ing over real or supposed deficiencies of Christians, make
this the staple of their complaint; _you cannot distinguish them from the
world:_ and when urging upon them some duty, or the relinquishment of some
practice, enforce it by the argument, Christians should aim to be distinct
from the world.

There is truth in this, but there is also falsehood. Christians, _real_
Christians, will always be distinct from the world, and the distinction
will be very clearly defined. But Christians should not make it their
_object_ to be distinct from the world. They should aim to be Christians,
and let the distinction follow in its natural order and degree.
Singularity, in itself, is no virtue. It is just as likely to be a vice. A
man is not necessarily better because he is unlike the rest of the world.
Difference from the world, therefore, is not an _end_ of Christian
discipline, but a result and concomitant of it. This distinction is of the
utmost importance. If distinctiveness is regarded as an _object_ of
Christian effort, its value is sacrificed. Its tendency is to formality;
to the substitution of a variety of _outward_ standards of duty for a
single _inward_ regulative principle. To pride and self-righteousness on
the ground of singularity. Such have been its developments, for instance,
in certain religious sects who insisted on plainness of dress as a duty.
Undoubtedly the spirit which originally prompted the requisition was good,
Christlike. It was the desire to take from the useless adornment of the
person and bestow upon objects of Christian effort and charity. It was the
desire to remove temptations to vanity and idle display. But in too many
cases these things were forgotten. Christians received the precept in the
letter and not in the spirit. They came to insist on plainness of dress as
a mark of a true Christian, and forgot that materials of plain or sad
colors might be as costly and rich as gayer ones. They came to pride
themselves on their plainness as a distinction from the rest of the world.
They said bitter and unchristian things against the man who should carry a
gold watch or the woman who should wear a feather or a ribbon. They
perverted scripture to uphold this ridiculous whim, and brought scorn upon
themselves and reproach upon the cause of Christ, because they turned
their eyes from the inward, regulative power of the gospel to one of its
natural developments, and looked at that until it grew out of all
propo