Aren’t we glad spring is here! The warm air, the flowers blooming, the longer days, the skimpy clothing. Oh…wait…that’s bad.

Sadly, along with the glories of spring and summer, we have to deal with the half naked ladies walking the streets. This year, let’s make sure we, as well as our children, are not one of them.

I found a wonderfully worded talk, in the Young Woman’s Journal, in 1906, given by then Elder David O. McKay.

He starts off with a conversation:

“A young lady, the other day, was deploring the frequency of the changes in styles, when a young man to whom she spoke said,

“Well, why do you women permit it? You don’t have to adopt every suggestion of the fashion plate.”
“If it were not for you men,” she replied, “we wouldn’t.”
“For us men! How is that?”
“Yes, for you men; for after all, to make an honest confession, one of the reasons for all this style in dress and complexion is to bring forth the admiration of you selfish “lords of creation.”

Remember, this is 1906. Times haven’t changed much, have they? He goes on:               

“Yes, men are attracted by beauty, and thousands are ensnared by it. There are thousands of men who look for nothing else, and who desire nothing else but to have their sense pleased or their passions gratified. These, outward adornments will satisfy; and only outward adornment will retain. When beauty fades, the passion seeks for gratification elsewhere. “Beauty is only skin deep,” and when outward adornment is all a girl possesses, the admiration she calls forth is even more shallow than her beauty.”               

The world keeps pushing the envelope when it comes to beauty. Now that the baby boomers are all getting “old”, we are being brainwashed that with surgery, extreme dieting, or magic makeup we can be 60, but look 50; or 30, the new 40, etc. Who wants to actually be their age? And who cares what the personality or inner core is, as long as there is something pleasant to look at?

His next words are the pinnacle of ageless truth:

“But there is a beauty every girl has,–a gift from God, as pure as the sunlight, and as sacred as life. It is a beauty that all men love, a virtue that wins all men’s souls. That beauty is chastity. Chastity without skin beauty may enkindle the soul; skin beauty without chastity can kindle only the eye.

“Chastity enshrined in the mould of true womanhood will hold true love eternally.              

“In the last paragraph, I have said that chastity is a beauty that all men love. Well, I will not change it, for he who does not is not a man, ‘he should be sent back to nature’s mint and re-issued as a counterfeit on humanity’s baser metal.’ Such a one is not worth a pure maiden’s scorn, not to say smile.”

We need to drill this truth into our daughter’s minds. We need to believe it ourselves. Chastity is soul deep. It is eternal. It is an attitude, a belief, a value that must radiate from our pores. As women of God, we must be pure inside and out. Men who don’t believe this should be sent back to “nature’s mint”.

Elder McKay closes with this analogy:

“Girls, the flower by the roadside, that catches the dust of every traveler is not the one to be admired, and is seldom if ever plucked; but the one blooming   away up on the hillside, protected by a perpendicular cliff is the flower with the virgin perfume, the one the boy will almost risk his life to possess.              

Mere outside adornment may please the sense of many superficial admirers; the adornment of the soul and the chastity of true womanhood will awaken in the soul of true manhood enduring love, that eternal principle which some day will redeem the world.”              

Now is the time to check our closets and throw out anything questionable. Young Women: toss out those short shorts, midriffs, and sleeveless tops.   Women: dress your age. Do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord (2 Tim 1:8), and choose you this day whom ye will serve (Josh 24:15).

“True Beauty,”  article found in the Young Woman’s Journal, Aug 1906, p. 360.