“That would only prove you to be very foolish; or, to know very little. Suppose preachers of the Gospel should appear in our costly and fashionable church-houses, dressed just as Jesus Christ and the Apostles did in Judea? Would you be silly enough to laugh at them?” “How did they dress?” “Have you forgotten your lesson in the Biblical Antiquities, from the Sunday-School library, you read a few weeks since? There you learn about the dress worn in Judea.”[27] “Why don’t our ministers dress as Jesus Christ did?” “Because you would laugh at them. Nor would Father Clark have worn the same dress he did in Georgia and Illinois, had he been a pastor in Boston, New York, or Philadelphia. In such matters as were not religious and did not pertain to the service of God, but were earthly comforts, about which God has given no revelation, but left every one to his own reason and common sense, Father Clark, as did Paul, would have become ‘all things to all men.’[28] According to his notions of propriety, the dress he wore in Georgia was convenient and comfortable. The women who loved and respected him as a minister of Christ, made the cloth and cut out the garments, and gave them to him in the same form as they made for their husbands and sons; and he felt thankful and comfortable. Besides, he preferred to live plain, and economical, and by that means had money to give away to purchase the house and burying-ground for the poor Africans. “But had he received a large salary as your ministers do, or possessed millions of property as the rich merchants, speculators, bankers, and railroad brokers now do, he would still have dressed very plain, and lived in such a manner as to have had the means of doing good amongst men. I very much doubt if even the force of custom would have induced him to appear before the people in a lugubrious garb of _black_, as clergymen do.” “What causes ministers to dress in _black_ clothes?” “Doubtless because they like to be fashionable, and be noticed a little for their distinctive dress. Some folks think black looks solemn, and therefore suited to the clerical profession. But, after all, a solemn, sour appearance is a species of clerical trick, which Father Clark never would perform. He was always pleasant and cheerful, and was the more useful for it.” “But still I do not see why our ministers should be so fond of _black clothes_.” “We will answer that question, and then follow Father Clark. Black was introduced as a clerical garb, after the church became apostate, and was one color of the priestly garb. Probably nine-tenths of those who have worn it, both Catholics and Protestants, have been anything else than the true followers of Christ. An eccentric writer of a former period, in a satire on this fashion of an ungodly priesthood, gives this reason why they wore black as an official garb:--“_That they might the more exactly resemble their great master Beelzebub, whose garments are all very dingy._”