CHAPTER XVI.

DRESS.

WOMEN have been regarded in some periods of the world, and still are among many nations, as the mere playthings or slaves of men, not as their friends-not as beings having an individual existence, and who should make all things in this life subservient to their immortal natures. In such states of society, dress is considered either as a mere necessity, or as a gratification of vanity, and a means of rendering a woman's person more attractive to man.

My young friends, you have fallen on better times. Your reason and your conscience must be exercised on your dress.

God has clothed the animals, and adapted their dress precisely to their wants. He has left nothing for their reason to determine, for he did not give them reason. Nothing to the liberty of choice, for they cannot exercise choice. He has clothed the animals of the north in soft furs, and given hair to those of warmer regions. He has

dressed the birds with feathers, and the fish with scales.

God has

Man comes naked into the world. given him reason to devise, and the hand, the best of all possible tools, to fashion his covering. How has he applied his reason?-how has he employed this wonderful tool?

Examine the dress of the American savages. Without wheels or looms they rival in expense of labor, and gorgeousness of coloring, the magnificence of European kings. Mr. Catlin, in his splendid exhibition of Indian curiosities, showed robes on which the women had expended the labor of months, sometimes of years. They use vegetable dyes, and the most exquisite materials that nature supplies, soft skins, and brilliant feathers.

Nor is their dress a mere show.

It has ex

pression, and conveys a dreadful meaning. Their favorite necklaces are made of bear's-claws, and are the insignia of their victories over these, their poor subjects. Every feather is a trophy, a sign of an enemy vanquished, or a battle won.

Their

robes are painted with outspread hands, emblematical of fallen rivals, and are fringed with hair torn from their scalps. And so savage man applies his reason to his dress!

And how is it with the sovereigns and lordlings of the civilized world? How, think you, their costly jewels have been obtained? One of these jewels represents the labor of years, not one individual's labor, but that of hundreds. Has

this labor been honestly paid for? No, the king's treasury is filled by taxing the labor of the industrious classes, and so to buy a diamond which sparkles in a queen's necklace, the children of many a subject go without shoes. This, surely, is not applying reason, or conscience to dress, and it seems to us not much better than fringing a buffaloe-robe with the hair of a slaughtered

enemy.

But, my young friends, you cannot put an end to the crimes and follies of monarchs and Indians, and you will probably find quite enough employment for your reason and conscience, in rectifying your own notions, and fixing your principles on the subject of dress.

It would be idle to say to you, that dress is a matter of little importance. It is a matter that consumes time, thought and money, from the cradle to the grave. Yes, literally to the grave; for how much inconvenient expense and degrading begging is encountered by the poor, to get the new cap and shroud. This tenacious love of dress is not confined to the poor, but shows itself in various particularities and vanities among the rich. We once knew an appointed funeral of a child deferred by a mother till a cap could be procured, plaited in a particular mode!

Can you believe dress is an unimportant matter when you often hear a person of mature years say to a child of six months—“ don't cry, baby-look what pretty new shoes baby has got!" Or to a child two or three years old,

"Be a good child, and you shall have on your pretty new pink frock!" Or, "if Mary is naughty, she must not wear her new bonnet and blue bows!" Here the earliest associations of the child with dress, with its merest vanities, are as the signs of happiness, and rewards of goodness. Surely they cannot think it unimportant.

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From your youth upwards, you are accustomed to hear such remarks as follow: "Did you observe Mrs. McLean's dress last Sunday. She must have got it from France-it was something so out of the common way, I could not take my eyes off from her all church time." "I should be so happy if I could get the pattern of Anne Lisle's cape." "I wish Susan would get a new bonnet-I am tired of seeing her old one." "If I were Eliza, I never would go to church again till I had a new cloak." "Do you mean to attend the lectures ?" "If I can get my new pelisse made." "I am dying for my new gown, but I am determined not to have it made till I get a pattern of the new fashioned sleeves." "Sarah wore that everlasting blue dress to the party last evening-I should not think she could enjoy herself, when all the rest of her set had new dresses." "Fanny must detest going into mourning—it is so unbecoming to her !"

I appeal to your experience, my friends, have you not heard similar things said, not one, but a hundred times in your lives? And here you see the pleasures of society, the advantage of knowledge, the duty of devotion, all are made subor

dinate to dress. Its vanities involve even the seriousness of mourning.

I have not exaggerated. I might be accused of exaggeration, if I were to tell much of what has fallen under my observation on this subject. A lady once said to me, she "would prefer the reputation of taste in dress to excelling in any accomplishment whatever!" This woman was a wife and mother!

I know a child who burst into tears at the sight of another unfortunate child rigged in French finery, and throwing herself into her mother's arms, exclaimed, “Oh, I never shall have such a beautiful dress as that!" Poor child! what examples must she have seen in those to whom God had committed the care of unfolding and directing her character.

You cannot believe dress unimportant, while so great a portion of young persons' lives are spent in dressing and preparing dress; remodelling old garments, and embellishing new ones.

Since, then dress is important, will you not give your minds to the subject, and now, in the beginning of your career, fix certain principles so that your dress may indicate your education.

First, let us consider the morals of dress, never forgetting that the only sure foundation of morals is a sense of responsibility to God.

It is immoral to endanger your health by your mode of dress.

We have, in a previous chapter, given you Dr. Combe's opinion of tight dressing. Do not let