THE QUAKER BONNET

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 22, 1862

THE QUAKER BONNET.

"I'm glad you have so neat and plain a bonnet: for a lady's bonnet always tells so much upon her character," said a sensible highly-cultivated, middle-aged lady to a young friend of hers who was just putting on, for the second time, a newly-repaired, white, double-straw hat, trimmed with thick, firm ribbon of medium width and a beautiful shade of light green. As this tidy little bonnet told its own little story of modesty, good judgment, and a nice sense of propriety, so other bonnets tell theirs, each in its own peculiar shade and style. But of all the bonnets that I ever saw, or of which I ever read, the right good, old-fashioned, orthodox Quaker bonnet is to me the most pleasing. What a souvenir of good works! How I love it! How all the poor love it! How it teems with pictures of "meek and quiet spirits!" of faces all a-glow with peaceful content, and bearing the impress of habitual, chaste sobriety and uniform cheerfulness! How the very name calls up thoughts of industry, frugality, temperance, charity, justice, and mercy! What volumes does it unfold of hidden lives of self-denial and Christian forbearance—lives that savor strongly of having been with Jesus! And how plainly and unassumingly it seems to echo those choice words of our Saviour, "Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them!" Then it is a veteran soldier, too—that grave-looking, old-fashioned Quaker bonnet. For more than two hundred years it has stood sentinel at the threshold of the Society of Friends, frightening away all those vain women who would like to be seen in the train of the lowly Jesus, but are unwilling to help bear his cross—particularly if it will in any way detract from their good looks. What a pity other churches cannot be proved with some similar sentinel to keep aloof the multitudes of false professors with which they are in danger of being thronged, now that the Christian religion is becoming so popular. What if it is so odd as to attract attention?—it causes no harm thereby; it rouses no envy, jealousy, or other unhallowed emotions. The very best villain can regard it with none other than feelings

of respect and self-abasement; for it stands up, a meek, unobtrusive rebuke to all high-handed iniquity. For myself, I never meet it without feeling strongly impressed with the idea that beneath it is concealed a rare and precious gem: even "that inward adorning of the heart," that radiant jewel, "which in the sight of God is of great price."—Sel.