Testimonies for the Church Volume 1 - A New You Ministry

The principal difficulty in the minds of many is in regard to the length of the dress.Some insist that “the top of the boot,” has reference to the top of such boots as areusually worn by men, which reach nearly to the knee. If it were the custom of women towear such boots, then these persons should not be blamed for professing to understandthe matter as they have; but as women generally do not wear such boots, these personshave no right to understand me as they have pretended.In order to show what I did mean, and that there is a harmony in my testimonies onthis subject, I will here give an extract from my manuscripts written about two yearsago:“Since the article on dress appeared in How to Live, there has been with some amisunderstanding of the idea I wished to convey. They have taken the extreme meaningof that which I have written in regard to the length of the dress, and have evidently hada very hard time over the matter. With their distorted views of the matter they havediscussed the question of shortening the dress until their spiritual vision has become soconfused that they can only see men as trees walking. They have thought they couldsee a contradiction in my article on dress, recently published in How to Live, and thatarticle on the same subject contained in Testimony for the Church, No. 10. I mustcontend that I am the best judge of the things which have been presented before me invision; and none need fear that I shall by my life contradict my own testimony, or thatI shall fail to notice any real contradiction in the views given me.“In my article on dress in How to Live I tried to present a healthful, convenient,economical, yet modest and becoming style of dress for Christian women to wear, ifthey should choose so to do. I tried, perhaps imperfectly, to describe such a dress. ‘Thedress should reach somewhat below the top of the boot, but should be short enough toclear the filth of the sidewalk and street, without being raised by the hand.’ Some462