ams, or a tree but He garlanded it with blossoms, or a
sky but He studded it with stars, or allowed even the smoke of a
furnace to ascend but He columned, and turreted, and doled, and
scrolled it into outlines of indescribable gracefulness. When I see
the apple orchards of the spring and the pageantry of the autumnal
forests, I come to the conclusion that if nature ever does join the
Church, while she may be a Quaker in the silence of her worship, she
never will be a Quaker in the style of her dress. Why the notches of a
fern leaf or the stamen of a water lily? Why, when the day departs,
does it let the folding doors of heaven stay open so long, when it
might go in so quickly? One summer morning I saw an army of a million
spears, each one adorned with a diamond of the first water--I mean the
grass with the dew on it.

When the prodigal came home his father not only put a coat on his
back, but jewelry on his hand. Christ wore a beard, Paul, the bachelor
apostle, not afflicted with any sentimentality, admired the
arrangement of a woman's hair, when he said in his epistle: "If a
woman have long hair, it is a glory unto her." There will be fashion
in heaven as on earth, but it will be a different kind of fashion. It
will decide the color of the dress; and the population of that
country, by a beautiful law, will wear white.

THE GODDESS OF FASHION.

I say these things as a background to my sermon, to show you that I
have no prim, precise, prudish, or cast-iron theories on the subject
of human apparel; but the goddess of fashion has set up her throne in
this country and at the sound of the timbrels we are all expected to
fall down and worship. Her altars smoke with the sacrifice of the
bodies and souls of ten thousand victims.

When I come to count the victims of fashion I find as many masculine
as feminine. Men make an easy tirade against woman, as though she were
the chief worshipper at this idolatrous shrine, and no doubt some men
in the more conspicuous part of the pew have already cast glances at
the more retired part of the pew, their look a prophecy of a generous
distribution. My sermon shall be as appropriate for one end of the pew
as for the other.

MASCULINE FOLLIES.

Men are as much the idolaters of fashion as women, but they sacrifice
on a different part of the altar. With men the fashion goes to cigars,
and club-rooms, and yachting parties, and wine suppers. In the United
States the men chew up and sm