p. 183 | Useless Adornments by Susan D. Huff

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 21, 1872

Useless Adornments.

By Susan D. Huff

I HAVE often wondered if some of our professors of religion ever thought of their vow to renounce the vain pomp and glory of the world! What is “pomp”? Our dictionary makers tell us one of its definitions is “exterior show,” and “vain” means “worthless, empty, unsatisfying;” therefore, “vain pomp” means worthless, unsatisfying, exterior show. Does not the fanciful decoration of the person with flowers, feathers, ear-rings, finger-rings, chains, crosses, bunches and humps of dress goods, so arranged as to leave one to conjecture whether the wearers are deformed naturally or artificially, come under the head of “worthless, exterior show,” “vain pomp”? If so, when our sisters, with all these trappings, approach the table of the Lord, is he pleased to meet them, and does he manifest himself to them in “the breaking of bread” while they are breaking their baptismal vows? Oh! my sisters, think how many suffering ones around you might be relieved by the money lavished on unnecessary adornments; and then, if you can, ask God’s blessing on your decorations. Do they make you more Christ like?—Do they make you more meek and lowly? Did you ever see one “poor in spirit” thus bedizened? Can one who bestows so much thought on dress give sufficient attention to the improvement of mind and heart? These are, in my opinion, questions that should not be lightly passed over. I have often thought of the reply made years ago by one of our old preachers to one of his members who asked him if her “bonnet was too gay.” “Indeed, sister, I don’t know; go and ask Jesus.” Tears filled her eyes as she said, “I know it is too gay with these feathers; I can’t wear it.” My dear sisters, you who have power to prevail with God, will you not pray, with all your faith, that the Holy Ghost may so come upon the Church that all the tinsel and frippery may vanish from our midst, and that all our members may clothe themselves in “modest apparel which becometh women professing godliness”? It won’t do to go to the self-sacrificing Jesus, who left us an example that we should tread in his steps, and ask to be excused for worldliness because we live in an age of progress. He changes not; his word shall not pass away, and he said, “If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” Where there is no love of the world, there will be no conformity to its ridiculous and silly fashions, that, it would seem, are invented to test the length to which some will go in foolish extravagance.

The most devout and holy men and women, of all ages, have been uniformly simple in dress, manners, and speech; and where there is a love of display, it seems to me to be owing to a weak head, or an unconsecrated heart, or both. I would not wound, needlessly, the feelings of any one, but the words of the most naturally gifted, have very little weight with persons in general, when they are uttered by one adorned with gold or pearls or costly array or finery of any description. May God hasten the day when our women shall bring their jewelry, not to be “melted for a golden calf, but to send the bread of life to those who sit in the region and shadow of death.”—Mrs. Susan D. Huff.