I Know It Is Wicked by M. J. COTТRELL

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 4, 1866

I Know It Is Wicked.

By M. J. COTТRELL

“I BELIEVE it’s wicked, I know it is, to put so much cloth in dresses; but they are young and think they must have things as others do, and I suppose they must.” Thus spoke a mother to me a few days since. She was fixing over some beautiful dresses for her daughters. The dresses just cleared the floor, but it would not do to wear them thus; they must be long enough to lie on the floor. This mother thought it wicked to be so extravagant, still, because others did so, her daughters must also. Because it is the fashion to do things which are wicked, the multitude are willing to yield themselves servants of sin. Principle is yielded, time and talents; yea, even body and soul are sold to fashion. When people thus make fashion their god, to what extent will it not lead them? Where will they pause?

But why conjecture thus? Are not the majority of people now-a-days church members? Yes, church members, alas, we cannot say Christians. A Christian is like Christ; but the resemblance between the ways of church members, and Him who was meek and lowly, is so faint that it is ordinarily quite impossible to see where it is. They do not seem to feel that their sins had made stains which only can be cleansed by the blood of Jesus; that their hearts must be purified and made to reflect Christ’s image. They appear never to think of the agony Jesus endured for them; of the great sacrifice made by the Father in giving his only Son to die for them. They do not think of these things, and with deep repentance, humility, and love for Jesus, turn from the path of sin; but it is to be feared that they are led by fashion even here, and become church members because it is fashionable. Can it be that these devotees of fashion are led by Him who was despised and rejected of men? They talk about religion, have a form of godliness, but where is the power? The religion of Jesus carries a power with it, which will enable the possessor to follow out his or her convictions of right, even though it be contrary to fashion. Is it not so? or does it make a wrong thing right to have it become fashionable? It must be that this multitude who have united with the churches because “every body else was doing so,” do not carefully look to see where their path will lead them. If they fancy it leads to Heaven, they must have forgotten that Jesus said the way to life was straight, and narrow, and was found by only a few.

M. J. COTТRELL.

Rochester, N. Y.