Here is required of wives subjection towards their husbands; though God made them in many things equal, yet in wisdom He thought meet to make some little inequality, and appointed the husband to be the superior and head, and so to rule, and the wife to be subject to him; yet not so but that he hath his rules to bound his rule, that it exceed not (1Co_11:8-9; 1Ti_2:13).
Neither is this without reason; for if all were equals in the commonwealth there would be confusion; and if all bells were of a bigness, and all the strings of an instrument of one size, there would be a harsh sound, and no melody: so, were there not some small inequality between husbands and wives, there could not but be contention. It is God’s order that wives be subject, as it is His order the sun should shine, the earth bear fruit, the heavens cover us. Accordingly, God hath provided to make man the stronger, woman the weaker vessel, that he might be the fitter to rule, and she (feeling her own weakness) the more willing to be ruled. (John Rogers.)
A quarrelsome wife
There were times when the Rev. Andrew Fuller could be exceedingly severe. He was once spending a few days in a family where the husband and wife were not very happy together, chiefly, I believe, owing to her tyrannical spirit, fostered by perverted views of Divine truth, making her by no means remarkable for kindness to her husband. One evening, having heard Mr. Fuller preach, according to the fashion of the school to which she belonged she remarked: “Ah, sir, we are poor creatures and can do nothing.” “You are quite mistaken, madam,” replied Mr. Fuller, “you can do a great deal.” “Why, what can I do?” asked the lady, somewhat excited. “Why, madam,” replied he, with a tone and manner which can only be imagined by those who knew him, “you can quarrel with your husband.” The lady said no more. (Baptist Messenger.)
If any obey not … they also may … be won.-
Wives must be subject even unto bad husbands
Not only must wives be subject that have good husbands, but even they which hath infidel husbands, unkind, irreligious; for they are their husbands, whom they have chosen, and are now in covenant to God withal, and which God hath laid out for them as a blessing or cross. If any shall say, This is very hard, let such know, that Christians must do difficult things. Every bungler can make good work of good, straight timber, but he that can make good work of that which is crooked and knotty is worthy commendation. (John Rogers.)
Unconscious influence
The case supposed is one that would occur again and again while Christianity was making its way among the pagan nations. A Christian woman would find it very difficult to win over her pagan husband by direct efforts; she would be thrown back upon the silent influence of her chaste, holy, unselfish conduct and conversation; and the apostle intimates that she should expect this to be a sanctified energy which God would use to accomplish the desire of her heart. A fable is told of a mountain island of lodestone that stood up in mid-ocean, and attracted on every side the ships that sailed over the seas. As soon as ever they came within the line of its influence they were insensibly seized, gradually at first, then ever more swiftly they were drawn, until at last they dashed to destruction on the rocky coast. The Christian should be an influence for Christ on every side of his nature, seizing every barque that sails by on the ocean of life; seizing it by the power of Christian character and Christian consistency, and drawing it into the harbour of God’s love and service.
I. It may be well to illustrate what is meant by our unconscious influence, and to exhibit its importance and value. As we meet together in society, how distinctly tone is recognised and felt! Beyond the influence we can exert on each other by our actions, there is the power of our very presence, an atmosphere around us which we carry with us wherever we may be. You can be a growing power, more decidedly and wholly influencing others for good, as by watchfulness and earnest culture you grow in personal religious worth.
II. Consider the sphere in which the power of this our unconscious influence will be most felt. It will be felt everywhere. It is a necessity of our being that we should exert it. It belongs to us, and flows forth from us as freely as the fragrance of the violet wherever the violet is found. Yet such influence is most felt at home. Much ought to be done by the young Christian’s direct efforts for the happiness and salvation of the household; but the very freeness of life in the home makes such labour difficult, and often there are circumstances which make it impossible to speak the word. So, in your first religious Sphere, you may be thrown back upon the importance of the influence silently exerted by your character. In a home some will be dependent on you, whatever your place may be; the children, younger children, or the servants. These will be very easily affected by the tone and spirit of your life; and they will be very keen to watch for the spirit they know is in harmony with the professions you make. In another way those on whom you depend in the home will be reached by you. On the side of your submissions and obediences you will win power over them. Holy, loving children have been honoured as the means of winning their parents for Christ. And home life includes a circle of friendships; you are not called by your Christian profession to separate yourselves from such circles; but you should carry into such society a fragrance of Christian purities and charities that may ever flow out to bless those with whom you meet.
III. On what the efficiency of this influence will depend.
1. It will depend on our cultivation of Christian graces, and that work includes the repression of all our constitutional infirmities, whether of temper or spirit, and the mastery of all habits that are relics of our sinful states.
2. It will depend on the consistency of our Christian conduct.
3. It will depend on constancy in religious duties. (R. Tuck, B. A.)
The attractive power of Christian character
Weadopt the opinion that “the Word” is used in two distinct senses, and we read the passage thus: If any obey not the gospel, they also may without preaching be won by the character and conduct of the wives. The subject before us is this: The gospel reproduced in character and conduct, a means of saving sinners from the error of their ways. In discussing this subject, however, let me guard against even the appearance of underrating the written and the preached Word. Without “the Word,” what revolutions would this void create! The “Word” withdrawn from Christendom would rend the finest pictures, and pull down the most splendid buildings, and take the salt from the best literature, and bury in oblivion the highest science, and darken the brightest homes, and devastate the fairest countries, and undermine all righteous thrones, and send back some civilised nations to barbarism, and bring a huge shadow of death over the whole world. Without “the Word” mankind are without gospel, without light and life.
I. “The Word” received produces a distinctive character in him who accepts it. This is alike its object and tendency. “The Word” reveals the one living and true God-the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost-as the redeeming God, and shows that God is reconciling the world unto Himself. Now, the man who receives “the Word” is translated from darkness to light, he is transplanted from an ungenial to a friendly soil, and he admits to his nature elements which, combining with whatever is Divine within him, will produce a new man and effect a new creation.
II. The character which “the Word” produces is of a nature to attract and win. The character begotten by “the Word” is-
1. Strong. It has in it all the constituents of complete spiritual power, intelligence touching the highest subjects, faith in God, hope of the greatest and most enduring good, love of the purest and most fervent flame, immutable and everlasting principles of action.
2. The character formed by “the Word” is also genial. There is in it the attractiveness of beauty and of pleasantness, as well as of power. The basis of that which is genial in the Christian character is love.
3. This strong and loving character is also reasonable, it is conformed in all points, to rational principles. It has within it none of the elements which constitute the fanatic or visionary. Imagination creates not this character, but faith in a Divine revelation; and that revelation presents nothing contrary to reason.
III. The influence of this gospel-formed character is felt most where association is most frequent and contact most close. The text points to a home as the sphere of Christian influence, but it also directs our attention to woman as influential there, and it leads our thoughts to the presence of unbelief in the family. This suggests two things: firstly, that there is often evangelistic work to be done in families of which Christians are part; and secondly, that this work may be extensively wrought by Christian women. Christian men and women, whatever your hands may find to do beyond, neglect not the home.
IV. Believers of the Word may accomplish the end of preaching by being doers of the Word in the face of unbelievers. The great want of the world at the present time, is the Christianity of the New Testament translated into action. The demand for Christians is more urgent than the demand for churches. Men would see works that they may believe our words. (S. Martin.)
Won by behaviour
A high-born, cultured lady was converted during one of the London missions, and it was a genuine conversion. Immediately she separated herself from the world, revolutionised her household, altered her gay attire; and instead of the theatre or concert or ballroom night after night she was found at the mission service, the prayer meeting, or Bible reading. At first it embittered and angered her worldly husband, but eventually he yielded to what he termed “a new caprice.” When he found out that his beautiful wife was really in earnest, he persecuted her, and stung her with bitter reproaches, which, unfortunately, too frequently aroused her passionate temper, or occasioned an angry retort. One day God used her husband’s bitter words to teach her a great lesson. “When your Christ can do something more for you, Isabel,” he said, “I may let Him try to do something for me-not before.” “Wherein do I fail most?” she asked. “In your temper and tongue, which are sourer than when I first knew you.” “Is this really so?” she asked herself when alone. “If so, O God, forgive me” was the sob which burst from her lips. “What! is it possible that my hastiness may perhaps be keeping my husband from God? Away with it, Lord I Give me, I pray Thee, victory over all sin.” God answered her prayer, but the testing time had yet to come. When her husband found persecution no longer irritated her, he let jealousy get the better of him-jealousy of the little delicate lad, their only child, who monopolised so much of his mother’s time, and filled a large place in her loving heart, One evening when Mr. N-returned home irritable and morose-perhaps the worse for wine-she was singing softly, “There’s a beautiful land on high,” and the patient little sufferer had just said, “I’d like to be there, mother, if I could take you with me,” when Mr. N-entered the nursery, and said, irritably, “Put that child down, Isabel; Norton has come home with me to dine.” “Our little laddie is worse, Edgar,” she said. “May I not stay with him?” “No,” and taking him roughly from her knee he handed the child to the nurse. “All nonsense about his being worse.” But, as he spoke, a loud moan escaped the little lad’s lips. His father had caught his head accidentally’ against the corner of the table, and he cried out to go back to his mother again, “The child is not hurt much, Isabel; leave him at once, and come and attend to my guest.” With an aching heart, Mrs. N-obeyed, trembling lest the blow might prove serious. Before dinner, however, was over, she was summoned to the nursery. The child was worse. Both the doctor and physician had been sent for, and they shook their heads at his condition. In the midst of the confusion and excitement, Mr. N-went out with his friend, heedless of the message which had been sent to him from the nursery, lie did not return until long after midnight. But about midnight his little child died. Isabel N-was childless. There she knelt alone by the bedside of her little darling’s lifeless form. Would it be possible to describe her feelings or to understand the conflict through which she was passing? The Refiner was looking on-watching intently to see the effect of the fire through which He was causing His child to pass. Would it burn up the dross? Would it subdue the will? A few minutes later her husband’s step was heard in the hall, and Mrs. N-knew the butler would tell his master all that had happened. The grief-stricken woman listened for him to come to her at once, but she heard him enter the library and shut the door; and, in the stillness which followed, she cried unto the Lord for guidance and strength. Pride said, “Let him come to you-he has wronged both you and the child”; but love said, “Go to him-be the first to forgive.” Love conquered, thanks be to God. Mr. N-was sitting by the table, his head buried in his hands, when he heard the library door open, and in another moment felt his wife’s soft warm arms encircling his neck, and her lips pressed to his heated brow, while a voice of gentle sweetness said, “Jesus has taken our darling to be with Him, Edgar; but I will love you more, dear.” No stinging reproaches-no hard hasty words-not even a tender rebuke. The man could hardly believe he heard aright. What a miracle! What wonderful love! Yes, and the love broke his heart. “Come upstairs and see our boy, Edgar.” Without speaking he followed her; and while the two knelt alone in that still room and her tremulous voice pleaded that the sorrow might be sanctified, and that one day they too might join their little one in the Better Land, the proud, stubborn man yielded his heart to his God. When he arose he said, calmly, “Isabel, Christ has done so much for you, dear, that I mean to ask Him to do as much for me. There is something in Christianity after all.” (Mrs. Walter Searle.)
Chaste conversation coupled with fear.-
Christian womanhood
The “chaste conversation coupled with fear” seems to signify purity in an atmosphere of fear, the tremulous grace which is “afraid of the very shadow of wrong.” The “beholding” is in the original a remarkable word. It seems to point at “initiation” into a world of goodness before unknown to the husband. The selfish rhetorician Libanius, who had some Christian acquaintances, is said to have exclaimed: “What wives those Christians have!” A missionary to China has heard Christian women say: “Until we became Christians we never really knew that we were women.” (Bp. Wm. Alexander.)
The Christian woman
Let our thoughts be guided by this twofold proposition:-
1. For the unfolding of woman’s character, and the balancing of her spirit, Christianity supplies the only sufficient impulse and guide.
2. Christianity exhibits no more perfect illustration or achievement than in the completed proportions of her spiritual life. The first epoch of trial in woman’s life begins when the period of education ceases. It is a period of dependence, in the first place, with most women-dependence on parents-but still not the less irksome for that, if the woman, with a consciousness of strength, sees the parent worn and anxious with excess of labour; or if, with willingness for effort which her position or social prejudice forbids, she sees her every want met only by reluctant and grudged supplies. It is a period of uncertainty; for it looks straight out upon all those contingencies that determine her future lot-a lot for which she is not so much to lead or choose as to wait and weigh the perils of being chosen, or to learn the calm fortitude that conquers neglect with dignity. It is a period of highly wrought sensibility. The emotions have swelled, from the babbling brook that kept its quiet way within the banks of youth, into the rushing river of impetuous passion. It is a period of comparative irresponsibleness; and who shall say that irresponsibleness is a blessing, when we know so well how occupation dispels morbid introspections, and how daily strain upon the muscles fortifies timid and tremulous nerves? It is not true, I think, of any other condition of human discipline, more than this one, that nothing short of a personal acquaintance with Christian trust can satisfy its wants. Two other and different resources, indeed, the young woman has: and we need not wander far to search for proofs how often She tries their value. They are her womanly pride, and the excitements of society. What will Christianity do? It concentrates the aimless and restless purposes of woman on the one grand object of a personal acceptance with God. It takes off the load, which no human spirit can bear and be cheerful, by its promise of forgiveness for what is lacking, and by its encouraging assurance that when once the life is consecrated to God no single act or thought of good can fail of fruit in the spiritual harvests of eternity. It offers her what the mind of youth more than anything else craves-a friendship at once unchangeable and trustworthy as the heavens; and so it opens the gates of the city of God straight into her closet of prayer, and, when the world looks most inhospitable, shows her friendly angels ascending with her supplications, and descending with counsel and compassion, between her Bethel and her Father. It not only quickens her to a new fidelity in all the homely ministrations of the house where she lives, towards brothers and sisters, parents and servants; it opens to her the lowly door of poverty; it draws her, by cords stronger than steel, to the unclad orphan and the bedside of sick wretchedness; it stimulates her invention, it exhausts her economy, it plies her fingers, it inspires her intercessions for the instruction of poor children’s ignorance, and the redemption of their despair. Another task still Christianity solemnly charges upon woman in her youth. It bids her by every separate obligation of her discipleship be true to immaculate virtue in her intercourse with companions, and in the bestowment of her favour. Would to God that some angel from His own right hand would reveal to her the power she controls for the redemption of those horrible vices that defile and intoxicate the land! for then she might take up her benignant ministry as an apostle of holiness, persuading the tempted by her unbending principle, as well as bearing her own profession incorruptibly. It is time to advance to a later stage of the Christian woman’s experience. If her moral power is so decisive at the time when life has devolved upon her the fewest responsibilities, and neither age nor station has vested in her any adventitious authority, it is only more commanding yet when she has taken up the complicated relations of marriage, and assumed the spiritual governance of that lesser church, that sacred seminary-the family. The chief enemies to her Christian simplicity-and thus to the symmetry of her own character, as well as the integrity of her influence-are social ambition, an appetite for admiration, the passion for indiscriminate excitement, and, in other constitutions, a dull servitude to the routine of mechanical tasks.
1. By social ambition I mean the vulgar appetite for those external distinctions which are even more dangerous to woman than to man, because of the inherent natural aristocracy of her nature. A wife or mother who suffers it to be her supreme exertion to rise in the public consideration has already parted with that artless sincerity which is the chief grace of her womanhood.
2. Appetite for admiration. Could some searching census register the number of those who are kept aloof from the love of God by this foolish vanity alone, should we dare to look into the swelling catalogue? Could some magic reflection be added to mirrors, so that, while they show back the adjustment of garments, they should also reveal the emptiness of soul, what dismal disclosures would startle the sleeping conscience!
3. Passion for indiscriminate excitement. What hold has religion taken of that mind which never rests in its insatiable craving for some public spectacle-is never satisfied except when it is preparing for some scene of social display, or exulting over its conquests? There is no noble type of womanhood that does not wear serenity upon its forehead.
4. On the other hand, in constitutions of an opposite inclination, female life is apt to degenerate, if not inspired by religion, into a tame routine of narrow domestic cares, dwarfing the spirit to its own contracted limitations. The very nature of woman requires animation for its health. Religion, with its infinite mysteries, its deep and stirring experience, its boundless duties, offers that needed stimulus-offers it to the obscurest and the lowliest. The Christian wife and mother is a Christian in the spirit by which she orders her household and nurtures her offspring. Too many mothers make their first request for their sons that of the mother of Zebedee’s children-that they may sit on thrones of wealth and power. What wonder if those sons are worldlings, are hypocrites, are criminals? Too many train up their daughters with no loftier aim than to be beautiful brides, or the centres of meretricious observation at summer watering places, or to value a husband by his income, or not to be over nice in their judgment of men, because they are not expected to be virtuous like women. Infamous effrontery towards God! And thus I have come, finally, to what may be briefly established-that Christianity exhibits no more perfect achievement than in the completed character of a spiritual womanhood; for, passing on one stage later yet, we find the united result of a life’s discipline and a heavenly faith in the Christian woman’s old age. Providence has not withheld that confirmation of the power and beauty of religion from our eyes. We feel new confidence and truth, new love for goodness, new zeal for duty, new trust in God, new gratitude to Christ, when we look on her ripened holiness; and, as her strength faints before the power of decay, behold the crown of immortality descending almost visibly upon her head! I cannot so well finish this account of a Christian woman as by repeating the following touching, simple memorial of his wife written by one of the statesmen of England-Sir James Mackintosh-in a private letter to a friend: “She was a woman,” he writes, “who, by the tender management of my weaknesses, gradually corrected the most pernicious of them. She became prudent from affection; and, though of the most generous nature, she was taught frugality and economy by her love for me. During the most critical period of my life she preserved order in my affairs, from the care of which she relieved me. She gently reclaimed me from dissipation, she propped my weak and irresolute nature, she urged my indolence to all the exertions that have been useful or creditable to me, and she was perpetually at hand to admonish my heedlessness and improvidence. To her I owe whatever I am-to her whatever I shall be. In her solicitude for my interest, she never for a moment forgot my character. Her feelings were warm and impetuous; but she was placable, tender, and constant. Such was she whom I have lost; and I have lost her when a knowledge of her worth had refined my youthful love into friendship, before age had deprived it of much of its original ardour. I seek relief, and I find it in the consolatory opinion that a benevolent Wisdom inflicts the chastisement as well as bestows the enjoyment of human life; that superintending goodness will one day enliven the darkness which surrounds our nature, and hangs over our prospects; that this dreary and wretched life is not the whole of man; that a being capable of such proficiency in science and virtue is not like the beasts that perish; that there is a dwelling place prepared for the spirits of the just; that the ways of God will yet be vindicated to man.” (Bp. Huntington.)
Let it not be that outward adorning.-
The influence of Christianity on dress
To lay down rules for the regulation of dress, applicable to all circumstances, all ranks, all ages, is impossible. To fix the cut of the coat, the shape of the bonnet, were a hopeless and, indeed, ridiculous task. All that we can do is to lay down certain principles, distinctly asserted in, or clearly deducible from, the gospel.
I. Christian principles forbid all dress which is not honestly procured. That dress is dishonestly procured for which you know you cannot pay, or the payment of which is effected by dishonourable means, by falsehood, by embezzlement, or fraud. It is not in the higher circles only that temptations to obtain dress by dishonest methods occur. The servant maid must ape her mistress; but the wages she receives are not equal to the demands of her pride. But even if every tradesman’s bill is punctually paid, still you are guilty of dishonesty if the money thus expended be drawn from other channels in which, in justice to yourselves, or to your families, it ought to flow. You are unjust to yourself if you starve either the body or the mind to decorate the person.
II. Christian principles forbid that dress which is immodest. The author of my text, in another Epistle, charges the women that they adorn themselves in “modest apparel.” “A prudent woman,” says Mr. Jay, “will avoid whatever would appear light and wanton. The apparel of a woman professing godliness should not be the attire of a woman of the world, much less the attire of a harlot. Females sometimes wear a label on which indecency and indelicacy are written, and then appear to be offended because observers can read. I would not always infer too much from these outward hints; but, in the name of a blush, on what principle can we explain the invention and adoption of certain modes? I describe nothing.” Intimately connected with modesty in dress is health; and when it is considered how many thoughtless females have fallen the untimely victims of disease introduced into the frame by the general scantiness, or the partial distribution of their attire, I am persuaded the allusion will not be deemed improper.
III. Christian principles forbid that dress which is unbecoming your station. It is obvious, by a comparison of the text and parallel passages with the general scope of Scripture, that costly attire is not forbidden where the ability of the person is fully equal to its purchase, without injury to any other claims. The virtuous woman is highly commended in the Proverbs, who, through her industry, clothed all her household in scarlet, and herself with silk and purple. Moreover, the good of society requires persons to dress, in some degree, according to their rank and station. But it is excess that the apostle censures.
IV. Christian principles forbid that dress which requires an undue consumption of time. I will not recount the days and years of valuable time which some females spend in cutting, adjusting, adorning, altering, and improving the articles of their dress, till the world of novelties is ransacked and the invention at a stand: I will not number up the hours, or tell the years the aggregate would make, devoted to the toilette, with peevishness and impatience, till every ringlet is properly adjusted, every plait suitably apportioned, and every gem placed to the best advantage at the expense of religion and humanity, and to the ruin of both body and soul!
V. Christian principles forbid that dress which, by its singularity or extravagance attracts peculiar attention. The desire to court observation-the ambition to be singular-the hope of being admired, is the essence of pride, and in this vice both the extremes of finery and of plainness will be found to meet. “Keep thy foot when thou goest into the house of God.” Surely, look well to thy attire is included in this injunction.
VI. That dress is forbidden by Christian principles which seriously occupies and absorbs the powers of the mind. And yet how many females are there the range of whose information is bounded by these limits-the topics of whose discourse are derived from this subject-who understand no science but that of shapes and colours-are acquainted with no art but that of decoration and display-and are conversant in no history but that of modes and fashions. It yet remains that I should produce some considerations by which the observance of them may be enforced.
VII. These principles should be enforced-
1. By a consideration of the sources whence your dress proceeds. As clothes cannot impart moral qualities or mental endowments to the wearer, so they are little to be gloried in on another account: they are derived from the lowest sources, and composed of the meanest materials. Nay, more than this, is not the dress on which you pride yourself the memorial of your shame? But for sin it had never encumbered the limbs, nor occupied for a moment’s space the care of the unspotted mind.
2. By a comparative view of its intrinsic worth. In a time of universal famine how many jewels would you give for a single loaf of bread? In a raging fever how many diamonds would you sacrifice for a moment’s ease? In a parched desert how many embroidered robes would you exchange for a cooling draught? Why, then, should such enormous sums be expended in glimmering pebbles and sparkling dust? Compare them with your books-your Bibles-your souls-all neglected for their sake! Arise to correcter sentiments and nobler aims. Make the Bible your looking glass, the graces of the Spirit your jewels, the temper of Jesus your attire.
3. Consider the estimation in which dress is held by the wise and good. With them it always occupies its proper place, which is an inferior one; and wherever it rises to excess and glare, indicating the vanity and pride of its possessor, it excites their pity and contempt.
4. The estimation in which you will hold dress in the hour of death and in an eternal world. (T. Raffles, D. D.)
Dress
St. Peter does not prohibit absolutely the plaiting of the hair, the wearing of gold, and the putting on of apparel; but he desires that the precedence be given to higher and better things.
I. Let us not hesitate to say that there is nothing in Christianity, rightly understood, which prohibits a woman from endeavouring to dress well and to look well. There is no religion in a mean, unattractive garb. Years ago there lived two Greek philosophers, Diogenes and Plato. Plato, who was a man of wealth and taste, had handsome carpets. Diogenes preferred living in a tub, and saying disagreeable things, under the impression that he was “faithful.” One day he came, in an ill temper, into his brother philosopher’s drawing room; and stamping on the carpets, cried out, “I trample on the pride of Plato!” “Yes,” said Plato, quietly,-“and with greater pride.” Is there not something of this pride in “unworldly.” dressing? Cannot a woman show her Christianity without making herself conspicuous by singularity? But we will take a step farther. We have said that Christianity does not prohibit attention to dress. We wilt now say that Christianity requires of a Christian woman to make the best of herself. God the Creator delights in beauty-beauty of form and hue and outline and arrangement; and surely He would have us, His creatures, delight in beauty also; and surely anyone who shows a marked inattention to the comeliness of outward things, shows himself, so far, out of harmony with the Divine mind.
II. The Christian woman will always subordinate the outward to the inward. But she will want rules to guide herself by. She will not be extravagant in the money she spends upon her dress. If her personal appearance be a talent, so also is her money: and both have to be considered. Another talent, which a Christian woman will think much of, is her time. The highest praise as to dress, which a right-minded woman would desire, would be to have it said of her by the passers-by, “I did not notice her dress; but I noticed herself; and she seemed an unaffected, modest, genuine Christian lady.” (G. Calthrop, M. A.)
Female adornment
I. The capacity of woman for adornment.
1. We say that the female form is adapted for adornment.
2. We say that the female nature is adapted for adornment. Can kindness, gentleness, meekness sit with so good a grace on a man as on a woman? Is not sweetness of temper reflected in every look, and does it not beautify and glorify every feature?
II. The directions for women’s adornment. (J. J. S. Bird, B. A.)
Female adorning
Here, in the Word of life, we have fallen upon a text that deals with female attire, condemning one style of adorning, and commending another. God loves beauty of every kind, both the beauty of nature and the beauty of holiness. How do we know that? Because everything that He makes is beautiful. The works of nature are beautiful on all sides, and on all sides alike beautiful. It is not a bright exterior, and a rough ungainly interior; it is not a polished side to the public road, and a slovenly rubble wall on the shaded side. Nor is the most elaborate design or the most exquisite colour reserved for the most enduring objects. The snow crystals, and the frosted tracery on the windows, are as perfect in design and execution as the monarchs of the forest that outlast fifty human generations. Man is the chief of God’s works, and enjoys most of His care. He was made most beautiful, but has disfigured himself by sin. When His best work was damaged, the Creator did not give it up, and give it over. He framed a plan to restore. He desires to have His own image renewed. A man of feeble intellect, in the north of Scotland, was wont, like most of his class, to be very slovenly in his appearance. To this weakling the gospel of Christ came in power. He accepted God’s covenant love, and found himself a child of the family. Soon after this change the minister met him on a Sabbath morning, and was struck with his unwonted cleanness, and the efforts he had made in his own fashion to ornament his person. Accosting him kindly, the minister said, “You are braw today, Sandy.” “He was braw Himsel’ the day,” replied Sandy reverently; meaning that Jesus, when He rose from the grave on the first day of the week, was arrayed in the Divine glory and the beauty of holiness. The Lord on high, who rejoices to receive the little ones, would, methinks, be pleased to see Sandy’s Sunday clothes, and to hear Sandy’s simple answer. Peter in this text undertakes to tell how the uncomely may be rendered beautiful. Here is the true adorning; and it is for us, for all. Still deeper goes the apostle’s thought when he arrives at the details of the recommended ornaments. “Not that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel”;-what then? “Let it be the hidden man of the heart.” There is a whole Christ in every disciple who lives up to his privileges, as there is a whole sun in the cup of every flower that opens to his shining. When this ornament is worn in the heart within, its beauty is seen on the outward life. In general, a likeness of Christ is in the life of a Christian; and, in particular, “a meek and quiet spirit.” When, in the processes of art, a new and beautiful colour is about to be transferred to a fabric, the hardest portion of the task sometimes is to discharge the dyes that are already there. A terrible process of scalding must be applied to take out the old ere you can successfully impart the new. In like manner, the anger and pride and selfishness that have first possession present the greatest obstacle to the infusion of a meek and gentle spirit into a man. If there be a royal, there is certainly no easy, road to this consummation. It is a striking, bold, and original conception, to propose that an ornament should be hidden in the heart. Ordinarily, we understand that an ornament, from its very nature, must be worn in a conspicuous position. When it is hidden, how useful and valuable soever it may be, it ceases to be an adorning. But in the spiritual sphere the law is reversed. Meekness is spoiled when it is set up for show. This ornament, moreover, is incorruptible. This epithet is peculiarly relevant. With the exception of the metals and minerals, ornaments are, for the most part, perishable commodities. Rain soils them; the sun burns their beauty out, In the accidents of life they are worn or torn, or stolen or lost. The rose and lily that bloom on the cheek are not perennial; the wrinkles of age are creeping on to drive them off and take their place. All these adornings are corruptible. This text recommends one that will never fade. Age makes it mellower, but not less sweet. As it is not a colour of the decaying body, but a grace of the immortal spirit, it will pass unharmed through the dark valley, and bloom in greater beauty on the other side. It will make the ransomed from among men very comely in the eyes of angels, when they stand together round the throne, and serve their common Lord. One grand concern with buyers is to obtain garments that will last-garments whose fabric will not waste, and whose colours will not fade. Yet another quality is noticed of the recommended adorning-it is costly. In the sight of God, and of the godly, it is “of great price.” In the market of the world, alas! we, like inexperienced children, are often cheated. We pay a great price for that which is of no value. We are often caught by the glitter, and accept a base metal for gold. He who counts this ornament precious knows its worth. The righteousness of the saints is dear to God in a double sense. It is both beloved and costly. (W. Arnot.)
Women’s dress
Common sense, sustained by Christian principle, will ever reveal what your dress ought to be. The coarse dress is not necessarily the fulfilment of the admonition of the apostle Peter. A young woman is not to affect the repulsive robe of the nun, as if that were religion; nor to dress in the drab of the Society of Friends, as if that were humility; she is to dress as becomes her station, and her rank, and her position. We may depend upon it, it is far more conducive to the universal welfare that the highest classes should dress as becomes them, than that they should lay it all aside, and dress like the Society of Friends. What would become of all the lace, silks, and warehouses in the City of London, and in Manchester, and Nottingham, and Glasgow, and other places; what would become of all the mills that are employed; if men were to try to form, what cannot be formed in character, in wealth, or in industry-a universal dead level? All that Peter insists upon, and all that we require is, that the young woman shall dress as becomes her position in life; good taste, which is always a quiet, never a gaudy thing; and Christian principle regulating her in this: and that the aged woman shall be sober, autumn never trying to deck itself in the flowers of summer, nor cold and dreary winter putting on what is not natural-all the splendours and the glories of June; and young and old recollecting this beautiful thought, “Behold the lilies of the field; they toil not, neither do they spin; yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” (J. Cumming.)
The hidden man of the heart.-
Soul clothing
To clothe the foot in costly apparel, and the upper part with rags, were absurd; so to bestow cost in clothing the body, but none on the soul. The soul is immortal, must live forever; it was created according to God’s image, and now the soul is most deformed with sin, and so hath need of clothing, especially seeing God, who is of pure eyes, cannot behold it but with detestation. The Church is all glorious within, and such as would be indeed members of Christ, and heirs of heaven, must look for inward sanctity. This is the most costly apparel that can be, of God’s own making, and which none but His children wear. This is apparel for all sexes, ages, degrees, and callings, whatsoever, and which doth well become and fit each of them. This is never out of season, never out of fashion; it fits in youth, in age, in life, in death, and is to be worn by night as well as by day, in sickness as in health, yea, is then in great account, when other apparel is laid aside, and not regarded; yea, this apparel we carry with us out of this world, when we leave our gay robes behind us; and this apparel lasts ever, being the better for the wearing. (John Rogers.)
Latent goodness and latent evil
Ifwe translate this into modern language, we might say, “The latent good and evil in man.” The heart stands for the source, back of all else, from which our life flows. What we love most, that we are. Wherever our deepest longing goes, there we are going. But this profound tendency of the soul is often a hidden tendency. It is “the hidden man of the heart.” There is in every man a great deal more of good and of evil than we see. Inside of the visible man, whose face and form we see, there is an invisible man of veins and arteries, and another invisible man of nerves, and a third invisible man of bones; and from the co operation of these proceed the actions of the visible man. What we see in nature is only the visible outcome of what we do not see. So, in the processes of the human soul, what we know proceeds from hidden sources which we do not know. What do I mean by the formation of Christian character? I mean that a man may deliberately choose to be pure, honest, truthful, generous, religious, and that he can turn this choice at last into a habit, so that it shall be natural to him to do right, rather than to do wrong. What he did at first by an effort, and with difficulty, he now does without any conscious effort, and easily. Now, all these instincts, whether original or acquired, are wholly hidden from our knowledge. They are latent until they are called out by some occasion; then they show themselves spontaneously. Some are near the surface, and appear on all occasions; others are deep down, and appear only on special occasions. The moral cowardice in the apostle Peter, which could make him deny his Master, was latent, and Peter could not believe it possible that he should act thus. Circumstances develop latent goodness as well as evil. You are living among neighbours whom you do not know very well. But they seem to you commonplace, or perhaps worldly. But some calamity befalls you. This event brings out the goodness which was lying latent in your neighbours’ hearts; latent because nothing appealed to it. How kind they are now! how self-sacrificing! But the sickness of your child was not the cause of this sympathy, but merely the occasion of its manifesting itself and becoming developed. It did not make, it only revealed, these kindly thoughts of many hearts. Just so the great calamities and dangers of a nation arouse as by an electric touch the heroism and self-sacrifice that there may be in the people. Cincinnatus steps from behind his plough; William Tell from his mountain home; Washington from his comforts; to serve his country in council or battle. But “the times which try men’s souls” do not make Washingtons and Tells-they only test them and call out their latent virtue. Woe to the nation, woe to the man who is not equal to the test when it comes! If the test does not cause them to rise, it makes them fall. How many examples there are to prove the existence of this latent evil! We have seen a young man go from the pure home of his childhood, from the holy influences of a Christian community. He leaves his home and comes to the city to engage in business. He trusts in his own heart, in his own virtuous habits. But there is latent evil in his heart, there is a secret selfishness, a hidden and undeveloped sensualism, which is ready to break out under the influences which will now surround him. He becomes a lover of pleasure; he acquires a taste for play, wine and excitement. In a year or two, how far has he gone from the innocent hopes and tastes of his childhood! The latent evil that was in him has come out under the test of these new circumstances. Meantime, another young man, apparently no better than he, has, under the same circumstances, developed the seeds of virtuous and holy purposes, and has become a man of unshaken integrity and virtue. Why this difference? You cannot trace it to education, for their education was similar, you cannot account for it by the influence of circumstances, example and outward temptations; for these were the same in both cases. The difference was in the latent character of the two boys. One in the depths of his soul was then a sensualist; was then a worldly and selfish boy. The other, with no better outward habits, had in reality an inward principle of goodness. And circumstances merely developed the latent good and evil of the two. The fact of latent goodness is as true and important as that of latent evil. If our inmost purposes are right; if we have kept our heart with all diligence; if we have habitually trusted our souls to God, then we have a stock of latent goodness, ready and equal for any occasion which may come to call for it. We need not fear, then, that we shall not be able to meet any emergencies. An unsuspected strength will then manifest itself, a courage and faith for which we dared not hope will triumphantly reveal itself. What, then, is the practical conclusion from these facts? It is that we should both distrust ourselves and trust ourselves; that we should pray. “Lead us not into temptation,” yet “count it all joy when we fall into temptation.” If we are already conscious of our weakness, we may not need the trial which is sent to show us our weakness. But if, nevertheless, God sends the trial, then it was necessary that we should be tried, and let us count it all joy that it has come. If it brings out an amount of latent evil of which we were not aware, then it is well that we should become thus acquainted with our own depths of sinfulness. The disease must be brought out before it can be cured. But if the temptation, on the other hand, reveals and quickens powers of inward virtue and resolution, then let us bless God for this latent goodness which He shows us. (James Freeman Clarke.)
The hidden man
The point is, that one should not expend the whole of life on making the outside beautiful, but that one should see to it that the inside is adorned also. You are not to cheat the soul of all its gems and virtues for the sake of making yourself attractive exteriorly by adornments of that kind. It is not for that general subject, however, that I have selected She passage, but for this phrase, “the hidden man.” You will have been struck in reading, how much this dual life is insisted upon in the New Testament, especially how much use the apostle Paul makes of it. There are two elements running side by side in his philosophy; one the outward, another the inward. The outward man perishes day by day, the inward man is renewed day by day, says the apostle; and he dwells in various phrase on that duality, the inward life, and the outward or physical life. Everywhere there is this reciprocal action, the world on the mind, and the mind on the world. The sense, the physical body, is the instrument by which the world acts upon our hidden man, and by which the hidden man acts back again upon the world. Through the exterior world the soul is thus the recipient of treasures. The soul is like a prince who receives embassies from all the provinces round about; presents and tribute come to him from the uttermost parts of the earth. The air, the storms, all human occupations, all governments, individual men and combinations of men, pleasures-all bring influence to this potentate, the hidden man of the soul. Then, in turn, the soul sends forth energy, speech, will; and as the tide that swells and fills the harbour, then reflows and seeks again the great ocean, so the flux and reflux of force between mind and the physical world is a greater though an invisible and silent tide. The laws of the physical world are almost sterile until they are touched by the human will. Natural laws could give us metals in their foaming, bubbling states, but they never made a knife or a sword. Nature made trees, but never made a house. Nature has made germs, man has made the harvest. All the great laws that make summer and winter and the intermediate seasons, all the laws that are called natural, all the laws that spring from political economy, all those laws which are said, in one respect, to be natural laws, are not natural laws until some human spirit sits astride upon them and directs them. Now, the relative proportion between this receiving and the outgoing power determines character. It is the critical line both as respects quantity and quality. Those who live by their senses, controlled by objects to be seen or heard or felt from without, live animal lives. They are savages. Then come those who, receiving much, only give forth the energy of their passions-not intellectual energy, not moral, not aesthetic. They give forth simply the energy of selfishness, of pride, of vanity, of ambition, of avarice, combativeness, or destructiveness. It is the lower tier of the human, and the upper tier of the animal that is affected in them, and that gives forth some voice or fruit. Then come those who give action, the men who have industries, that dig, that hew, that build, converting impressions and the result of knowledge from without into energies by which they give the fruit of physical combinations and constructions. This includes the vast mass of the respectable people of the globe today. They are constructors and workers. Then there are those who are over and above all this activity, for the upper always owns the lower. He who gives thoughts can also give construction, though he who gives only construction cannot give thought. The upper always carries within it the privileges and the fruit of the inferior, or of all that is below it. So that the next rank are those who give forth thought and emotion, that have it in their power to thrill their time, or to augment it, to build it up, to defend it; men who live in the higher range of their faculties, and give the fruit reaped from these higher fields, higher and richer. Then come those who, over and above all activities, in physics and even in intellect, have a reserved life which has never had expression except through hymns and psalms, the voice of the teacher and the inspirations of the poet-the utterances of those who have given to knowledge a higher character and a winged form. They are sensitive, open to the subtle inspirations that move in the higher realms, and are men who live by faith or by the higher forms of imagination, not by sight nor by the physical fruitfulness of the human body. In regard to this relative activity of different classes, what they receive and what they give forth, it may be said that it determines, not simply individual rank or life, but it determines also the philosophy or the character of different religions. Take, for instance, the contrast between Judaism and Christianity. Judaism was a recipient religion; Christianity is a projecting religion. The Oriental mind generally receives; the Occidental mind gives forth. A word as to the relative productiveness of these two elements. The productiveness of the mind is generally in increasing ratio from the lowest to the highest; the effectiveness of its outgo is generally in the inverse relation or ratio. Man can more easily turn that which is inspired in his animal range and nature into an external influence and substance, than he can that which belongs to his highest nature. How much of thought there is in cultivated men! How much of thought that goes forth in language! But how much more thought that never rides in the chariot of language! How much men think day by day that is only thinking! In my orchards today there are, I think, on single cherry trees more than a million blossoms; and probably all but about a hundred thousand of those will drop without a cherry having formed under them. Men are like such trees. They breed thoughts by the millions, that result in action only in the scores and the hundreds. Waves of feeling rise, roll through the mind, and leave no more effect behind them than the waves of unknown seas that have rolled solitary for centuries by day and by night. How much there is of purpose that is blighted and barren! How much there is in goodness, how much in sweetness, how much in love, that runs the circuits and touches all the shores of human possibility, but never comes out nor shows itself! How many there are doomed by necessity, like fragrant trees in the great tropical wildernesses-fragrant for ages, but neither brute, beast, nor man ever smells their sweetness! How many there are that live in society who are capable of issuing sweetness that should be of influence, and that should make a very summer round about them, but there is no channel, and they die without opportunity! The great hidden soul had no tongue, nor possibility of using it if it had one. This hidden man, then, may be called in respect to those things that are the highest and the best in this life, the silent man; for we can say least of the things most worthy to be expressed; and this great silence may be said to determine character and condition very largely. They that know how to repress the lower and the evil that is generated within, are on the platform of morality ascending towards spirituality; and those that ascend to the highest forms can express but little. Yet they have, as it were, a palace within themselves, out of which in days of trouble or trial come forth inexhaustible stores of strength and of consolation. It is the hidden man which is at once the glory and the shame of mankind-the rich of thought and pure of purpose whose life perhaps can bring forth but little outward fruit, but who store up for the eternities grand knowledges, impulses, and actions; and, on the other side, the men who maintain an external decorum, but are full of all uncleanliness. This hidden man is more beautiful than any of you think, and more horrible. The saint dwells in many a bosom, not far removed from the very angels of the throne itself. Devils inhabit the heart of many and many a “respectable” man. Oh! bring out your silent man, make him speak, unroll what is written in his thought. How many men could hold up their faces then? And how many men who have produced nothing for the market, not much for the neighbourhood, little for the uses that are common on earth; that have neither the pen of the ready writer, nor the tongue of the orator, nor the wings of the poet, are rich unto God! They dwell in their meditations, and their imaginations remain untranslated into human language or into human conditions, but they are rich rewards God. This is a subject that is full of practical meaning; we ought so to coordinate the receiving to the giving-the income to the outgo that we shall strengthen and make better both of them. So ought men to organise their lives that they shall be fertile without, and fruitful and rich and abundant also within. (H. W. Beecher.)
The hidden man
I. It reminds us that it is the inward life that makes the man. The “hidden man” is not what first meets the eye that constitutes a person’s individuality. It is what his will-led, taught yet ignorant, prejudiced yet biassed, free yet trammelled, great yet little-determines.
II. We are reminded that this inward man far exceeds that which is outward and visible.
1. It exceeds it in value. A man would not take the kingdom for his body. Youth or age, beauty or vileness, do not alter the intrinsic nature of the man. Often indeed do we see the noblest spirits inhabit the most unseemly bodies, while those who possess outward beauty are infamous in their lives. As to the stupendous contrast, in value, of the soul over the body, it is impossible to define any just description. A priceless jewel wrapped in a worthless piece of paper is only a faint representation of the contrast which exists between them.
2. The inner man again is the responsible part of our human nature. The body is but the agent.
3. Compare again for one moment the elements of which they are severally composed. The outward, visible man is dust. The soul or living essence is the breath of the living God. Its influence at once exalts the body to the highest step of material creation.
III. We may consider that this inward life is as the text describes it-a “hidden” life. No human eyes can penetrate the veil which hides it from view. It is in our own hearts we live, in our souls we exist, and in our own hearts we must die. It would be mockery to bring the outside world into our inside existence. It would be bad for us, and bad for the world, if we did not live in a hidden world. Thank God that even our sins are hid.
IV. We would warn you that this hidden life is no secret from God.
V. That this inner man deserves and demands more careful cultivation than it generally receives. Now, in order to effectually cultivate the heart, there must be-
1. A continuous course of introspection.
2. There must be self-communion.
3. There must be the admission of Christ as a guest. It is in the heart that Christ must dwell. (Homilist.)
Religion an inward principle
When religion is styled “the hidden man of the heart” this language cannot imply that it is totally concealed from the observation of the world. Effects may be visible, while the principle whence they proceed is removed from our view. A beautiful river, which highly adorns the country through which it flows, will not fail to engage the eyes of every beholder. Yet the source of it may not be the object of our sight. In like manner the fruits of pious dispositions can be witnessed by all. But the dispositions themselves fall not within our notice. The words convey this idea, that genuine religion consists in the inward temper. From this view of it some instructive lessons may be deduced.
1. Religion does not so essentially depend upon any particular mode of faith or worship as some may suppose.
2. This subject teaches us that it is highly unbecoming and presumptuous in men to decide with rashness on the religious character and state of their neighbours. Fallible as we are we cannot read the motives of individuals; and much goodness may exist, which, from various causes, has few or no opportunities of being witnessed by the eye of man.
3. If religion be “the hidden man of the heart” it cannot exist, and still less can it flourish without the agency of God accompanying our diligence, watchfulness, and self-denial.
4. Religion, being “the hidden man of the heart,” cannot easily be in danger from causes altogether external; nor is it amenable to human laws, nor dependent on human patronage.
5. Since religion is a principle, the inseparable alliance between the possession of its spirit and our happiness, both present and future, is placed in a new and striking light. The happiness of man cannot be independent on the mind. The purest happiness of the mind will be the happiness of heaven, and the degree of it will be greatest in the cases of those whose religion is most eminently “the hidden man of the heart.” (J. Kentish.)
The best clothing
It is Tertullian’s counsel to young women: “Clothe yourselves with the silk of piety, with the satin of sanctity, with the purple of modesty; so shall you have God Himself to be your suitor.” (J. Trapp.)
Meekness
A garment that will never be the worse for wearing, but the better. (J. Trapp.)
Beauty beneath ugliness
Awoman, famous as one of the most kindly among leaders of the best American society, once said: “If I have been able to accomplish anything in life it is due to the words spoken to me in the right season when I was a child by an old teacher. I was the only homely, awkward girl in a class of exceptionally pretty ones, and being also dull at my books, became the butt of the school. I fell into a morose, despairing state, gave up study, withdrew into myself, and grew daily more bitter and vindictive. One day the French teacher, a grey-haired old woman, with keen eyes and a kind smile, found me crying. ‘Qu’ as-tu, ma fille?’ she asked. ‘Oh, madame, I am so ugly!’ I sobbed out. She soothed me, but did not contradict me. Presently, she took me to her room, and after amusing me for some time, said, ‘I have a present for you,’ handing me a scaly, coarse lump, covered with earth. ‘It is round and brown as you. “Ugly,” did you say? Very well, we will call it by your name, then. It is you! Now, you shall plant it, and water it, and give it sun for a week or two.’ I planted it and watched it carefully; the green leaves came first, and at last the golden Japanese lily, the first I had ever seen. Madame came to share my delight. ‘Ah,’ she said, significantly, ‘who would believe so much beauty and fragrance were shut up in that little, rough, ugly thing? But it took heart and came into the sun.’ It was the first time that it ever occurred to me that, in spite of my ugly face, I, too, might be able to win friends, and to make myself beloved in the world.” (Great Thoughts.)
The hidden man
“Why do you not wear richer apparel?” once asked a familiar friend of Edward I. “Because,” said the sensible king, “I cannot be more estimable in fine than I am in simple clothing.”
Exterior adornment insufficient
Those who adorn only the exterior, but neglect the inner man, are lik
