spender of a precious opportunity to do
good.
My sister, how much time have you spent on needless trimming,
time for which you must render an account to God? How much money
expended to please your fancy and win the admiration of hearts as
vain as your own? It was God’s money. How much good you might
have done with it! And what a loss have you sustained in this life,
and in the future, immortal life, by not doing this! Every soul will be
judged according to the deeds done in the body. God reads purposes
and motives. Every work and every secret thing is open to His all-
seeing eye. No thought, word, or action escapes His notice. He knows
whether we love and glorify Him or please and exalt ourselves. He
knows whether we set our affections upon things above, where Christ
sitteth at the right hand of God, or upon things earthly, sensual, and
devilish.
When you place a useless or extravagant article of clothing upon
your person, you are withholding from the naked. When you spread
your tables with a needless variety of costly food, you are neglecting to
feed the hungry. How stands your record, professed Christian? Do not,
I beseech you, lay out in foolish and hurtful indulgences that which
God requires in His treasury, and the portion which should be given
to the poor. Let us not clothe ourselves with costly apparel, but, like