p. 16 | What an Old-Fashioned-Looking Girl! by John N. Quinn

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · Apr 18, 1912

“What an Old-Fashioned-Looking Girl!”

By John N. Quinn

JOHN N. QUINN

An electric car in the city of — on Easter Sunday afternoon was filled with passengers, many of them being women and girls dressed in holiday attire. A number of Seventh-day Adventist girls, on their way home from a trip to the Zoological Park, boarded the car, the rather crowded condition of which made it necessary for the girls to separate. A little later one of the passengers was heard to remark, as his eye rested on one of the girls, “What an old-fashioned-looking girl!” Glancing at the unconscious object of the remark, one queried what there was about the girl which made her appear old-fashioned to her fellow passenger. Her cheeks were ruddy, indicative of perfect health; her dress was plain, modest, entirely free from anything flashy; her demeanor reserved, and yet not morose, but cheery. The contrast between this girl (and she was a fair type of her companions) and the other girls in the car was so marked that undoubtedly it was the cause of the remark about her being old-fashioned. The latter girls were dressed in the latest fashion—cobweb stockings, through which the flesh could plainly be seen, and which bordered very closely on the immodest; the dress, low-necked; the hair, not all natural; the hat — well, there was nothing old-fashioned about it or its wearer. Not only was there a lack of “modest apparel,” but there was a lack of sufficient apparel.

In these days, no greater compliment can be paid to a Seventh-day Adventist girl than to be called old-fashioned by those of the world. Old-fashioned means to have backbone, so that godliness and common sense shall prevail in the matter of dress. It means a personality which enables the girl to stem the current, and dress according to her own taste and convictions. The world needs old-fashioned girls, who will grow into old-fashioned women,—women who love purity, who fear God and reverence his Word. Old-fashioned wives and old-fashioned mothers are sadly needed in these days of “militant suffragists” and women’s clubs. Old-fashioned homes are needed, where the family altar is erected, where God’s name is respected, and from whence there shall come men and women of character, of faith, of purity, who will proclaim to a perishing world the old-fashioned gospel of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. Let us all uncover our heads to the “old-fashioned girl,” for she is the hope of the nation.

Takoma Park, D. C.