Fashions Last for but a Season

“What is the reason your people tie a great bunch of ribbons behind on their heads, and another under their chin, and on each side of their faces, and on their foreheads? What good do these do you? And what good do these great broad cuffs do you that you wear? Are not these the things that lift up the pride in men and women, that they look upon themselves in their glasses to see whether they be fine? And who taught them to go mincing with their feet? And was not the Prophet moved of the Lord to go naked among Egyptians & the Ethiopians, Isa. 20. What is the pleasures of Egypt, and the pleasures of the world, which are but for a time? 

And do not you go out of one fashion into another, continually inventing fashions, and they last but for a season? Doth not this make something sick in you, and blinds you from that which is good, and carries your minds after vanities, whereby one vanity comes after another? Examine yourselves Teachers and people, and never profess yourselves to be Christians, but examine yourselves by the nature, who cries up yourselves to be Christians, but from the life dead: Now consider these things, for they concern the life eternal.”

— George Fox, 1657
Cofounder of the Religious Society of Friends

Examine yourself to see where you are being seduced by vanities.

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  • George Fox (July 1624 – 13 January 1691) was one of the founders of the Religious Society of Friends. He preached in Britain, parts of Europe, and North America and was arrested and jailed numerous times for his beliefs.

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