womanhood--virtue. Her first impulse the
next morning was self-destruction; then she deluded herself with the
thought of marriage with her dancing companion, but he still further
insulted her by declaring that he wanted a pure woman for his wife. What
was her end? Shunned by the very society which egged her on to ruin, her
self-respect was gone with her lost purity, she went to her own kind,
and in shame is closing her days." "Of two hundred brothel inmates to
whom Professor Faulkner talked, and who were frank enough to answer his
question as to the direct cause of their shame, seven said poverty and
abuse; ten, willful choice; twenty, drink given them by their parents;
and one hundred and sixty-three, dancing and the ball-room." "A
former chief of police of New York City says that three-fourths of the
abandoned girls of this city were ruined by dancing." Of the dance, one
says: "It lays its lecherous hand upon the fair character of innocence,
and converts it into a putrid corrupting thing. It enters the domain
of virtue, and with silent, steady blows takes the foundation from
underneath the pedestal on which it sits enthroned. It lists the gate
and lets in a flood of vice and impurity that sweeps away modesty,
chastity, and all sense of shame. It keeps company with the low, the
degraded, and the vile. It feeds upon the passion it inflames, and
fattens on the holiest sentiments, turned by its touch to filth and
rottenness. It loves the haunts of vice, and is at home in the company
of harlots and debauchees." George T. Lemon says: "No Church in
Christendom commends or even excuses the dance. All unite to condemn
it." The late Episcopal bishop of Vermont, writes: "Dancing is
chargeable with waste of time, interruption of useful study, the
indulgence of personal vanity and display, and the premature incitement
of the passions. At the age of maturity it adds to these no small
danger to health by late hours, flimsy dress, heated rooms, and exposed
persons." Episcopal Bishop Meade, of Virginia, declares: "Social dancing
is not among the neutral things which, within certain limits, we may do
at pleasure, and it is not among the things lawful, but not expedient,
but it is in itself wrong, improper, and of bad effect." Episcopal
Bishop McIlvaine, of Ohio, putting the dance and the theater together,
writes: "The only line that I would draw in regard to these is that of
entire exclusion..The question is not what we can imagine them