Oh, men and women, give up the idolatry of costume! The rivalries and
the competitions of such a life are a stupendous wretchedness. You
will always find some one with brighter array, and with more palatial
residence, and with lavender kid gloves that make a tighter fit. And
if you buy this thing and wear it you will wish you had bought
something else and worn it. And the frets of such a life will bring
the crow's feet to your temples before they are due, and when you come
to die you will have a miserable time.
I have seen men and women of excessive costume die, and I never saw
one of them die well. The trappings off, there they lay on the tumbled
pillow, and there were just two things that bothered them--a wasted
life and a coming eternity. I could not pacify them, for their body,
mind, and soul had been exhausted in the worship of costume, and they
could not appreciate the Gospel. When I knelt by their bedside they
were mumbling out their regrets, and saying: "O God! O God!" Their
garments hung up in the wardrobe never again to be seen by them.
Without any exception, so far as my memory serves me, they died
without hope, and went into eternity unprepared. The two most ghastly
death-beds on earth are the one where a man dies of delirium tremens,
and the other where a woman dies after having sacrificed all her
faculties of body, mind and soul in the worship of costume.