Article February 13, 1909 Issue

THE UNDIVIDED GARMENT

ALTA P. HOWELL.

The story is told of a man who had been cast away on an island inhabited by a barbarous race, that he pitied the natives, whose crude conditions expressed neither practical intelligence nor sense of beauty, and whose energies were wasted in the mere propagation of a mean existence. At first the inhabitants eyed him with wonder, for they had never seen his like before, and they were especially curious as to the (to them) peculiar garments in which he was attired. Noticing this interest on their part, he tried to tell them of his own country,—of its looms and furnaces, its comforts and opportunities, and of the king who governed there in wisdom and love. At last, grown suspicious of his motives the natives slew him, and stripping off his clothing, subjected it to a close examination. Just what they expected to accomplish by this, or whether they thought the garments were endued with some magical virtue, is not quite clear : but at any rate, not being familiar with the use of the different garments, their attempts to don them brought both discomfort and ridicule. After vain attempts to put them on, upside down and inside out, the natives finally concluded, in their ignorance, that such garments were altogether inconvenient, and unsuited to any one save the wondrous stranger. That which they had acquired wrongfully brought them no benefit.

There was once a man who, clothed in the undivided garment of light, was sent to a world whose inhabitants were dwelling in the darkness of ignorance and sin. He pitied these people, and in his loving compassion told them of the wonderful home and loving Father he had left for their sakes,—blessings in which they should share if they would but obey his teachings. Not understanding him, the inhabitants slew that man also, and spread his robe before them. Naked, they understood not its use. Blind, they discerned not its beauty. The "Ancient of Days" had woven it in the loom of wisdom, and it was without seam, so that division was impossible without desecration. Its warp was truth, and each thread ran its undeviating course. The woof was love, winding in and out, back and forth, binding each portion in closest weave until all was perfect and instinct with beauty. Its name was "The Word of God," and no man might take from or add to it without marring it. Nevertheless, this garment was torn by cruel hands into shreds and divided among the spoilers. Rags from its truth were passed about, and handed down from father to son, as relics of a great wonder, until the soiled and desecrated scraps were in time scattered over the whole earth.

To acknowledge the Word of Truth with an "if" or a "but," or in any way to deny its universal applicability and potency, is to rend its completeness and deprive oneself of the joy of being clothed upon with righteousness as with a garment. Forty years ago a woman's quickened thought saw this. She felt the import of this Word in her heart, and with patient effort she gathered up its fragments, with tireless patience pieced them together again, and washed the finished product with her tears. When she saw its adjustability to the need of every age, she wrote down her sense of it and its redemptive uses in a wondrous book which all may read, and the healing truth thus discovered and expressed has become a blessing to all nations.

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THE UNDIVIDED GARMENT

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