in Paradise, with its apparel of dark green. That we should all as far
as our means allow us be beautifully and gracefully apparelled is
proved by the fact that God never made a wave but He gilded it with
golden sunbeams, 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.