One of the most dignified ministers I think I have ever seen was preaching on dress one day, and a man came up to him and said, "I think you ministers display a lot of pride, in your dress. You are always so dolled up, and 'take so much pride in your dress." In telling the story, he said, wonder who is. the proud man. He came with trousers one color, coat another, shirt another, a twenty-five-cent straw hat which you wear out in the hayfield, and spoke to me about pride. He was more proud of his appearance than I ever dared to be, but his pride was on the wrong side."
I believe that if the minister regards the importance of his pulpit and his office, the people will regard it so, too. If the minister in the pulpit comes carelessly dressed, he will give the people just that same careless idea of the work of God. Careful grooming in itself will not save souls, but it will be a good steppingstone. A minister in the pulpit should be a voice to his people. He should not wear a poorly pressed suit, unshined shoes, a loud, flashy tie. "Study to shew thyself approved unto God."
Perhaps our women have a harder time to dress properly than our men, because there is a greater difference in the dress of the world for women than for men. We dress for comfort, for health, for beauty, for church distinction (or we ought to). I believe our Seventh-day Adventist women as a whole sit down and carefully consider all things, and devolve from it all a dress that is quite representative of our group.
When I was a child I wanted my mother to buy me a pair of shoes like those my playmate wore. On that little girl they looked long and slender. On me they would have looked short 'and wide. We must consider these things when we dress. We have to consider our personality, age, peculiarities, etc. Some women can wear things that I would look absolutely ridiculous in. A passage in Ministry of Healing says that some of din 'sisters have toiled long hours into the night' in order to clothe themselves and their children-in fashionable clothes. We must be careful halo spend too much time or money on our clothes.
In considering our clothes and our appearance, we should have in mind the people 'among whom we work. We should dress in such a cinanner that the poorest person in our congregation would not feel uneasy to be in our presence. At the same time our dress ought to be such that the wealthiest person in our congregation would not be ashamed to have us in his presence. It has been said that you cannot describe what the best-dressed woman wears, because it is all such a harmonious blend that when she is gone, you know she is well dressed, but do not know what she had on. Let us not follow the styles too closely, and yet we must not be so far behind as to appear dowdy.
I read an article many years ago in the Ladies' Home Journal on the emancipation of women in regard to dress. Men wanted the women to be slaves. So the wide hoops were designed. The women had to go about slowly; they had no freedom. Later, after they got over the hoop idea, the hobble skirt had a great vogue, and so women could not get on the streetcar without being helped. Now women are free from such notions.
Let us be careful that we do not follow too closely the styles of the length of the skirts. I believe that sometimes our younger women, and some of our older ones, have followed the modern trend a bit too closely. It is said that a boy wanted to pass a certain examination, and so he sat down and copied everything the boy next to him wrote. He finally even copied the name of the boy who was writing the other paper, never realizing that he had thus lost his own identity. Let us not lose our identity as Christian women, by following the styles too closely.
