Our Little Lady | Page 4

shops except in
great towns, and no way of getting about except on foot or horseback,
and no lamps, candles, clocks or watches, china, spectacles, nor carpets
on the floor? Yet this was the way in which kings and queens lived, six
hundred years ago.
In respect of clothes, people were much better off. They dressed far
more warmly than we do, and used a great deal of fur, not only for
trimming or out-door wear, but to line their clothes in winter. But their
furs comprised much commoner and cheaper skins than we use;

ordinary people wore lambskins, with the fur of cats, hares, and
squirrels. Such furs as ermine and miniver were kept for the great
people; for there were curious rules and laws about dress in those days.
It was not, as it is now, a question of what you could afford to buy, but
of what rank you were. You could not wear ermine or samite unless
you were an earl at the lowest; nor must you sleep on a feather bed
unless you were a knight; nor might you eat your dinner from a metal
plate, if you were not a gentleman. Such notions may sound ridiculous
to us; but they were serious earnest, six hundred years ago. We should
not like to find that we had to go before a magistrate and pay a fine, if
our shoes were a trifle too long, or our trimmings an inch too wide. But
in the time of which I am writing, this was an every-day affair.
In the house, women wore an odd sort of head-dress called a wimple,
which came down to the eyebrows, and was fastened by pins above the
ears. When they went out of doors, they tied on a fur or woollen hood
above it. The gown was very loose, and had no particular waist; the
sleeves were excessively wide and long. But when women were at
work, they had a way of tucking up their dresses at the bottom, so as to
keep them out of the perpetual slop of the stone or brick floor. Rich
people put rushes on their floors except in winter, and as these were
only moved once a year, all manner of unspeakable abominations were
harboured underneath. In this respect the poor were the best off, since
they could have their brick floors as clean as they chose: as, even yet,
there are points in which they have the advantage of richer people--if
they only knew it!
But our picture is not quite finished yet. Look out of the little window,
and notice what you see. Can this be Sunday afternoon in a good street?
for every shop is open, and in the doorways stand young men calling
out to the passers-by to come in and look at their goods. "What lack
you? what lack you?"
"Cherry ripe!"
"Buy my fine kerchiefs!"
"Any thimbles would you, maids?" Such cries as these ring on every

side.
Yes, it is Sunday afternoon--"the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the
Lord." But look where you will, you can see no rest. Everywhere the
rich are at play, and the poor are at work. What does this mean?
Think seriously of it, friends; for it will be no light matter if England
return to such ways as these again, and there are plenty of people who
are trying to bring them back. What it means is that if holiness be lost
from the Sabbath, rest will never stay behind. Play for the few means
work for the many. And let play get its head in, and work will soon
follow.
If you want to walk the road of happiness, and to arrive at the home of
heaven, you must follow after God, for any other guide will lead in the
opposite direction. The people who tell you that religion is a gloomy
thing are always the people who have not any themselves. And things
are very different, according to whether you look at them from inside or
outside. How can you tell what there may be inside a house, so long as
all you know of it is walking past a shut door?
Ever since Adam hid himself from the presence of the Lord God among
the trees of the garden, men and women have been prone to fancy that
God likes best to see them unhappy. The old heathen always used to
suppose that their gods were jealous of them, and they were afraid to be
too happy, lest the gods should be vexed! But the real God "takes
pleasure in the prosperity of His people," and "godliness hath the
promise of the life that now is, as well as of that which is to come."
What language are our three