The moral influence of dress has not been overrated even by Carlyle's Professor in his Sartor Resartus.

William Penn says that cleanliness is akin to godliness.

A well-dressed man, all other things being equal, is not half as likely to compromise his character as one who approximates to shabbiness.

Lawrence Sterne used to say that when he felt himself giving way to low spirits and a sense of depression and worthlessness,-- a sort of predisposition for all sorts of little meannesses,--he forthwith shaved himself, brushed his wig, donned his best dress and his gold rings, and thus put to flight the azure demons of his unfortunate temperament.

There is somehow a close affinity between moral purity and clean linen; and the sprites of our daily temptation, who seem to find easy access to us through a broken hat or a rent in the elbow, are manifestly baffled by the "complete mail" of a clean and decent dress.
I recollect on one occasion hearing my mother tell our family physician that a woman in the neighborhood, not remarkable for her tidiness, had become a church-member.