ers, so is it his duty to cultivate his
bodily appearance. And doubtless all the gifts of Nature are talents
committed to us to be improved; they are things intrusted to us to make
the best of. It may be difficult to fix the point at which the care
of personal appearance in man or woman becomes excessive. It does
so unquestionably when it engrosses the mind to the neglect of more
important things. But I suppose that all reasonable people now believe
that scrupulous attention to personal cleanliness, freshness, and
neatness is a Christian duty. The days are past, almost everywhere, in
which piety was held to be associated with dirt. Nobody would mention
now, as a proof how saintly a human being was, that, for the love of
God, he had never washed his face or brushed his hair for thirty
years. And even scrupulous neatness need bring with it no suspicion of
puppyism. The most trim and tidy of old men was good John Wesley; and
he conveyed to the minds of all who saw him the notion of a man whose
treasure was laid up beyond this world, quite as much as if he had
dressed in such a fashion as to make himself an object of ridicule,
or as if he had forsworn the use of soap. Some people fancy that
slovenliness of attire indicates a mind above petty details. I have seen
an eminent preacher ascend the pulpit with his bands hanging over his
right shoulder, his gown apparently put on by being dropped upon him
from the vestry ceiling, and his hair apparently unbrushed for several
weeks. There was no suspicion of affectation about that good man; yet I
regarded his untidiness as a defect, and not as an excellence. He gave
a most eloquent sermon; yet I thought it would have been well, had the
lofty mind that treated so admirably some of the grandest realities of
life and of immortality been able to address itself a little to the care
of lesser things. I confess, that, when I heard the Bishop of Oxford
preach, I thought the effect of his sermon was increased by the decorous
and careful fashion in which he was arrayed in his robes. And it is
to be admitted that the grace of the human aspect may be in no small
measure enhanced by bestowing a little pains upon it. You, youthful
matron, when you take your little children to have their photographs
taken, and when their nurse, in contemplation of that event, attired
them in their most tasteful dresses and arranged their hair in its
prettiest curls, you know that the little things looked a great de