mmortal, depends upon the style in which
people carry their feet. On the other hand, I can see nothing but
ruin, moral and physical, in the dissipations of the ball-room, which
have despoiled thousands of young men and women of all that gives
dignity to character, or usefulness to life.

Dancing has been styled "the graceful movement of the body adjusted
by art, to the measures or tune of instruments, or of the voice." All
nations have danced. The ancients thought that Pollux and Castor at
first taught the practice to the Lacedaemonians; but, whatever be its
origin, all climes have adopted it.

In other days there were festal dances, and funeral dances, and
military dances, and "mediatorial" dances, and bacchanalian dances.
Queens and lords have swayed to and fro in their gardens; and the
rough men of the backwoods in this way have roused up the echo of the
forest. There seems to be something in lively and coherent sounds to
evoke the movement of hand and foot, whether cultured or uncultured.
Men passing the street unconsciously keep step to the music of the
band; and Christians in church unconsciously find themselves keeping
time with their feet, while their soul is uplifted by some great
harmony. Not only is this true in cultured life, but the red men of
Oregon have their scalp dances, and green-corn dances, and war dances.
It is, therefore, no abstract question that you ask me--Is it right to
dance?

The ancient fathers, aroused by the indecent dances of those days,
gave emphatic evidence against any participation in the dance. St.
Chrysostom says:--"The feet were not given for dancing, but to walk
modestly; not to leap impudently like camels."

One of the dogmas of the ancient church reads: "A dance is the devil's
possession; and he that entereth into a dance, entereth into his
possession. The devil is the gate to the middle and to the end of the
dance. As many passes as a man makes in dancing, so many passes doth
he make to hell." Elsewhere, these old dogmas declare--"The woman
that singeth in the dance is the princess of the devil; and those
that answer are his clerks; and the beholders are his friends, and
the music are his bellows, and the fiddlers are the ministers of the
devil; for, as when hogs are strayed, if the hogs'-herd call one,
all assemble together, so the devil calleth one woman to sing in the
dance, or to play on some instrument, and presently all the dancers
gather together."

This wholesale