My Hat—Twenty-Seven Years Old!
By Helen Bruce
FASHION is a great tyrant, but she cannot rule you without your own consent. I declared my independence of her long ago, and I do not see but I live quite as well as I did when I was her subject, and I live much more comfortably. Finding that I must spend all I could earn, if not more, in order to dress "in style," I said, "See here, Helen Bruce, what is your object in life? Is it to dress handsomely?" Helen rather reluctantly—for she feared what was coming—replied, "No." "For what were you made, miss?" "To glorify God and enjoy him forever." "Well, can you do that by spending your money for new clothes when your old ones are plenty good enough, or by spending half your time in making up new, or in making over old clothes?" "Now what do you propose to do in the matter? You must choose between spending and being spent, to try to make yourself look nice and stylish (very likely you can do it), or spending and being spent for the good of those dear to you. It is impossible that you should do both. Say which is your choice!" With some very womanish sighs and regretful looks back at fashionable suits and hats of other seasons, Helen at last spoke up with tolerable decision: "I choose to serve God by denying self, and serving those whom he has given me power to thus serve." "It is the first step that costs;" and Helen—that is, I—found that courage and resolution grew with the exercise of them. She really began to take pleasure in wearing garments to which she had become used. Then not needing to go shopping much, gave her more time for study and useful work. She came to care little for her dress, farther than to have it whole and clean. It was wonderful how her clothes lasted. And the thing that lasted best of all was a brown straw hat. She bought it in 1857—the summer when the Ohio Trust Company burst and shattered business terribly—and she has worn it ever since in summer time. It is a good hat yet, and Helen loves it like a sister. Nobody could get it away from her. The praise and the abuse that that one hat has received are enough for a dozen; but it seems very little affected by either. It is a hat of too much character to be moved by trifles. Every few years it is in fashion, and then people cry, "What a handsome hat! why, what ails you to be so much in the fashion? Where29did you buy that hat? It is better and prettier than mine." Then in a year or two more I am accosted with, "For pity's sake, where did that shed top come from? Why will you wear such a thing? You might have got married by this time had you only dressed up like other folks." We let them talk—my hat and I—and we go our quiet ways unheeding. Not that I—Helen I mean—do not know how much dress has to do with looks and impressions. Why, even a horse in shining harness is more attractive than the same one in an old, rope-tied rig-out—yes, a hundredfold more. But she knows it is useless for her to try that way to gain favor. She cannot afford it; the loss would be far more than the gain, even though the gain should be "a husband." When she really needs new garments, she tries to have them as near to prevailing styles as she can, without cutting up the material too much. Then she wears them till they are so worn as to need mending, when sometimes she alters them. This is all that she can do, without neglecting interests which are greatly more important than any demand of fashion. And this is true of the greater number of women. Sisters, come over to my hat and me. We will do you good. Adopt for yourselves and for your children the simple, the seldom changing style, and "taste and see" that there is in it refreshment of both body and soul. The time is now long past in which I would have returned, if I had been able, to the "fuss and feathers" of fashion. I sometimes read a column of "Fashion Hints," but I do not even know the meaning of the terms used there; nor do I wish to know. I drop the paper with a feeling of freedom, and of gratitude for that freedom. Clothing was given us for a covering—never to be of more account than the body, never to be made an injury to the body, nor an injury, through vanity, to the soul. In too many cases the servant has become the master. Sisters, arouse yourselves. Ye have one rightful Master, even Christ. His services demand your chief attention and all your powers, and you "cannot serve two masters." Which will you choose—the Lord Fashion? Cast off the evil yoke. Ye are called to freedom.—Helen Bruce, in New York Evangelist.