First Letter

Jennie C. Rutty - February 8

Pomona, California

Bro. R. L. Berry
Mountain Grove, Missouri

Dear brother in Christ:

Greeting in the love of our dear Redeemer, and praying God to bless you in His own best way. Although a stranger to you personally, I have become acquainted with you in spiritual things through your writings.

I enclose you a copy of an article sent to The Gospel Trumpet a couple of weeks ago. I do not expect it to be published, because of the changed conditions. It is somewhat in reply to your article in the Trumpet of January 22, entitled, “What Is the Rule of a Saintly Life,” and doubtless expresses the sentiment which Bro. Orr wishes to convey. It is what I have believed for twenty-eight years, ever since the Lord sanctified my soul and gave me the Holy Spirit as my teacher in divine things.

You will pardon me for a suggestion or criticism of your article, but there is, apparently, a great gap in it. It is either the conscience or the literal Word, leaving out the great Teacher of the Word, and that is what is the matter in the present agitation. If everyone went directly to God to know the right and the wrong regarding differences, there would soon be none, and for this we are earnestly praying.

I have never depended on my conscience regarding right and wrong. It has been too serious a matter to my soul, and whenever I have lacked wisdom, on any subject, I knew God had it for me, and was ready to impart it, if I was submissive enough to be taught.

Dress was one of the important things to me in my consecration, and, after sanctification, in the teaching of the Word by the Spirit. While we sisters have so much more to yield than the brothers, their plain and neat attire has often been a real encouragement to me. For them now to go back to the worldly article—the one thing that makes them peculiar in their dress, would give us sisters the same right, especially if not wearing the tie would constitute a sect-mark, as your article teaches. Can you not see that the peculiarity, or sect-mark, of the Mennonites, Dunkards, and Quakers was something added for peculiarity, and not something left off as a worldly conformity?

The expression, “Praise the Lord!” is a peculiarity of speech, and when we hear it with a certain tone, or inspiration, we know a child of God. Shall we leave it off because it marks us? Dear brother, do let us be consistent in all things.

For several years I have seen that many of the saints are not sanctified. They are consecrated to a certain point, but not perfectly enough to claim active, living faith for the real experience of cleansing and infilling; and there is a lethargy, a lack of spirituality and power, that is letting in worldliness, little by little. This was before the subject of the tie came before us here. I am sure God showed it to me from a past experience, and I was not influenced by any of the agitation on the present theme. I do see the same feelings and looks in many, that I once had when I only thought that I was sanctified. The future will show us all the things that are now counted evil forebodings and murmurings, for sooner or later, truth will become visible.

When the brethren were here, Bro. Riggle said that he could not count the wearing of the tie a sin, but in a few moments he was condemning the wearing of feathers and flowers. When asked if that was a sin, he said, “Yes.” How could he be so inconsistent as to condemn as sin one article of dress not mentioned explicitly in the Word, and then excuse the other because it was not mentioned in the Bible? Such conduct causes us to think and act for ourselves before God.

The tie was discarded, as a worldly conformity, by the brethren, just as many things of the sisters are now discarded. Now, if it is brought in on the line of being a custom, why not many things for the sisters come in also? I had just as soon see a sister with a modest rose-bud on her hat as to see a brother with a modest necktie. Where is your scripture to explain the difference? Why can’t we all teach as we have done in the past, that all unnecessary articles of dress are worldly conformity—and that the tie is—because the Spirit of Truth revealed it to us? I told the brethren to treat the sisters consistently. Otherwise they are placing a burden upon us that is grievous to be borne. At Oakland, the teacher of the Bible Class looked just like the worldlings. Could you blame the sisters if they followed his example? If the preaching of liberty of conscience brings about the wearing of the tie, is it not time that we question the scriptural application?

The Lord bless you, Bro. Berry, and help you to see that it is not a little piece of cloth that is the trouble, but a real spirit of compromise, as Bro. Byrum called it in 1910, and the rejection of the Holy Ghost as our teacher.

If three hundred of our most spiritual brethren could make a decision one year at the Anderson camp meeting and then quietly discard that decision and tell us to fellowship those who wear the tie, can we be blamed if we have some doubts as to their spirituality, or the advisability of following them, when they may just circle around?

Yours, in Christian love,
Jennie C. Rutty