pecific costume, which should mark the
Christian woman from the Pagan; but says, 'whose adorning, let it not be
that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or
of putting on of apparel; but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in
that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet
spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.' The gold and gems
and apparel are not forbidden; but we are told not to depend on them for
beauty, to the neglect of those imperishable, immortal graces that
belong to the soul. The makers of fashion among whom Christian women
lived when the Apostle wrote, were the same class of brilliant and
worthless Aspasias who make the fashions of modern Paris; and all
womankind was sunk into slavish adoration of mere physical adornment
when the Gospel sent forth among them this call to the culture of a
higher and immortal beauty.

"In fine, girls," said I, "you may try yourselves by this standard. You
love dress too much when you care more for your outward adornings than
for your inward dispositions,--when it afflicts you more to have torn
your dress than to have lost your temper,--when you are more troubled by
an ill-fitting gown than by a neglected duty,--when you are less
concerned at having made an unjust comment, or spread a scandalous
report, than at having worn a _passee_ bonnet,--when you are less
troubled at the thought of being found at the last great feast without
the wedding garment, than at being found at the party to-night in the
fashion of last year. No Christian woman, as I view it, ought to give
such attention to her dress as to allow it to take up _all_ of three
very important things, viz.:--

_All_ her time.
_All_ her strength.
_All_ her money.

Whoever does this lives not the Christian, but the Pagan life,--worships
not at the Christian's altar of our Lord Jesus, but at the shrine of the
lower Venus of Corinth and Rome."

"O now, Mr. Crowfield, you frighten me," said Humming-Bird. "I'm so
afraid, do you know, that I am doing exactly that."

"And so am I," said Pheasant; "and yet, certainly, it is not what I mean
or intend to do."

"But how to help it," said Dove.

"My dears," said I, "where there is a will, there is a way. Only resolve
that you will put the true beauty first,--that, even if you do have to
seem unfashionable, you will follow the highest beauty of
womanhood,--and the battle is half gained. Only resolve t