Yet, my friends, I have given you only the milder phase of this evil.
It shuts a great multitude out of heaven. The first peal of thunder
that shook Sinai declared: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me,"
and you will have to choose between the goddess of fashion and the
Christian God. There are a great many seats in heaven, and they are
all easy seats, but not one seat for the devotee of costume. Heaven is
for meek and quiet spirits. Heaven is for those who think more of
their souls than of their bodies.
Give up this idolatry of fashion or give up heaven. What would you do
standing beside the Countess of Huntingdon, whose joy it was to build
chapels for the poor; or with that Christian woman of Boston, who fed
fifteen hundred children of the street, at Fanueil Hall, one New
Year's Day, giving out as a sort of doxology at the end of the
meeting a pair of shoes to each one of them; or those Dorcases of
modern society who have consecrated their needles to the Lord, and who
will get eternal reward for every stitch they take?