YESTERDAY I had a lovely experience. In the early beauty of Sabbath morning I went to a church where I had an appointment to speak. When I came into the clean, attractive foyer of the church, the minister's wife met me. She is a charming person, with good taste and the modesty of dress that should characterize all those who are of the wonderful body of Christ. As I signed the guest book, I had the happy thought---I'm with God's people in the Lord's house.
I was also delighted with the modesty of the apparel of the female Sabbath school superintendent and secretary. The superintendent told me the young woman who was giving the special music was a new member. She, too, looked like a member of the remnant church!
This subject of dress and its relationship to today's morals is in the minds of thinking Christian people everywhere. If we listen to the fashion makers of this world we hear unusual statements. Just this week a woman radio commentator said: "Anything will go stylewise; wear clothes or don't wear any, and you will be in style; miniskirts or no skirts, and you will still be in style." Just who is tampering with the soul and heart of the morals of the world today? The change is so swift, so insidious, so debasing, that it can only be the evil one.
Only recently has it become a common thing to see rows of fat knees up in the front of the church, in every pew, in the aisle, and in the foyer. Can we ask and receive the blessing of the Lord when we accept things that would have been repulsive only a short time ago? "The styles of today are not for beauty," one stylist stated; "they are to show a liberty and a freedom never permitted before."
The servant of the Lord wrote, "Simplicity of dress will make a sensible woman appear to the best advantage. We judge of a person's character by the style of dress worn. ... A modest, godly woman will dress modestly." --Testimonies, vol. 4, p. 643. Then again she wrote: "There is a terrible sin upon us as a people, that we have permitted our church members to dress in a manner inconsistent with their faith. We must arise at once and close the door against the allurements of fashion. Unless we do this, our churches will become demoralized." --Ibid., p. 648.
If the servant of the Lord saw this in her day, what would she think of the blatant showing of legs above the knees, the showing of girdles, the tight shorts and slacks, whose wearers seem to fill the streets of our cities yes, even the pews of the churches? Good women, who only a few months ago would have been shocked by naked displays, are now putting their bodies on the display counter, and crimes involving women have reached an all-time high.
There is decadence everywhere--in the newspapers, and even in the schools, where they are depriving little children of the innocence of their childhood by forcing into their minds sexy things they have not in their purity the emotions to understand. Everywhere impurity is publicized. Television stars are gazed at and admired who have wife number two, four, or six, and few think there is anything wrong anymore with this situation.
The campus is full of decadence, students prating about this freedom and that freedom, when they are really going into an other prison house more oppressive than any they have yet entered--the prison of degradation. People who honestly want an education are hindered because the schools of higher learning are full of ferment after freedom--freedom to yell out four-letter words, freedom to have mixed dormitories, freedom to be immoral--and all for what? No one knows. And the end is not yet.
Yet there should be, there must be, a class of people who follow the pure and beautiful Saviour, who are not afraid to stand up and be counted; who are not afraid to wear decent and appropriate apparel, and to brave the jeers of the world and even, perhaps, some in the church. I cannot believe that the praying believers in the mountain fastnesses in the time of trouble will be arrayed in miniskirts or tight shorts. There is so little time to set our house in order. The Lord adjured us, "Gather my saints together unto me; those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice." Let us be brave enough, my sisters, to let down the hems, and be proud of being different--set apart for His service.
