sh a refined, beautiful, and instructive
dramatic exhibition, the outcry is little less than if they had leased
Wallack's or Niblo's, with a first class troupe; and those Christians who
witness it, are condemned as inconsistent and backsliders. Just so with
dancing. The idea of Christianity having the remotest connection with this
amusement has been scouted as absurd. A procrustean law has been
enacted--"_Thou shalt not dance_." And surely, one would think from some
exhibitions of this amusement, that Christian leaven _had_ been pretty
thoroughly withdrawn from it. One cannot much wonder at the disgust
excited by those importations from Paris brothels, the round dances,
which, with the present style of female attire, really leave modest men at
some loss what to do with their eyes. Let us have as much thundering at
these as you will. Let us not mince words. Let ridicule, and sarcasm, and
denunciation exhaust their armories, for these are abuses; positive evils.
But these abuses are not inseparable from the amusement, which, in proper
forms, is healthy, graceful, innocent, and highly commendable. Just here
an incident occurs to me which so forcibly illustrates this last remark
that I must relate it as the involuntary testimony of an enemy. An amiable
and most excellent clergyman of this state, happened to be present one
evening when some young ladies went through a quadrille. He looked on with
great apparent pleasure. The next morning he was rallied by some of his
townsmen on having countenanced dancing by his presence; when he roundly
denied the charge, and asserted that no dancing had taken place, but only,
as he expressed it, "_a most beautiful exercise_." Now, I ask, in the name
of common sense, why not devote a little Christian care to separating from
its abuses, and regulating in its conduct an exercise which improves the
bearing of our youth, tends to relieve their natural awkwardness in
society, and gives them innocent exhilaration? But no! _Thou shalt not
dance._ That is Alpha and Omega. Dancing is liable to abuse, and
therefore, O most astoundingly consistent logic, leave it to become a prey
to all manner of abuses and abominations. So, if a Christian household
makes the attempt to leaven this unfortunate lump, and claims that it can,
and does introduce graceful and modest dancing into its family gatherings
and social reunions, it is too often denounced as an enemy of Christ and a
corrupter of the young. For one I