The Green aprons also
were worn by the females, but they are now wholly out of use. But these
changes could never have taken place, had there been any fixed standard
for the Quaker dress.
But though the Quakers have no particular model for their clothing, yet
they are not indifferent to dress where it may be morally injurious.
They have discarded all superfluities and ornaments, because they may
be hurtful to the mind. They have set their faces also against all
unreasonable changes of forms for the same reasons. They have allowed
other reasons to weigh with them in the latter case. They have received
from, their ancestors a plain suit of apparel, which has in some little
degree followed the improvements of the world, and they see no good
reason why they should change it; at least they see in the fashions of
the world none but a censurable reason for a change. And here it may be
observed, that it is not an attachment to forms, but an unreasonable
change or deviation from them, that the Quakers regard. Upon the latter
idea it is, that their discipline is in a great measure founded, or, in
other words, the Quakers, as a religious body, think it right to watch
in their youth any unreasonable deviation from the plain apparel of the
society.
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