Fashions in Church

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 49, 5 December 1907, Page 9

Fashions in Church

In the sight of God ' there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free '. As Pope puts it,

' To Him no higUi, no low, no great, no small : He fills, He bounds, connects, and equals all 1 .-

This equality, this brotherhood of man in the Fatherhood of God, finds happy expression in Spain and in same at least of the Spanish countries, of Latin America. Writing of Mexico, the Newark ' Monitor "* says : 'No matter what may be the -station or wealth of individual members of a parish, all are dressed alike when they attend church. Women may, and do, possess Parisian gowns, but they are not .for vulgar display in the house of God. All women must dress for church ' in -plain, black gowns, with black, mantillas for the head. Thus do the priests of Mexico impress on their people that, notwithstanding' earthly disparity, all are eqpial in the sight of God.'

This is one of the pretty customs that Mexico received from the courtly old Catholic nation by which it s was conquered, colonised, and turned into a great Christian land- The custom is one which deserves the flattery of extended imitation. Splendor— so far as may surround the great* central act of Sacrifice of the. New Law, as it did the sacrifices that were its .types*under the Old Dispensation. But the church is not, like -the race-course on Cup-day, an amphitheatre for the display of ' the latest thing ' in feminine headgear and -the freshest ' dreams ' in frocks and "blouses. Of things that are not in their nature r sinful, there are

few more calculated to disturb the pious meditations _of 1 the devout 1 female sex ' than the . vulgar aind. ill-bred spectacle of -a living f asiiion-plate i * parading ostentatiously up the nave— -generally late, of course, and tricked out "like an odalisque rather than In"- the., garb that becomes a humble worshipper. . If- Christ.- were .to visit some of His temples' 'to-day,- He would' probably - find' some to, eject that are neither vendors nor money= changers.