p. 482 | Modest Apparel

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 12, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 31.

Modest Apparel.

"WHAT is to be understood by modest apparel, as mentioned in 1 Tim. 2: 10?"

Modest apparel is such that from its singularity, or conspicuousness of style, color, etc., will not require a strain upon the natural modesty of the wearer to assume it, especially at the first wearing, or among plain and modest people.

Modest apparel is such as does not lead a stranger, judging from our attire, to suppose that we are wealthier than we really are; for it is not modest to try to pass for what we are not, either in station or in attainment.

Modest apparel is such as is not calculated to suggest licentious thoughts in the beholder, or to beget doubts as to the chastity of the wearer. It is a fact that modern fashions violate these conditions; and it is a fact that it is almost impossible on the part of lewd women to keep sufficiently extreme in fashion to be any help to them in advertising their nefarious vocation. And all apparel that from its character is at all calculated to obliterate the line of distinction between chastity and unchastity is not modest apparel. "The loyal ought not to wear the uniform of the disloyal." Christians ought to be as peculiar for their modest dress as worldlings are for ornamenting their persons. Divine taste asserts that modest apparel adorns "the meek and quiet in spirit."—Free Methodist.