DRY GOODS CHRISTIANS by Dr. Talmage

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 18, 1880

DRY GOODS CHRISTIANS.

By Dr. Talmage

THERE seems to be in the churches a great strife raging. It is an Austerlitz of ribbons. The carnage of color is seen all over our religious assemblages. Along on the outskirts of the Sabbath audiences you see, here and there, a packet of fashion. But down in the middle of the church are the solid columns, blazing away through the service. Five hundred "broken and contrite hearts" covered up in rainbows and spangles. Followers of the "meek and lowly Nazarene" all a jingle and a flash! Ten cents for the missionary cause, and two hundred and fifty dollars for trappings! Church of God hung to the neck with gold chains, diamond locketed! Unsophisticated person traveling on two yards of silk, dragged by the lady going up the aisle in front of him—diamonds enough to give all India the gospel. The item of dress among Christian people on the Sabbath day is an outrage on the Christian religion.

For graceful and beautiful apparel we have admiration. But this strife in Christian circles, as who shall excel in costly millinery, and who shall dash up to the church door in gayest turn-out, and who shall make the most blazonment of wardrobe, is one of the greatest hinderances to religious advancement. Our ladies' hats and shawls are so fine, on rainy days we are afraid to go to church lest we get a drop on them. Our head-gear is worth more than our souls. We teeter and swagger up the aisle, to the disgust of good men and the grief of angels. Enough money is expended by the Christians of a large city, in excess of the requisite outlay for dress, to relieve all the poverty, and educate all the ignorant, and balk all the crime. Much of the piety of our churches is being smothered under shirred basques, and jabot ruffles, and Louisines. The poor are kept out of church because their plain apparel looks so bad in the contrast.

We want a great ecclesiastical reformation in this matter of Sabbath accoutrement. Show these religious peacocks out of the house of God. By your example make subdued and modest costume more popular than gaudy apparel. Do not put so much dry goods on your back that you cannot climb into glory. You cannot sail into the harbor of Heaven with such a rigging as that.

—Dr. Talmage.