An Excerpt

Letting someone wiser and more articulate than I speak of Plain...

"The difficulty in regard to bearing a practical testimony against superfluities is not that which some of us feel in the case of war -- that we do not know where to take hold, that our personal and daily conduct seems to have no immediate bearing upon questions of international policy, and that the whole problem eludes our grasp by its very vastness. It is, rather, that we do not like to put our shoulder to the wheel of simplifying life for ourselves and others; that we do not see the beauty of severity; that we love softness, or yield to it for want of any purifying fire of hope.

"But yet, in one form or another, often extravagantly, foolishly, even injuriously, an ineradicable instinct has prompted Christians in all times to free themselves from luxurious and self-indulgent ways of living; to walk as disciples of him who 'had not where to lay His head;' to lay aside, not only every sin, but every weight, that so they may run the race set before them, not as beating the air, but as those who strive for the victory. It is, indeed, not easy to define the precise kind or amount of luxury which is incompatible with Christian simplicity; or rather it must of necessity vary. But the principle is, I think, clear. In life, as in art, whatever does not help, hinders. All that is superfluous to the main object of life must be cleared away, if that object is to be fully attained. In all kind of effort, whether moral, intellectual, or physical, the essential condition of vigor is a severe pruning away of redundance. Is it likely that the highest life, the life of the Christian body, can be carried on upon easier terms?

"...The Quaker ideal, as I understand it, requires a continual weighing of one thing against another - a continual preference of the lasting and deep over the transient and superficial. 'Weightiness' is one of the Friends' characteristic and emphatic forms of commendation. To sacrifice any deep and substantial advantage to outward show is abhorrent to the Quaker instinct. To 'stretch beyond one's compass' grasping at shadows, and encumbering oneself with more than is needed for simple, wholesome living, is at variance with all our best traditions.

"...Friends, no doubt, have often believed themselves required to submit to the adoption of plain dress 'in the cross' to natural inclination, and have felt it a valuable exercise to do so; but the plainness was not devised for that purpose, but chosen (or rather, as Friends would say, they were led into it by Truth) because of its inherent suitableness and rightness. It is an outcome of the instinctively felt necessity of subordinating everything to principle. Its chief significance is that of a protest against bondage to passing fashions, and for this reason it is a settled costume. It is also felt that our very dress should show forth that inward quietness of sprit which does not naturally tend towards outward adornment, and the Friends' recognized dress is therefore one of extreme sobriety in color and simplicity in form.

"It is a significant fact that there is really no such thing as a precisely defined Quaker costume. The dress is certainly precise enough in itself, and to the naked eye of the outside observer it may appear to present an undeviating uniformity; but it is really not a uniform in the sense in which a nun's or a soldier's dress is a uniform. It is in all respects a growth, a tradition, a language; and it is subject to constant though slow modification. Any perfectly unadorned dress of quiet color, without ornament or trimming, if habitually worn, is in fact, to all intents and purposes, the Quaker costume...But the one important matter of principle which the Society as a body have recognized, is that it is a waste of time and money...which...can hardly fail to find better employment, to condescend to be perpetually changing the fashion of one's garments in obedience to caprice or the restlessness of the multitude. 'Plain Friends' are those who are resolved to dress according to the settled principles which commend themselves to their own mind, not enslaving themselves to passing fashion.

"...My own strong feeling is that the adoption of a settled costume, at any rate in mature life and from conviction, is not only the right and most dignified course on moral grounds, but also that it has in actual experience afforded one more proof of the truth that the lower aims of life can thrive only in proportion to the higher. The freedom from the necessity of perpetual changes, which commends itself to Friends as suitable..to...dignity...has also the advantage of admitting a gradual bringing to perfection of the settled costume itself. We all know how exquisite, within its severely limited range, can be the result. The spotless delicacy, the precision and perfection of plain fine needlework, the repose of the soft tints, combine, in the dress of some still lingering representatives of the old school of Quakerism, to produce a result whose quiet beauty appeals to both the mind and the eye with a peculiar charm. I cannot think that such mute eloquence is to be despised; or that it is unworthy...that their very dress shall speak a language of quietness, gentleness, and purity - that it shall be impressive even with a touch of eternity."

- Friend Caroline Stephen, from Quaker Strongholds, 1890