The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866, page 219 by Various Authors
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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 passée 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 that your time, your strength, your money, such as you have, shall not all--nor more than half--be given to mere outward adornment, and you will go right. It requires only an army of girls animated with this noble purpose to declare independence in America, and emancipate us from the decrees and