p. 12 | How Christian Women Should Dress by Daniel H. Kress

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 16, 1909

How Christian Women Should Dress

By Daniel H. Kress

D. H. KRESS, M. D.

“BE not fashioned according to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Rom. 12: 2. The Word of God does not encourage carelessness in dress, neither does it sanction extravagance. Christian women should be models of neatness, and their attire should be simple, appropriate, and becoming. Their aim should not be to be odd or peculiar in their dress, but to dress modestly and healthfully, and to have their dress conform to the standard of God’s Word. If in so doing they find themselves out of harmony with the existing fashion, it does not matter.

If the world should introduce a convenient and modest attire, there would be no virtue in dressing differently merely to appear peculiar; but when the fashion demands distorted, crippled, and useless feet, as in China, it is a sin to conform to fashion. If it demands compression of the waist by tight lacing, thus crippling the lungs and interfering with their action, preventing the waste matter from being eliminated, and making it impossible to take in the full supply of life-giving air, Christian women should refuse to conform to such a fashion. They can not comply with a fashion which calls for heavy, trailing skirts that sweep the filth and germs off the streets, for it is both extravagant and unhygienic. The wearing of artificial hair pads or rolls produces unnatural heat of the brain by bringing an excessive amount of blood to it. This congestion causes headache and neuralgia. Christian women should therefore avoid such a fashion.

The high-heeled boots and shoes are another modern abomination. Nature calls for elasticity in walking, but the high heels prevent this; the walk becomes stiff, the sensitive spinal cord, nerves, and brain are jarred, causing irritability and nervousness.

To be compelled to conform to these fashions would mean spiritual death in a short time to the most saintly woman, for in order to have spiritual health, every organ must be permitted freedom of action to do its appointed work; and the brain and the nerves, through which the Creator communicates, must be sacredly guarded. It is safe to say compliance with the demands of fashion have done more to mar the image of God in man and to destroy the human family than any other one thing. Here is sufficient cause for the rapid degeneracy of the race, to which attention is everywhere being called. Deformities, displacements, cancers, and a host of other diseases are among the evils due to these fashions. Infants, as a result of conformity to fashion, are born with weakly bodies and dwarfed minds; they come to remain but a few days, not having sufficient vitality to survive their advent into the world.

How should Christian women dress? — They should dress sensibly, healthfully, and neatly. They should study the Word of God and the human body instead of the fashion-plates. There should be no extravagance in dress. It is the character that should attract, and not the oddities or extravagance of what a woman wears. “A woman’s attraction should not depend on such external things as the arrangement of her hair, the jewelry she wears, or the style of her dress, but upon her inner life, the imperishable beauty of a quiet and gentle spirit; for this is very precious in God’s sight. That was how those holy women of old, who placed their hopes in God, made themselves attractive.” 1 Peter 3: 2, 3.

It is related of a great artist, that in drawing a picture of Christ seated at a table with his disciples, he put his whole being into it, making every effort to produce a face just as expressive of Christ’s character as possible. After the work was complete, he viewed it with satisfaction. Upon the table in front of Christ were some golden drinking vessels. Some ladies, in passing by, looked at the grand picture, and one of them exclaimed, “See the beautiful glasses!” The artist, it is said, took his brush and drew it over the glasses, saying, “I will have nothing in the picture that will detract from the loveliness of that face.”

The aim of every woman should be to reveal Christ’s life. Any other attraction, or anything worn that detracts from that face, should be laid aside. The attraction of Christian women should be that inward adorning of a meek and quiet spirit. There is little use, however, in urging any one not to wear this or that. As long as the love of these things exists in the heart, the laying of them off would only be like cutting the foliage off a tree. Every reform must come from within. When the heart is converted, changes will be cheerfully made, and everything out of harmony with God’s Word will drop off as soon as light reveals the wrong.