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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/14183-0.txt b/14183-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b6f3262 --- /dev/null +++ b/14183-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1281 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14183 *** + +Note: Images of the original pages are available in the American + Memory Collection of the Library of Congress. See + http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html + + + + + +THERE IS NO HARM IN DANCING + +by + +W. E. PENN + +With an Introduction by Rev. J.H. STRIBLING, D.D. + +St. Louis, Mo. +Lewis E. Kline, Publisher and Bookseller. + +1884 + + + + + + + +"Buy the TRUTH and sell it not; also WISDOM and INSTRUCTION and +UNDERSTANDING."--PROV. 23-23. + +"There is a way that SEEMETH right unto a man, but the end thereof are +the ways of DEATH."--PROV. 14-25 + + + + + +This little book is respectfully and kindly dedicated to all Husbands, +Fathers and Brothers, who love their Wives, Daughters and Sisters, by + +THE AUTHOR. + + + + +PREFACE. + +During the past seven years I have delivered the substance of the +foregoing Lecture on Dancing, as a part of my work as an Evangelist, +before not less than one hundred thousand people. I have been requested +by hundreds of FATHERS and mothers, young men and girls, HUSBANDS and +BROTHERS, and pastors of churches to publish the Lecture in the form of +a book, that its influence may be extended to fields I shall never +visit. It is in compliance with these requests that the little book is +written, with the hope that at least some good may result in begetting +and fostering a better state of morals in our day and generation, and in +checking the terrible increase of crime which is rolling over the earth +like a mighty wave of the ocean. If I shall ever hear that this little +book has had some humble part in stopping one poor soul from taking one +more step down the "BROAD ROAD," _or that it has done any good in the +world_, I shall feel well paid for all the time and trouble it has cost +me in getting it into the hands of the printer. Most of persons speaking +or writing on the subject of the dance, are "_hear-say_" witnesses, but +I profess to having been an "_eye-witness_," which I propose to prove by +all the _bad_ men, or those who have been _bad_ men, who may carefully +read this book. Their verdict will be: "HE HAS BEEN THERE." + +While I believe that hundreds of thousands of fathers and mothers, +husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, and pastors, and Christians, +will bless the day this little book was written, and will offer many +earnest prayers for the author, I shall expect many Othellos to curse me +with all the bitterness of their souls, because I hope it may be said +wherever the book is read: "OTHELLO'S OCCUPATION IS GONE." + +THE AUTHOR. + + + + +INTRODUCTION. + +Major W.C. Penn, the author of the following treatise on the modern +dance, has requested the writer to pen a few thoughts introductory to a +theme he has presented with such pith and power to listening thousands +in his travels as an Evangelist. + +Various inquiries have been made as to how Major Penn, a lawyer in a +lucrative practice, and with all the attractions of wealth and of fame +before him, and in a quiet, lovely and elegant home, with a wife who has +ever been as a guardian angel to his pathway, was led to change his +vocation to that of a wandering Evangelist, and how it is that he now +stands before the world beside Knapp, and Earle, and Moody, and other +world-renowned Evangelists of the 19th century, in leading multitudes to +Christ as a Savior? + +It is answered and centered in the sublime truth: "The love of Christ +constraineth us." As the stars are dimmed and lost sight of in the +brilliancy of the rising sun, so earthly pleasures, riches and honors +fade and dwindle in the glory of the Cross. As God was pleased to use +the writer as an instrument in getting brother Penn into this work, so +it seemed proper that a few incidents and facts which led to it, as +remembered in our associations together, should be stated. + +It was in Jefferson, Texas, where our brother then resided, that I first +saw him, in May, 1874, during the session of the Southern Baptist +Convention, at that place. But it was in June, the year after, at his +own home and during a series of meetings in the Baptist Church, that I +began to know more of him, as he brought up in our social interviews a +review of his life religiously--as he told of the time when, in the +ardor and vigor of youth, in Tennessee, at a meeting, he sought to defy +and brave a gospel message from the venerable brother James Hurt, by +taking a front seat; and then how his soul was convulsed and his heart +melted, as God's message wrenched the bolted door of that heart; how he +struggled with the agonies of conviction for sin, during the long, weary +hours of night; and how the joys of pardoning love through Christ came +to his soul with the brightness of the morning. As these conversations +were reviewed, he told of frequent backslidings, and how far away from +God he had been. Then he told of some things he had done in the Sunday +School and in the Church, and then at times gave his opinion as to the +best way of conducting a series of meetings and other things pertaining +to Christ's Kingdom. During these conversations the question was asked: +"Bro. Penn, are you satisfied and sure that you are in full discharge of +your duty?" After a pause he replied, as if conscience was awakened: + +"No Sir. I am not satisfied, and have not been for years past." Then +said he: "You are the first man that ever asked me that question." Then +the writer made known some impressions about him that must have been +made by the spirit of God, for he never had just such an interest to +burden his heart previously, and that was that God had a peculiar and +wonderful work for him to do. "But," said Bro. Penn, "at my age, in my +profession and in my condition, I cannot believe it to be my duty to +preach the Gospel"--his age being at that time forty-two years. Among +other things said at this time by the writer, as he now remembers them +one was: That the Spirit of God leads and teaches us in strange ways, +often, as to what God would have us do, and that our methods of holding +meetings seemed to the writer as being deficient in some things, and +that the good of the cause required a change from the ruts and grooves +in which these meetings had been run, and that we were making our +services monotonous and chilling out spirituality by common methods of +conducting divine service, in protracted meetings. Another thought was: +That he and men like himself, as lawyers, that were given to talking and +that knew much of men and the world, if the love of Christ was burning +in their souls, might do a great work in going out and helping in such +meetings, even if they never engaged regularly in the ministry. + +But it was in Tyler, Texas, at a Sunday School Institute, in July, 1875, +that a new era was to dawn on Major Penn. + +It was a fixed impression in the mind of the pastor that there ought to +be a change in our manner of conducting revival services; that the time +had come to begin the work, and that Bro. Penn was the man to inaugurate +such a change. In prayer this matter was carried to the Lord for His +direction. It was a settled impression in the heart of the writer, as +pastor of the Baptist Church, that the Church and community needed a +series of meetings at this time. There were preachers present of +experience, piety and ability, and he had no doubt they would remain and +aid in such services if invited to do so. But contrary to what was a +common practice at the close of such meetings, and after imploring the +Lord to direct him, he could not, from his heart, ask any of these +preachers to stay and aid in a meeting. + +While singing the last song, at the close of the service on Sunday +night, the writer approached Major Penn, who had been aiding in the +singing, and said to him: "Bro. Penn, I am going to appoint a prayer +meeting at 9 o'clock in the morning, and as your train does not leave +until 2 o'clock to-morrow evening, I shall expect to see you at the +meeting; will you come?" To which he replied. "I have some business with +the clerk of the Federal Court, and if I get through in time, I will try +and be here." A prayer meeting was announced for 9 o'clock the next +morning. At the appointed hour a fair congregation had assembled, and a +few minutes after 9 o'clock Maj. Penn came in and took a seat not far +from the door. The writer approached him and said: "I want you to +conduct this meeting." He replied: "You must excuse me, I am a lawyer, +and do not believe in mixing things in this way. You conduct the meeting +or get one of those preachers sitting there to do it, and I will help in +singing or lead in prayer, if desired." To which the writer replied: "If +all the preachers in the world were here I could not permit one of them +to conduct this meeting, and I am not physically able. You _must_ do +it." To which he answered. "Very well, I will conduct a prayer meeting." + +The meeting was opened as is usual, when Brother Penn arose and read a +portion of the 20th chapter of John, and then talked about fifteen +minutes, which seemed to awaken a very deep interest throughout the +entire congregation. At the close of this talk quite a number of wives, +fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters arose one after another and in +great earnestness asked prayer for their loved ones. While singing the +last song, the writer asked Brother Penn to remain and conduct a service +at night, which he positively refused to do, saying that he must go +home. Whereupon the writer publicly entered a protest against his +leaving. Sister Penn and others of the company from Jefferson +consenting, he agreed to remain one more day. At night the house was +crowded, and great interest manifested by Christians and by many +unconverted. A prayer meeting was announced for 9 o'clock the next +morning. At this meeting the house was well filled, with a decided +increase of interest. One or two conversions-and a number of inquiries +were made. + +At the close of this meeting the writer said to Brother Penn, "You +cannot leave this meeting, it will never do, there never has been such +an interest in this town since I have been here." To which he replied "I +am bound to go home, I have no partner and no one to attend to my +business." The writer then arose, and in the name of the Lord Jesus +Christ entered another solemn protest against his leaving, saying: "I +believe before God that it is Bro. Penn's solemn duty to remain here and +carry on this meeting, and it is my firm conviction that if he leaves he +will commit the great sin of his life, and I call upon every member of +this church and of this congregation, who will join me in this protest, +to stand up." The entire congregation were standing in a moment. He then +said to the writer privately: "I tell you I am bound to go home; I +promised my wife yesterday that I would be certain to go home with her +to-day, and I know that she is bound to go home." The writer said: "Bro. +Penn, you are mistaken; Sister Penn would not have you leave this +meeting to go home with her. She will go with the young people." He then +went to where his wife was sitting and said to her: "I promised you +yesterday that I would go home with you to-day, and I am going to do +it." Sister Penn looked up in his face with tearful eyes and trembling +lips, and said, as only a true, noble hearted Christian woman could have +said: "I can go home with the young people, I do not think you ought to +go." This seems to have been the last hair that broke the camel's back. +We have seen many striking photographs of the Major as taken by artists +in his travels, and in various attitudes, but a picture delineating his +features on this occasion would be preferable to all others. + +As he rose to respond to the protest of the pastor, Church and +congregation, with his head thrown back, his eyes dilated, his lips +quivering, his voice stammering and tears coursing their way down his +cheeks, he tried to give expression to his astonishment and the deep +emotion of his heart; he seemed to realize that it was _God's call_, and +that he could not resist it. + +It was circulated through the town that a _lawyer_, and not a +_preacher_, was to conduct services at the Baptist Church. Some thought +it a strange freak in the pastor to suggest, and in the Church to +approve such a thing. Various opinions were freely expressed as to the +leader in these services. Then it was spoken in low tones of voice among +some good people, in substance, after this fashion: "Did you ever hear +of such a thing? Here are preachers all over the country that we know, +good men, who can preach the gospel, and here they've called in a +_lawyer to carry on the meeting_. Lord have mercy on us, what are we +coming to any how?" + +At every street corner and place of business, in the saloons, offices +and homes throughout Tyler, Maj. Penn and the services were discussed, +while his Satanic Majesty and his allies were busy in trying to cripple +and crush the good effects. A mighty and irresistable attraction drew +crowds to the house of God. + +At times it was apparent that the leader was embarrassed; now and then +fretted and and chafed; then at a loss what to say or do; and more than +once was he tempted to say he would leave the meeting; and that he had +not remained there to be slandered and persecuted. But he was reminded +that the best of men had thus suffered, that God had furnaces through +which we must pass, to burn up the dross, and that in the midst of this +state of things the Church was being revived, wanderers brought back, +souls awakened and converted from day to day, and that he had the +sympathy, prayers and co-operation of many pious, devoted hearts. Again +the new leader, after wrestling in prayer for grace and direction, took +courage and was renewed by the spirit of God to go on in pulling down +the strong-holds of iniquity. But Satan was not yet overcome, he made +another powerful assault upon him. + +When the meeting had been in progress about ten days, abuse, +misrepresentation, lying, together with the basest and most contemptible +slanders, were hurled at him with unmeasured severity. It was a new +ordeal, and he was tempted stronger than ever to lay off his armor and +leave the meeting. He decided to go home, and so stated to the pastor, +saying: "You have already kept me here longer than any man on earth +could have done, and now I am determined to go." "Well," said the +pastor, "I am sorry to hear it, and believe you will commit a great +wrong, and will incur the displeasure of Almighty God in leaving here at +this time, and still further, I beg you to bear in mind this truth, that +duty never points in two ways. If it is your duty to be in Jefferson +practicing law, then it is not your duty to remain here and carry on +this meeting. God only can guide you aright." This conversation occurred +in the afternoon. At night the Major was in his place, and said to the +large congregation: "My friends, I have heard to-day of so many +slanderous reports about me that I determined to go home, but +remembering that so persecuted they the prophets, which were before me, +and that they persecuted my Master even unto death, I have only to say: +'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do?' I shall go on +with the meeting, 'looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of my +faith,' to sustain, protect and guide me in all things." It was, +perhaps, the drinking of this cup of persecution that passed our brother +across the Rubicon, that burned all the bridges behind him and caused +him to bow in humble submission to the will of Almighty God. + + "'Tis ever so thy faithful love + Does all thy children's graces prove; + 'Tis thus our pride and self must fall + That Jesus may be all in all." + +As the meeting continued, and as the scores and hundreds came together +"at the sound of the church-going bell," from day to day the leader +seemed to develop in power from God to move, melt and sway the hearts of +the listening crowds, as he sung and prayed and talked "of Jesus and his +dying love." After more than five weeks' continuance, the services +closed. Scores were converted, many valuable additions were made to the +Church, Christians were renewed and developed in piety of heart and +life, and the leavening and saving power of the Gospel was extended +through the town and surrounding country. + +This meeting was the beginning and earnest of the blessings and success +that has attended Bro. Penn's labors for more than nine years past, +while in his life we see that, + + "Defects thro' nature's best productions run. + The saints have spots, and spots are in the sun, + And that he, with all of Adam's race, + Are only 'sinners' saved by grace." + +Yet we rejoice and praise God for what has been manifested in his growth +and development in his work mentally and spiritually, for the life, +power and efficiency infused into our churches by his ministrations--for +his rebukes, exposures and denunciations of sin, in and out of the +Church; for holding up Christ at all times, as the only hope of lost +sinners; for tearing away the mask of a heartless formality in the +profession and practice of religion; for the thousands of all classes +and ages in the forests and prairies of Texas, where he has pitched his +great gospel tent, and in the cities of Galveston, Houston, San Antonio, +Dallas, Ft. Worth, Mobile, Memphis, Louisville, St. Louis, and in the +cities of California, in scores of crowded places of worship; in smaller +towns and in the country, who have been brought to Christ as lost +sinners through his instrumentality; and that at all times and through +his whole ministry he has declared "the whole counsel of God," and made +no compromises with error and heresy. + +As to the disquisition of Maj. Penn, which frowns on the modern dance, +we ask for it a careful reading and an honest and practical application +of its facts, arguments and illustration, as the prize, practical essay +of the age on this subject, so far as is known. That it is clear, +pointed and overwhelming in its exposures of the evils and crimes, the +corruptions and abominations of the modern dance is confirmed by +experience and observation. + +Let every lover of the dance, every friend of morals and of religion, +and each professing Christian, read and circulate this production among +all classes of men and women. + +And may the blessings of God attend it's circulation, as it may be +scattered into thousands of homes, and an increasing blessing attend its +author and his labors. + +J. H. STRIBLING, + + Rockdale, Texas. October 14, 1884. + + + + +"There is No Harm in Dancing." + + + "Every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree + bringeth forth evil fruit."--Matt. 7, 17. + +If "THERE IS NO HARM IN DANCING," it must be a good tree, and if it is a +good tree, we shall be certain to find that it bears good fruit, and if +we find the fruit hanging on its boughs to be sound and wholesome food +for the _physical, mental_ and _spiritual_ man, we should strive to have +these trees planted in all our homes, our churches, Sabbath-schools, +school-houses, colleges, seminaries, or other institutions of learning. +But if we find the fruit injurious, to either the physical, mental or +spiritual, to such a degree that its injurious effects are not overcome +and destroyed by the benefits conferred upon us by the other two, it +should be condemned by every friend of humanity. + +Every tree should be cut down, and every dealer regarded as an enemy to +his race. Some trees are very tall and _graceful_, and dressed in +beautiful foliage, but the fruit is deadly poison. Some trees are not +comely to look upon, but the fruit very good and wholesome. So it is not +the tree, but the fruit, to which we must look. Some fruit may be very +bad but not dangerous to society, because of the very small quantity on +the market, and because it is not good to the _taste_, but little, if +any, of it is used. But this is not the case with dancing, for there is +a large quantity of it on hand all the time, and a great deal of it is +used, because it is _palatable_ to the _natural_ taste of men and women. +The demand is always far greater than the supply. + +This fruit being so very popular, of such great demand, we must conclude +that, as it is bound to be either good or bad, it must be _very_ good, +or _very_ bad. Now, reader, before we proceed to examine this fruit, +please do the author and yourself the justice to sign your name to the +following vow: + +"I do _solemnly vow_ that I will carefully read the following pages as +nearly as possible free from all _prejudice_ and _partiality, with a +desire to know the truth_, and that I will a true verdict render, +according to the honest conviction of my own mind and heart. + +"(Here sign name.)________________" + +When and where are the trees of dancing to be found? They grow in the +night and generally perish with the darkness when the morning light +appears. + + "This is the condemnation that light is come into the world, and + men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were + evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light; neither + cometh to the light lest his deeds should be reproved."--John + 3-19-20. + +The trees are to be found in many private residences, dancing schools, +dancing academies, seminaries and colleges, where our girls are +educated; in public halls, in side shows, in some of our _so-called_ +churches, in beer shops, beer gardens, variety theatres, music halls and +houses of ill-fame. In the five last-mentioned these trees grow much +taller, larger and more luxuriant than anywhere else, because it is +supposed by _naturalists_ that they are more indigenous to this kind of +soil. In these places those are the favorite trees, the trees admired +above all others, because of the fruit they bear. Why the virtuous and +the vulgar are so fond of the same fruit, I shall not try to explain. I +must leave this knotty, ugly problem to be solved by _wiser_ and more +experienced heads than mine. I asked the proprietors and proprietresses +of these last-mentioned places where they procured the sprouts from +which all these great trees had grown; these trees that have grown so +tall and strong, and the bark so thick, that they do not vanish with the +darkness when the morning light appears, but grow and flourish in the +brightest day, _even better on_ SUNDAYS _than any other time_. + +They all, without a dissenting voice, made answer and said: "_The seeds_ +were planted in the decent, respectable parlors, generally among the +polished and refined people of the towns and cities--were watered and +cultivated by the fathers and mothers, and then transplanted into the +dancing schools, church festivals, and then they are removed to the +public halls, and here they are kept until the bark on _some_ of them +becomes hard enough to be carried to the beer gardens, masquerades, +variety theaters, music halls and other towns and cities in Sodom and +Gomorrah." + +Without the fascination for dancing, which is _germinated_ and +_cultivated_ in the private parlors among the _nice, respectable, +refined_ people, many of the largest towns and cities of Sodom and +Gomorrah would soon be depopulated. We next come to enquire who it is +that attends dancing parties, balls, hops, etc., and when they usually +break up. But one answer can be given, viz.: young men and young women, +together with young married people, with an occasional _sear and yellow +leaf repainted_. + +With a very few exceptions, dancing parties, balls and hops are made up +of young men and girls of every grade of society, from the poorest to +the wealthiest in the community. Now it must be admitted that there is +as great a desire in the hearts of the poor young men, and as great a +desire in the hearts of the girls of poor parentage to make a favorable +impression in society, as there possibly could be with the wealthier +classes. As a rule, it may be said that not more than one in twenty of +all who participate in dancing parties have a sufficient "cash balance" +to gratify their pride in the purchase of the supposed necessary outfits +in clothing, jewelry, etc., without any misgivings as to the future +comforts and necessaries of life. + +When we consider the large number of young men, young husbands and +fathers and mothers who are not able, in justice to themselves and those +looking to and relying upon them for a support, to keep pace with the +rich in their extravagance, and that all must come together on the same +floor, in the same room and pass in review before the merciless critics +always to be found in the ball room, and find that the weakest and most +vulnerable points in human nature are here attacked by three of the +devil's most powerful armies, under command of three of his most +stratagetic and experienced generals--ENVY, JEALOUSY and WOUNDED +PRIDE--we may at once proceed to examine the fruit of dancing. Nearly +all of our young people are in love with some one, and not unfrequently +two or three or more are in love with the same one, or the lover +imagines that he or she has from one to a half dozen rivals, which is +the same to them as if it were true. It is often the case that an +engagement exists, or there is grave suspicion of its existence. A +dancing party or ball is in prospect. The same preparation must be made +by rich and poor. One young man who chanced to be born of rich or +well-to-do parents, and one young lady the same, order their outfits, +and they are paid for not unfrequently out of the usurious interest +wrung from the fathers and mothers of the poorer young men and girls. +Now the poorer and less able to purchase the necessary all outfits, +which are always costly, _must go_. They must go, because they _love_ +the dance. They are PASSIONATELY fond of it. + +They must go, or it may be said they could not go on account of their +poverty. They must go, in order to keep pace with their rivals, so as to +keep an eye on them, lest they be supplanted in their affections. These +are three powerful inducements. Without Divine aid they are irresistible +when brought to bear on the young. + +THEY MUST GO! + +THEY WILL GO! + +THEY DO GO! + +Here thousands of fathers and mothers have been compelled to yield to +the entreaties of their daughters, and sometimes their sons, in +purchasing costly apparel, jewelry, etc., when they knew they were not +able, outfits that never would have been needed but for the dance. +Hundreds of thousands of young men, with small salaries, in moderate +circumstances, have been induced, under this heavy pressure, to resort +to many dishonest devices in order to make the necessary preparations. +Clerks have sold goods above the market price and put the excess in +their pockets. They have often _borrowed_ money from their employer, +_without his knowledge_, small amounts, from day to day. They have +borrowed from friends by telling them they had money coming from an +estate, or friend or a debtor, which they knew to be false, and in the +same way, or by other false statements, have bought articles of +clothing, made large livery bills, which they knew would never be paid. +Many conceive the idea they can raise the desired amount at the gambling +table, and here do _their first_ gambling. Where one succeeds, at least +one hundred fail. Some raise the required amount by transferring a few +cows, yearlings, steers, a horse or a mule, to distant pastures; some +are caught and some are not. Those not caught are in a far worse +condition than those in the jail or in the penitentiary, because they +have been checked in their mad career, and the others are emboldened by +their escape to commit other and greater crimes. "Be sure your sins will +find you out." Yes, inexorable, unerring justice is on the track of all +evil-doers, and will be certain to overtake them sooner or later. +Hundreds of thousands of fathers and mothers, and young married people, +have been brought to poverty and misery; some, within my knowledge, to +alms-houses, by the heavy draws made upon them by their sons, daughters +and wives, in preparing for dancing parties and balls. For weeks before +the ball comes off--and here let it be understood that I mean the ball +to cover hops, dancing parties and all manner of dancing--the young +people are wild with excitement; they are almost wholly incapable of any +kind of business. All manner of domestic affairs are almost entirely +neglected by the girls and young wives. The bright anticipation of great +pleasure in the near future, turns some of their little shallow brains +up-side-down, and they are often seen in a sort of deep reverie, wearing +a blank gaze, having very much the appearance of poor unfortunate +idiots. If the father, mother, husband, brother or teacher speaks to +them, unless it be on the subject of the ball, they grin like a baboon +and snap like a mad dog. If we run on at the rate we are now going, it +will not be a great while until it may be found to be cheaper to build a +few asylums for the sane, and let the idiots and lunatics run at large. + +THE BALL. THE HOP. THE DANCE. + +IT IS ALL THE SAME. + +Well, the long looked for day has come; it is now 8 P.M., and the boys, +girls and young wives are in their rooms donning their new and costly +apparel, which has been bought, borrowed or _stolen_ in divers and +sundry ways. Some have been paid for, some will be paid for, and some +will remain open accounts until judgment day. The wealthy and those who +never pay their bills will be dressed in the costliest, richest apparel, +because only these classes can afford these luxuries. EXTREMES WILL +MEET. The young men go and bring in their girls, and when they get to +the door, they are met by the committee of reception, who politely show +the ladies a side room where they will go and lay off their wraps. The +young men go out into the corner of the yard or in the woods and lay off +their _wraps_--in the nature of a bottle of whiskey or brandy--or they +have left them in a buggy or carriage, or a room has been set apart for +this purpose, and the WRAPS have been provided before-hand, or they are +to be found in a convenient drinking saloon. + +THE WRAPS ARE THERE. + +The girls wear their wraps around them. The boys _wear_ themselves +around their wraps. These _wraps_ are brought into requisition as the +physical man begins to weaken under the excessive and unnatural +exercise. Unnatural, because the hours designed by God, our maker, to be +used in rest and sleep are appropriated to another and very different +purpose. Here the tempter discovers another weak point, and he makes the +attack. The great draw made upon the physical forces makes it +necessary--the tempter says--to use an artificial stimulant, which is +here often taken the first time, and which is not unfrequently repeated, +until many are so much under its influence and some get so drunk--no, +become so suddenly _indisposed_, that they have to be carried home. +These entertainments seldom break up until the light of the morning +begins to appear, but I will compromise on 2 o'clock, A.M. At 9 or 10 +o'clock, P.M., the performance begins, and I propose we shall _candidly_ +and _honestly_ examine this basket of fruit. Whether designed or not, it +is simply a fact that many of the girls and women are dressed in such a +way and manner as best and most successfully to excite the baser +passions of men. + +If the style of dress often, yea, nearly always, seen at the +_fashionable_ balls and dancing parties is wholly without any evil +design--innocently following a fashion--and if those who thus dress are +really ignorant of the effect it has upon the opposite sex, it is high +time their eyes were being opened. If this be only a fashion, and I want +to believe it is nothing more, but when I remember distinctly that this +manner of dressing for balls and dancing parties has been the fashion +for forty years and that it has never changed, _except to become a +little more so_, and that all other fashions have changed at least +twenty times, my belief staggers and hangs its head for very shame. This +fruit alone has sent hundreds of thousands of men, women and girls to +premature graves, dishonored graves, felons' cells, and to an endless +hell. That this semi-nude condition, in which many girls and women are +seen in the dance, has been productive of a vast deal of sin and crime, +no honest man certainly will deny. In the whirl of the gay and giddy +dance, we see: + + Strong men and women fair + Are now within the tempter's snare, + With arms around each slender waist, + Each woman held in _close embrace_. + + If all the _thoughts_ could be made known + Of seeds of crime which here are sown, + 'Twould cause the _hardest_ cheek to blush + And every _virtuous_ heart would crush. + + But so it is, and ere must be, + While men and women thus agree + _To tempt themselves, and others too_, + TO SINS AND CRIMES OF DEADLY HUE. + +The following is the experience of a lady whose name is withheld, but +who has distinguished herself in literature, and made a world-wide +reputation: + + "In those times I cared little for polka or varsovienne, and still + less for 'Money Musk' or 'Virginia Reel,' and wondered what people + could find to admire in these slow dances. But in the soft floating + of the waltz I found a strange pleasure, rather difficult to + intelligibly describe. The mere anticipation fluttered my pulse, + and when my partner approached to claim my promised hand for the + dance, I felt my cheeks glow a little sometimes, and I could not + look him in the eye with the same frank gayety as heretofore. + + "But the climax of my confusion was reached when, folded in his + warm embrace, and giddy with the whirl, a strange, sweet thrill + would shake me from head to foot, leaving me weak and almost + powerless, and really obliged to depend for support on the arm + which encircled me. If my partner failed, from ignorance, lack of + skill or innocence, to arouse these, to me, most pleasureable + sensations, I did not dance with him the second time. + + "I am speaking openly and frankly, and when I say that I did not + understand what I felt, or what were the real and greatest + pleasures I derived from this so-called dancing, I expect to be + believed. But if my cheeks grew red with uncomprehended pleasure + then, they grow pale to-day with shame when I think of it all. It + was the physical emotions engendered by the magnetic contact of + strong men that I was enamored of--not of the dance, not even of + the men themselves. + + "Thus I became abnormally developed in my lowest nature. I grew + bolder, and from being able to return shy glances at first, was + soon able to meet more daring ones, until the waltz became to me + and whomsoever danced with me, one lingering, sweet and purely + sensual pleasure, where heart beat against heart, hand was held in + hand and eyes looked burning words which lips dared not speak. + + "All this time no one said to me, 'You do wrong;' so I dreamed of + sweet words whispered during the dance, and often felt, while + alone, a thrill of joy indescribable, yet overpowering, when my + mind would turn from my study to remember a piece of temerity of + unusual grandeur on the part of one or another of my cavaliers. + + "Married now, with home and children around me, I can at least + thank God for the experience which will assuredly be the means of + preventing my little daughters from indulging in any such dangerous + pleasure. But if a young girl, pure and innocent in the beginning, + can be brought to feel what I have confessed to have felt, what + must be the experience of a married woman? She knows what every + glance of the eye, every bend of the head, every close clasp means, + and knowing that, reciprocates it, and is led by swifter steps and + a surer path down the dangerous, dishonorable road." + +I read in the Scripture, in that ever memorable sermon on the Mount, +this significant declaration: "Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust +after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." Some +may not receive this as sound doctrine, because it is the language of +Jesus Christ; but this will not give relief, because the _corrupting_ +influence would be just the same if Christ had never said one word about +it. Christ only gave the great sin a name by calling it adultery. It was +in this way the seed was sown in the heart of the Psalmist David that +caused him to commit one of the greatest crimes ever committed on earth. +See 2 Samuel, 11 Ch. In the same way the seed has been sown in the +hearts of thousands of men in the ball room, in the dances and in the +private parlors, which has ripened into disruptions of the marital +relations--has ripened into husbands murdering their wives, has ripened +into husbands losing their wives by elopement, has ripened into husbands +being murdered, has ripened into young men killing each other; and last, +though not least, has resulted in the utter ruin of hundreds of +thousands of the fair daughters of our land and country. Taking the +declarations of Jesus Christ as true, and no honest man can doubt it, +_there never was and never will be a dancing party or ball that the +great sin He referred to was not and will not be committed in the hearts +of some men_. + +Here permit me to ask an important question, and solemnly charge every +reader to make answer as upon oath: + +WITH WHOM IS THIS GREAT SIN COMMITTED? + +If common honesty compels fathers, husbands and brothers to admit these +things to be true, will you ever again permit your wives, your daughters +or your sisters to be found at one of these places, however decent the +people may be, while they are under your control? If you do, after your +attention has been called to the hideous deformity of the dance, God, +man and your own conscience will condemn you. Whatsoever of evil or +crime may be committed, unyielding justice, unmixed with mercy, will +certainly hold you responsible. This last objection to the dance will +hold and be just as good against the theaters and operas, because no one +will deny but that a special effort is generally made at these places to +excite the passions of men and women by an indecent exposure of their +persons. To say the least of it, Christians have no business at these +places. + +A Christian has no business at any place where he cannot go in the name +of Jesus Christ, because the Scripture says: "They shall walk up and +down in His name."--Zach., 10 ch. 12v. Micah, 4 ch. 5v.--"His name shall +be on their foreheads."--Rev., 22 ch. 4 v. "Ye are my witnesses."--Isa., +43 ch. 10 v. Can a Christian, a true follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, +"walk up and down" in a ball room in His _name_? Can a Christian go into +a ball room with the name of Jesus Christ written on his or her +forehead? If a man has His name written on his forehead, and he goes +into a ball room, theater, opera, or a drinking saloon, does he not, by +that act, hide the name of Jesus Christ? Can a Christian be a witness +for God in the ball room, theater, opera, or drinking saloon? _If not, +his testimony is false, and he is a perjured man!_ I have no doubt some +very nice people--_society people_--will be terribly _shocked_ at the +developments herein made. + +I was raised in the country, and I remember a varmint got to visiting +our poultry yard and carrying off those _roosting nearest the ground_, +which were generally our _improved blooded (society)_ chickens, and +whenever we would get after him, he would run down through a _very +muddy_ place, and take refuge in a hole in the bank of a creek. We +rather dreaded the task of following him through all this _mud and +filth_; but, as a last resort, rather than let him have all the poultry, +or allow him to continue his depredations at pleasure, we waded through +the mud down to his den and dug into his hiding place; and when he was +struck on the head with the back of a hoe, he too was _terribly +shocked._ + +Now this little animal was not, as may be supposed by some, one of the +"common or unclean," but he was one of the elite, a regular _society_ +mink. He was covered with very fine fur, but had his stomach filled with +stolen chickens. I leave the application to all to whom these presents +may come, GREETING. _When I want to buy a hat, I never take one unless +it fits me_. + +More or less of the girls participating in the dance are engaged to be +married, and great effort is made to keep this a profound secret, so she +very naturally has every man for a partner except her intended. Here is +music in the back-ground, if her intended is present, and he is sure to +be there if he is in striking distance--if he is not down with typhoid +fever or in prison. + +This music is in his heart, in the nature of clamoring for blood, by a +legion of different sized devils. It may be there is not one man in the +room that would have his girl under any consideration whatever, but he +imagines that they all want her. The female outfit for the ball consists +of girls and a number of young married women, and some a little older, +and some old women, forty to fifty years old, with grown children, false +teeth, false hair, and bloats to swell out their wrinkled cheeks, and +they, too, are dressed in the _fashion_ with red ribbons, and blue and +green; these furnish the _disgust_ for the occasion--and one of them has +been known to furnish disgust enough for a city of ten thousand +inhabitants, and of the very best quality. Let us return to the basket +containing the young married people, and examine the fruit therein. +Reader, did you ever see the young married woman watching her husband as +he glides up and down in the merry dance, _with an old sweetheart in his +arms?_ If you never did, the first opportunity you have, take a good +look at a cat's eyes in the dark and in imagination transfer them to the +young wife's head, and you will have a very correct idea of how _sweet_ +and _amiable_ she looks. + +Who among the living will ever forget that poor unfortunate girl, in the +State of Georgia, who was assassinated in the ball room by a jealous +young wife? The civilized world was shocked by the announcement of this +terrible tragedy, which was purely the fruit of the ball room. These +parties were not of the low and vulgar, but were of the society people +of the age. How many husbands have in the same way and for the same +cause had all the baser, brutish passions aroused to such an extent as +to have their reasoning faculties dethroned, and have been driven by the +raging devils within to commit many of the greatest, most shameful and +most disgraceful crimes that ever blackened the records of a criminal +court? How many have cursed and abused their wives while on the way home +from the ball room? How many, after their arrival at home, have used +their superior physical strength in abusing their wives in a most +shameful and disgraceful manner? How much of all this was the result of +a frenzied imagination, and not for any real misconduct? How many of all +these cruel wrongs and outrages are never known except by the parties +themselves? How many fathers and mothers have neglected their children +by leaving them in incompetent and unsafe hands, while they spent the +night in the ball room? How many husbands have left their wives, in poor +health, sometimes sick in bed, with two or three little children crying +around them, while they have spent the night in the ball room dancing +with other women? How many men and women, and especially women, from +physical and mental causes superinduced by the effects of the ball room, +have been driven to madness, and have thus become inmates of insane +asylums, or have deliberately taken their own lives? O! for the pen of a +Milton or a Pollock! But this would not suffice, because these questions +can only be answered at the Judgment Bar of God, when the secrets of all +hearts shall be made known. + +THEY WILL BE ANSWERED THEN. + +How many girls have innocently and _ignorantly_ killed themselves, or +have sown the seed of some terrible lingering disease, by checking the +course of nature, by bathing or otherwise, in their preparation for the +ball room, which they would not have done to attend any other place? How +many women, all over the country, are suffering the pangs of death from +this cause alone? + +One of the handsomest and most accomplished girls I ever knew, at the +age of eighteen, ignorantly killed herself in this way. I know through +physicians of many others who have wrecked their health in the same way. +Let the invalids among the women tell their physicians the _truth_, and +then let the physicians and the _graves_ speak out, and the world would +be horror-stricken at the awful report. Whiskey has slain its thousands, +but the ball, the hop, the dance, its tens of thousands. + +In this connection I wish to give young men some wholesome advice, +which, if observed, will keep them out of a great deal of trouble, and +save the payment of a great many bills. Whenever you hear that an old +clock, an old carriage, an old saw-mill, an old steamboat, or a woman or +girl who is _passionately_ fond of dancing is on the market, be certain +to remain in bed or get the sheriff, which is much safer, to put you in +jail until these articles are disposed of. I respectfully refer to all +who have had any of these articles _knocked off on them_. + +When the ball closes, the young men take the girls to their homes. In a +little while the girls--darling angels--are in the land of dreams, but +they certainly never dream that they have been "sowing the seeds of +eternal shame, sowing the seeds of a maddened brain." They never dream +_that they are responsible for all the sins and crimes that flow from +the ball room_, BUT THEY CERTAINLY ARE, because if they would not go to +these places, there never would be another ball or hop or dance upon the +face of all the earth. + +MEN WILL NOT DANCE BY THEMSELVES. + +If they do, they will not injure any one but themselves, and they will +be certain not to keep late hours. While the girls are dreaming, the +young men are assembling at some favorite room or corner down in town. +If Jim gets there first he waits for Bill, and then they wait for Jack, +Bob, Ben, Charlie and the balance of the club. When they are all in, one +or two of the older ones propose to go across the way and take a drink +at the corner saloon, which is still in blast; yes, running at a full +head of steam, or rather mean whiskey. Now here is a very strange thing. +I have never heard of but one first-class saloon closing until after the +ball closed, and in this case the owner was very sick and the bar-tender +had skipped with the cash balance. Some of these boys have been taught +by their old-fogy fathers and mothers that such things are not to be +found on the straight and narrow road, because there is no _room_ for +them along this road, _and no use for them either_. + +I have carefully examined my way-bill to heaven, and it was made out by +one who knows every foot of the way, but I find no mention made of +drinking saloons, ball rooms, theaters, operas, houses of ill-fame, and +_such like_ places as being on or near this road. The same one has +furnished me a way-bill to hell, and I find all these places mentioned +as being on the line of this road. Whenever you find yourself, dear +reader, at one of these places, you may know beyond the shadow of a +doubt that you are not in the narrow road; and with equal certainty you +may know you are in the broad road. Now these boys are evidently on the +broad road, because the devil's sutler-shops are not to be found +anywhere else, for the very good reason that he cannot get a permit to +put them up on the narrow road. He would put them in the very center of +heaven if he possibly could. His impudence and daring is only equaled by +his fathomless corruption. The man or woman who will dare to say that +these places are found on the road to heaven, certainly has a very poor +idea of heaven and its inhabitants. If they are to be found along the +straight and narrow way, and the travelers along this way are to enter +and participate in the things therein going on, then they are certainly +designed of God to _aid in the salvation of immortal souls_. If this be +true, on entering the narrow way the first refreshments we shall get are +to be found in one of these places, having this sign over the door; +"FIRST CHANCE," and the last thing we pass in this life, just before we +enter heaven, will be another one of these houses with this inscription +over the door: "LAST CHANCE." Some of these boys don't understand it +this way; they have been raised to think that "_there is no harm in +dancing_," but were never told that the dancing shops of all kinds are +on the same road with all the drinking saloons and other places of a +like character. No, the same parents told their sons that the drinking +saloon is next door to hell, and these are the ones we read about in the +Bible, who "strain at a gnat and swallow a camel." That is to say, in +those days when Christ was on earth, there were some people so +peculiarly constituted that they strained at a gnat and swallowed a +camel; but we live in an age of improvement, an age in which some people +strain at a gnat, and swallow a Jumbo with perfect ease and in the most +graceful manner. + +I know an advocate of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, who often +dances all night, most _gracefully_, and in the morning she turneth up +her little nose, just as _gracefully_ as the elephant turneth up his +snout when Peck's bad boy has thrown him a piece of tobacco, _at the +awful drinking saloon and saloon keepers_. The private parlor dance is +the beginning, the first depot on the great air-line route from this +world to the city of destruction; here the boys and men are drawn into +the coaches by the general passenger agents: the MOTHERS, WIVES, +DAUGHTERS, SISTERS and SWEETHEARTS. This line is advertised as the +finest and best equipped road beneath the sun. Fine sleepers; all the +way through, without change. Special guarantee against accidents. This +road is laid with smooth, glass rails, and the wheels are made of India +rubber. Drinking saloons, beer gardens, and some other places I'll not +mention, are the wood yards and tanks, where fuel and water is procured +which gets up the steam that draws the train with increasing velocity +down to the great city of destruction. When the train stops for wood and +water, all the passengers are expected to take part in the very +interesting and social performance. But here are same boys who beg to be +excused. "Can't excuse you," cries the brakesman. "Come along, you can +take a small _stick_ in the way of a cigar;" and so these boys, not +wishing to appear ugly and incur the ill will of the brakesman, walk +into a saloon for the first time. They first take a cigar, but soon the +brakesman (an old stager) laughs them to scorn and confusion, and not +being able to stand the fire, they throw down the cigar and take their +_first drink in a drinking saloon_. After the drinks have been repeated +a few times, one of the brakesmen, well under the influence of whiskey +or wine, takes a careful look at all present, and if satisfied there is +no relative or sweetheart in hearing, he then and there tells an +_anecdote_ on one of the nice girls or married ladies with whom they +have been dancing, that certainly would bring the blush of shame to the +cheeks of the blackest devil that inhabits the world of outer darkness. +The drink, and anecdotes of the same character, _only worse, if +possible_, are repeated until interrupted by the appearance of a +half-witted looking young man, entering from a back door, who seems to +have something of great importance to tell the bartender. He talks low, +but sufficiently loud to be heard by the boys, for it is really for +their ears. "Have you heard the news?" "No, what news." "Why, about Bill +Jones; he went in back here to-night with only five dollars for a stake, +and he has just now gone home with _five hundred dollars_ in his +pocket." Then the boys slide out, and as soon as out in a dark corner, +they begin to enquire to see if a stake can be raised among them, +finding none, one or two being confidential clerks, go to the store, +bank or other place of business, and _borrow_ fifteen or twenty dollars, +having no doubt of their ability to win a few hundred dollars in a +little while, and then replace the _borrowed_ money without it ever +being known. Soon the _borrowed_ stake is in the hands of the dealer. +They repeat the drinks, and then _borrow_ some more in the same way, +which goes into the same hands as the first, and thus they continue +until the appearance of day-light, and then reeling to and fro under the +influence of the mean whiskey they have been drinking, and the ponderous +weight of their sins and crimes, they go to their rooms, cursing the day +on which they were born. + +THEY HAVE LOST ALL SELF-RESPECT. + +They are now at sea without chart or compass. When a man or woman loses +their self-respect, they are moral wrecks. "WANDERING STARS." There is +nothing left to build upon. It is from this cause that thousands commit +suicide, both men, women, and girls. It is the continual gnawings of the +conscience over the secret sins and crimes they have not the moral +courage to confess. Like the hidden spark of fire in a bale of cotton, +it continues its ravages until the whole bale is reduced to ashes. This +will account in great measure for the hundreds and thousands of +_unaccountable_ suicides of to-day, which are principally confined to +the young of both sexes. + +I do not mean to say that all the young men go to drinking saloons as +soon as they carry their girls home, or as soon as the ball or dance is +over. No, many of them go to other places, such as are described in the +5th chapter of Proverbs. _Men will not deny this_. Who caused these men +to go to these places? Shall I answer? Shall I tell the truth? If I do, +I must say it is the virtuous wives, daughters, sisters and sweethearts, +who have been participating in the dance. _Every man knows that this is +true_. Let every honest physician send in a report of all his male +patients, giving the disease of each and the cause, and then let us have +a correct report from the dead of the same kind, and I am confident that +no husband, father or brother would ever permit his wife, daughter or +sister to be seen at a ball or dance. HUSBANDS, FATHERS, BROTHERS, your +wives, daughters and sisters do not know these things, _but you do know +them_, and now that your eyes are open, will you, can you, as a husband, +father or brother, ever permit the females under your care to even take +the chance of being RECRUITING OFFICERS for these sinks of perdition, +THESE ANTE-CHAMBERS OF HELL. These places, dripping with the blood of +hundreds and thousands of young and middle-aged men, who, but for their +enchantment, might have been good and true men, and have filled +honorable graves. These places have broken the hearts of thousands of +wives, mothers and: sisters, when they have seen their loved ones bound +in the fetters and chains of eternal death. These funnels, through which +thousands and millions of souls of both men and women have been poured +into an endless hell. + +I have tried to furnish fair samples of the fruit of dancing, if I have +failed, it is an error of the head and not of the heart. It may be said +by some that I have occupied forbidden ground in writing a book to be +read by the public generally. In reply I can only say that I have simply +_followed the varmint to his hiding place_. I have not used any stronger +or more indecent language than was used by Jesus Christ, and God forbid +that I should ever be guilty of the sacrilege of saying or even thinking +that Jesus Christ was _vulgar_ or wanting in _refinement_; that ever I +should say of and concerning Him: "_I am holier than Thou_." If the +things I have herein mentioned have flowed from the ball room, if I have +stated FACTS, and _I know that I have_, you should not get mad at me, +but get mad at the _facts_. If a man lends a helping hand in removing a +_dead dog_ from the yard, it is not the man that is indecent, _it is the +dead dog_. The man shows his decency and kindness by condescending to +give aid in removing the stench from the premises, and no one but a +contemptible _snipe dude_ would stand off and turn up his nose and call +the man indecent and vulgar. If I am wrong, I rejoice to know that I am +in the best company on earth, for the whole religious world, with a +_few_ exceptions, regards dancing as an enemy to good morals, and as +_destructive to all spirituality_, because it is productive of so much +evil and NO GOOD. Who upon all the earth has the opportunity of knowing +the true inwardness of dancing like the Catholic priests and bishops? +Who ever held and used such a _probing instrument_ as the CONFESSIONAL? +Who on this earth can come as near knowing all the acts and deeds, yea, +and the very _thoughts_, that do pass through the minds and hearts of +men, women, boys and girls, as the Catholic priests and bishops can know +of and concerning those under their charge? Arch-Bishop J. Henry William +Elder, Co-Adjutor to the Arch-Bishop of Cincinnati, has issued a +circular letter to the clergy in his Diocese, from which I take this +very significant clipping: + +"THERE MUST BE NO ROUND DANCING AT ANY TIME, AND NO DANCING OF ANY KIND +AFTER DARK." + +What meaneth then this blating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing +of the oxen which I hear? Why does Arch-Bishop Elder inhibit the round +dance even in _day-light_? Mr. and Mrs. ECHO and their girls and boys +will please answer _why_? And why has he inhibited _all kinds_ of +dancing after dark? Will some member of the same family please rise and +explain? + + "Oh wad some power the giftie gie us, + To see oursels as ithers see us." + +While this circular letter has an existence upon earth, let all +_so-called_ Protestants and their friends, who say "_There is no harm in +dancing_," and who participate in dancing of _any kind at any time or +place_, or who simply attend such places, or who remain at a place after +it has been turned into a dance, (for the aiders and abettors of crime +are just as guilty as their principals), hang their heads for very +shame, as poor old dog Tray hangeth his head when caught in company with +sheep-killing dogs, and especially when some wool is found in his teeth. +Paul was present when Stephen, the first Christian martyr, was put to +death; he only held the clothes of those who cast the stones, but he was +just as guilty of murder as though he had cast the fatal missile, _by +his presence, and making no objection he was consenting to the crime_. +To have relieved himself of the blood of Stephen, he should not have +gone to the place where the murder was committed, if he knew, or had +good reason to know, that a crime was to be committed. If he had gone +there with the belief that it was an _innocent, harmless_ gathering, and +after getting there he saw their murderous intent, he should at least +have left immediately and thus have withdrawn all his influence and +supposed sympathy with the criminals. The holding of their clothes did +not make him guilty, but was only _cumulative_ evidence of the murderous +intent in his heart. + +Reader, if you go to a ball or dance, knowing it to be such, you are a +participant in all the sins and crimes which would not have been +committed, if such ball or dance had never been. So if the gathering be +for a _sinless, harmless_ purpose, and you find, after arriving at the +place, that there is to be a dance, and you do not leave immediately, +you will be just as guilty as though you had gone with full knowledge of +what was to be. The encouragement and endorsement of your presence makes +you just as guilty as those who join in the dance. There is no +difference, except in degree, between the select parlor dance and the +masquerade ball, because the one is the stepping stone to the other. Not +one in ten thousand have done their first dancing at the masquerade +ball, just as not one in ten thousand ever took their first drink of +whiskey in a drinking saloon. But let it be remembered that hundreds of +thousands have taken their first drink of wine or whiskey at a ball or +dance. + +One of the greatest sins committed by children and young people is +_disobedience to parents._ It is one of the greatest, because it is one +of the first, and because if cultivated it becomes a cesspool of +iniquity. It is a pandora box, out of which ten thousand troubles, +trials, difficulties, sins and crimes will come. I claim that the _love_ +of dancing is the most fruitful source of _disobedience to parents_ to +be found beneath the sun, because it becomes a _ruling passion_. If +anything will cause a child to disobey its parents, it is to forbid them +going to a ball or dance when their heart is set upon it. _They go and +then deny it_. For all the disobedience brought about in this way, the +parents are generally far more to blame than the children because it is +the parents' fault that they have ever learned to dance. Some parents +have an idea that dancing is a necessary branch of education, that it +makes their children _graceful_, but never look far enough down the line +to see that they are opening the way to _graceful_ disobedience, +_graceful_ liars, _graceful_ thieves, _graceful_ gamblers, _graceful_ +drunkards, _graceful_ prostitutes, _graceful_ whoremongers and to every +sin and crime that men and women can commit beneath the sun. They are +opening the very gates of hell to their own children. + +MANY, if not all, of the following sins and crimes are committed at +_every dance, hop or ball,_ and every one present, whether participating +in the dance or not, is equally guilty with the perpetrators of all the +sins and crimes, which would not have been committed if there had been +no such gathering: + + +SAMPLES OF FRUIT FOUND ON THE TREE OF DANCING: + +ENVY. + +JEALOUSY. + +PRIDE. + +DECEIT. + +DISOBEDIENCE TO PARENTS + +BACKBITING. + +STRIFE. + +HATRED. + +LASCIVIOUSNESS. + +EMULATION. + +SEDITION. + +LYING. + +THEFT. + +DRUNKENNESS. + +SABBATH BREAKING. + +GAMBLING. + +EMBEZZLEMENT. + +SUICIDE. + +VULGARITY. + +FORNICATION. + +ADULTERY. + +OBSCENITY. + +EXTRAVAGANCE. + +DIVORCE. + +LUNACY. + +WANTONNESS. + +CRUELTY. + +IDOLATRY. + +PERJURY. + +SEDUCTION. + +PROSTITUTION. + +ABORTION. + +INFANTICIDE. + +ASSASSINATION. + +MURDER. + +"AND SUCH LIKE." + +Every honest man is compelled to admit that these sins and crimes are +the _natural fruit of dancing_; THAT THESE THINGS DO FLOW FROM THE +DANCE. I frankly admit that all these sins and crimes may and do come +from other sources, but I challenge the world to point to any _one_ +thing that produces as many of these sins and crimes as the dance. The +drinking saloon is a prolific source of evil, but not one-half as much +as the dance, for it must be borne in mind that _men only_ attend the +saloons, and that many of them are sent there _from the ball room_, and +many, who never would have seen the inside of a drinking saloon but for +the ball or dance. _The ball is a feeder for drinking saloons, gambling +saloons, and houses of ill-fame._ + +I have delivered this lecture on dancing in seven States, before about +one hundred congregations, numbering from three hundred to ten thousand +people. I have called on all the men, old and young, saint and sinner, +at nearly every place, to give an expression of opinion from what they +had seen themselves, or what they had heard from those who had attended +balls, hops, and such like places, as to the correctness or +incorrectness of my charges against the dance, and out of I think not +less than fifty thousand men, I have never found but SEVEN who stood up, +thereby saying they did not believe that the sins and crimes I had +mentioned had ever flowed from the ball room, while nearly all the +balance stood up before their wives, daughters, sisters, and +sweethearts, saying that they do believe, from what they _know, and have +seen_ and have heard from those who attend balls and hops, that these +sins and crimes are the natural fruit of all kinds of dancing, where the +sexes dance together. A few, perhaps one in twenty, kept their seats, +not expressing their opinion either way. Of this class I think I may +safely say that _four-fifths_ failed to understand my proposition, or +thought it not necessary to rise; but if they had stood up, they would +have been with the affirmative. While I am not an apologist for saloon +keepers and gamblers, I want to record the fact right here that I have +had more or less of them in my congregations, at nearly every place +where I talked on this subject, and I have never known one, no, not one, +to keep his seat when an expression of opinion was called for, and not +one was found among the _immortal seven_. + +There are many men worse at heart than gamblers and saloon keepers. If +they and their families were treated by the Christian people with more +kindness, and less like they were outcasts, hundreds and thousands of +them would become Christians. I do not claim that all who attend dancing +parties, balls, and hops are ruined, but I do claim that _all who attend +such places take part in the eternal disgrace and ruin of others._ There +is not a man or woman among the living, or the dead, who has made a +practice of attending such places, but that has the blood of one or more +_lost souls_ upon their garments, _and there it must remain throughout +the ceaseless ages of_ ETERNITY, _unless it be washed away_ BY THE BLOOD +OF JESUS CHRIST. + +My sainted mother and my wife have attended and participated in the +dance, but, like hundreds and thousands of girls and women of to-day, +they never had the most distant idea that the dancing party or ball was +a cesspool of iniquity, for, had they known the things brought to light +in this little book, they never would have made one step in that +direction. I believe that God has forgiven them, because, like Paul, +they did it ignorantly. "I obtained mercy, because I did it +_ignorantly_."--I. Tim. 1-13. Reader, if you ever go to one of these +places after your eyes have been opened, as they must be now, you cannot +plead _ignorance_, but you will sin _wilfully_ and _knowingly._ See Heb. +10: 26, 27. + +Those who are turned into the paths of shame, of vice, and of crime, are +described in the Bible in the following terrible language, and where +could a better description be found? "Woe unto them! for they have gone +in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for +reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core. These are _spots_ in +your feasts of charity when they feast with you, _feasting themselves +without fear._ Clouds they are without water, _carried about of winds_, +trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by +the roots. _Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own_ SHAME; +_wandering_ STARS to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness +forever."--Jude, 11, 12, 13. + +Mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, if there is a doubt left in your +minds as to the charges made against dancing, will you do yourselves, +and those under your influence, the justice to ask your husbands, +fathers and brothers to read this little book, and give you their +_honest opinions_? + + * * * * * + +VERDICT. + +This is to certify that I have carefully read this little book, and give +it as my honest conviction--from what I have seen and what I have heard +from those who have attended dancing parties, balls and hops--that the +charges and specifications are true, and believing them to be true, I +here promise to use all my influence against _all kinds_ of dancing, +while I live on earth. + +(Here Sign Name.)............................. + +Try and get four others to sign with you. + + * * * * * + +If this little book should be of benefit to any one, I would like to +know it. As it is my intention to get out a second edition, I desire to +collect all _the facts_ I can in support of the charges and +specifications against dancing. Ministers of the Gospel, physicians, and +fathers and mothers, can render me great assistance if they will. + +_Names of correspondents will not be published without special +permission_. + + +There is No Harm in Dancing. + +Single Copy, Paper Cover, 25 cts. +Single Copy, Cloth Cover, 30 cts. + +Liberal discount to Pastors and Dealers. + + * * * * * + +HARVEST BELLS, No. 2. + +A New Sabbath School Song Book, just published. + +Suitable also for Revivals. + +The _most popular_ Song Book ever offered to the public. + +Single Copy, $ .30. +Per Dozen, 3.00. + +LIBERAL DISCOUNT TO DEALERS. + +Address: +W. E. PENN, +PALESTINE, TEXAS. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14183 *** diff --git a/14183-h/14183-h.htm b/14183-h/14183-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..99aca0c --- /dev/null +++ b/14183-h/14183-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1374 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of There is No Harm in Dancing, by W. E. Penn, et al</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + } + HR { width: 33%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .note {margin-left: 2em; margin-right: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} /* footnote */ + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;} /* page numbers */ + .sidenote {width: 20%; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-left: 1em; font-size: smaller; float: right; clear: right;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span {display: block; margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em;} + .poem .caesura {vertical-align: -200%;} + hr.full { width: 100%; + height: 5px; } + a:link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:visited {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:hover {color:red} + pre {font-size: 8pt;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14183 ***</div> +<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, There is No Harm in Dancing, by W. E. Penn, +et al</h1> +<center> +<table border=0 bgcolor="ccccff" cellpadding=10 width="80%"> + <tr> + <td valign="top"> + Note: + </td> + <td> + Images of the original pages are available in the American + Memory Collection of the Library of Congress. See<br> + <a href="http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html"> + http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html</a> + </td> + </tr> +</table> +</center> +<br> +<br> +<hr class="full" noshade> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h1>THERE IS NO HARM IN DANCING</h1> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>W. E. PENN</h2> + + +<h4>WITH AN</h4> + +<h3>INTRODUCTION</h3> + +<h4>BY</h4> + +<h3>Rev. J. H. STRIBLING, D.D.</h3> + +<br> +<h5>1884.</h5> +<br> +<br> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<br> + +<p>"Buy the TRUTH and sell it not; also WISDOM and INSTRUCTION and +UNDERSTANDING."—PROV. 23-23.</p> + +<p>"There is a way that SEEMETH right unto a man, but the end thereof are +the ways of DEATH."—PROV. 14-25</p> +<br> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<br> + +<h6>St. Louis, Mo.<br> + Lewis E. Kline, Publisher and Bookseller</h6> + +<br /> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<br> + +<p><i>This little book is respectfully and kindly dedicated to all Husbands, +Fathers and Brothers, who love their Wives, Daughters and Sisters, by</i></p> + +<p>THE AUTHOR.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='PREFACE'></a><h2>PREFACE.</h2> + +<p>During the past seven years I have delivered the substance of the +foregoing Lecture on Dancing, as a part of my work as an Evangelist, +before not less than one hundred thousand people. I have been requested +by hundreds of FATHERS and mothers, young men and girls, HUSBANDS and +BROTHERS, and pastors of churches to publish the Lecture in the form of +a book, that its influence may be extended to fields I shall never +visit. It is in compliance with these requests that the little book is +written, with the hope that at least some good may result in begetting +and fostering a better state of morals in our day and generation, and in +checking the terrible increase of crime which is rolling over the earth +like a mighty wave of the ocean. If I shall ever hear that this little +book has had some humble part in stopping one poor soul from taking one +more step down the "BROAD ROAD," <i>or that it has done any good in the +world</i>, I shall feel well paid for all the time and trouble it has cost +me in getting it into the hands of the printer. Most of persons speaking +or writing on the subject of the dance, are "<i>hear-say</i>" witnesses, but +I profess to having been an "<i>eye-witness</i>," which I propose to prove by +all the <i>bad</i> men, or those who have been <i>bad</i> men, who may carefully +read this book. Their verdict will be: "HE HAS BEEN THERE."</p> + +<p>While I believe that hundreds of thousands of fathers and mothers, +husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, and pastors, and Christians, +will bless the day this little book was written, and will offer many +earnest prayers for the author, I shall expect many Othellos to curse me +with all the bitterness of their souls, because I hope it may be said +wherever the book is read: "OTHELLO'S OCCUPATION IS GONE."</p> + +<p>THE AUTHOR.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='INTRODUCTION'></a><h2>INTRODUCTION.</h2> + +<p>Major W.C. Penn, the author of the following treatise on the modern +dance, has requested the writer to pen a few thoughts introductory to a +theme he has presented with such pith and power to listening thousands +in his travels as an Evangelist.</p> + +<p>Various inquiries have been made as to how Major Penn, a lawyer in a +lucrative practice, and with all the attractions of wealth and of fame +before him, and in a quiet, lovely and elegant home, with a wife who has +ever been as a guardian angel to his pathway, was led to change his +vocation to that of a wandering Evangelist, and how it is that he now +stands before the world beside Knapp, and Earle, and Moody, and other +world-renowned Evangelists of the 19th century, in leading multitudes to +Christ as a Savior?</p> + +<p>It is answered and centered in the sublime truth: "The love of Christ +constraineth us." As the stars are dimmed and lost sight of in the +brilliancy of the rising sun, so earthly pleasures, riches and honors +fade and dwindle in the glory of the Cross. As God was pleased to use +the writer as an instrument in getting brother Penn into this work, so +it seemed proper that a few incidents and facts which led to it, as +remembered in our associations together, should be stated.</p> + +<p>It was in Jefferson, Texas, where our brother then resided, that I first +saw him, in May, 1874, during the session of the Southern Baptist +Convention, at that place. But it was in June, the year after, at his +own home and during a series of meetings in the Baptist Church, that I +began to know more of him, as he brought up in our social interviews a +review of his life religiously—as he told of the time when, in the +ardor and vigor of youth, in Tennessee, at a meeting, he sought to defy +and brave a gospel message from the venerable brother James Hurt, by +taking a front seat; and then how his soul was convulsed and his heart +melted, as God's message wrenched the bolted door of that heart; how he +struggled with the agonies of conviction for sin, during the long, weary +hours of night; and how the joys of pardoning love through Christ came +to his soul with the brightness of the morning. As these conversations +were reviewed, he told of frequent backslidings, and how far away from +God he had been. Then he told of some things he had done in the Sunday +School and in the Church, and then at times gave his opinion as to the +best way of conducting a series of meetings and other things pertaining +to Christ's Kingdom. During these conversations the question was asked: +"Bro. Penn, are you satisfied and sure that you are in full discharge of +your duty?" After a pause he replied, as if conscience was awakened:</p> + +<p>"No Sir. I am not satisfied, and have not been for years past." Then +said he: "You are the first man that ever asked me that question." Then +the writer made known some impressions about him that must have been +made by the spirit of God, for he never had just such an interest to +burden his heart previously, and that was that God had a peculiar and +wonderful work for him to do. "But," said Bro. Penn, "at my age, in my +profession and in my condition, I cannot believe it to be my duty to +preach the Gospel"—his age being at that time forty-two years. Among +other things said at this time by the writer, as he now remembers them +one was: That the Spirit of God leads and teaches us in strange ways, +often, as to what God would have us do, and that our methods of holding +meetings seemed to the writer as being deficient in some things, and +that the good of the cause required a change from the ruts and grooves +in which these meetings had been run, and that we were making our +services monotonous and chilling out spirituality by common methods of +conducting divine service, in protracted meetings. Another thought was: +That he and men like himself, as lawyers, that were given to talking and +that knew much of men and the world, if the love of Christ was burning +in their souls, might do a great work in going out and helping in such +meetings, even if they never engaged regularly in the ministry.</p> + +<p>But it was in Tyler, Texas, at a Sunday School Institute, in July, 1875, +that a new era was to dawn on Major Penn.</p> + +<p>It was a fixed impression in the mind of the pastor that there ought to +be a change in our manner of conducting revival services; that the time +had come to begin the work, and that Bro. Penn was the man to inaugurate +such a change. In prayer this matter was carried to the Lord for His +direction. It was a settled impression in the heart of the writer, as +pastor of the Baptist Church, that the Church and community needed a +series of meetings at this time. There were preachers present of +experience, piety and ability, and he had no doubt they would remain and +aid in such services if invited to do so. But contrary to what was a +common practice at the close of such meetings, and after imploring the +Lord to direct him, he could not, from his heart, ask any of these +preachers to stay and aid in a meeting.</p> + +<p>While singing the last song, at the close of the service on Sunday +night, the writer approached Major Penn, who had been aiding in the +singing, and said to him: "Bro. Penn, I am going to appoint a prayer +meeting at 9 o'clock in the morning, and as your train does not leave +until 2 o'clock to-morrow evening, I shall expect to see you at the +meeting; will you come?" To which he replied. "I have some business with +the clerk of the Federal Court, and if I get through in time, I will try +and be here." A prayer meeting was announced for 9 o'clock the next +morning. At the appointed hour a fair congregation had assembled, and a +few minutes after 9 o'clock Maj. Penn came in and took a seat not far +from the door. The writer approached him and said: "I want you to +conduct this meeting." He replied: "You must excuse me, I am a lawyer, +and do not believe in mixing things in this way. You conduct the meeting +or get one of those preachers sitting there to do it, and I will help in +singing or lead in prayer, if desired." To which the writer replied: "If +all the preachers in the world were here I could not permit one of them +to conduct this meeting, and I am not physically able. You <i>must</i> do +it." To which he answered. "Very well, I will conduct a prayer meeting."</p> + +<p>The meeting was opened as is usual, when Brother Penn arose and read a +portion of the 20th chapter of John, and then talked about fifteen +minutes, which seemed to awaken a very deep interest throughout the +entire congregation. At the close of this talk quite a number of wives, +fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters arose one after another and in +great earnestness asked prayer for their loved ones. While singing the +last song, the writer asked Brother Penn to remain and conduct a service +at night, which he positively refused to do, saying that he must go +home. Whereupon the writer publicly entered a protest against his +leaving. Sister Penn and others of the company from Jefferson +consenting, he agreed to remain one more day. At night the house was +crowded, and great interest manifested by Christians and by many +unconverted. A prayer meeting was announced for 9 o'clock the next +morning. At this meeting the house was well filled, with a decided +increase of interest. One or two conversions-and a number of inquiries +were made.</p> + +<p>At the close of this meeting the writer said to Brother Penn, "You +cannot leave this meeting, it will never do, there never has been such +an interest in this town since I have been here." To which he replied "I +am bound to go home, I have no partner and no one to attend to my +business." The writer then arose, and in the name of the Lord Jesus +Christ entered another solemn protest against his leaving, saying: "I +believe before God that it is Bro. Penn's solemn duty to remain here and +carry on this meeting, and it is my firm conviction that if he leaves he +will commit the great sin of his life, and I call upon every member of +this church and of this congregation, who will join me in this protest, +to stand up." The entire congregation were standing in a moment. He then +said to the writer privately: "I tell you I am bound to go home; I +promised my wife yesterday that I would be certain to go home with her +to-day, and I know that she is bound to go home." The writer said: "Bro. +Penn, you are mistaken; Sister Penn would not have you leave this +meeting to go home with her. She will go with the young people." He then +went to where his wife was sitting and said to her: "I promised you +yesterday that I would go home with you to-day, and I am going to do +it." Sister Penn looked up in his face with tearful eyes and trembling +lips, and said, as only a true, noble hearted Christian woman could have +said: "I can go home with the young people, I do not think you ought to +go." This seems to have been the last hair that broke the camel's back. +We have seen many striking photographs of the Major as taken by artists +in his travels, and in various attitudes, but a picture delineating his +features on this occasion would be preferable to all others.</p> + +<p>As he rose to respond to the protest of the pastor, Church and +congregation, with his head thrown back, his eyes dilated, his lips +quivering, his voice stammering and tears coursing their way down his +cheeks, he tried to give expression to his astonishment and the deep +emotion of his heart; he seemed to realize that it was <i>God's call</i>, and +that he could not resist it.</p> + +<p>It was circulated through the town that a <i>lawyer</i>, and not a +<i>preacher</i>, was to conduct services at the Baptist Church. Some thought +it a strange freak in the pastor to suggest, and in the Church to +approve such a thing. Various opinions were freely expressed as to the +leader in these services. Then it was spoken in low tones of voice among +some good people, in substance, after this fashion: "Did you ever hear +of such a thing? Here are preachers all over the country that we know, +good men, who can preach the gospel, and here they've called in a +<i>lawyer to carry on the meeting</i>. Lord have mercy on us, what are we +coming to any how?"</p> + +<p>At every street corner and place of business, in the saloons, offices +and homes throughout Tyler, Maj. Penn and the services were discussed, +while his Satanic Majesty and his allies were busy in trying to cripple +and crush the good effects. A mighty and irresistable attraction drew +crowds to the house of God.</p> + +<p>At times it was apparent that the leader was embarrassed; now and then +fretted and and chafed; then at a loss what to say or do; and more than +once was he tempted to say he would leave the meeting; and that he had +not remained there to be slandered and persecuted. But he was reminded +that the best of men had thus suffered, that God had furnaces through +which we must pass, to burn up the dross, and that in the midst of this +state of things the Church was being revived, wanderers brought back, +souls awakened and converted from day to day, and that he had the +sympathy, prayers and co-operation of many pious, devoted hearts. Again +the new leader, after wrestling in prayer for grace and direction, took +courage and was renewed by the spirit of God to go on in pulling down +the strong-holds of iniquity. But Satan was not yet overcome, he made +another powerful assault upon him.</p> + +<p>When the meeting had been in progress about ten days, abuse, +misrepresentation, lying, together with the basest and most contemptible +slanders, were hurled at him with unmeasured severity. It was a new +ordeal, and he was tempted stronger than ever to lay off his armor and +leave the meeting. He decided to go home, and so stated to the pastor, +saying: "You have already kept me here longer than any man on earth +could have done, and now I am determined to go." "Well," said the +pastor, "I am sorry to hear it, and believe you will commit a great +wrong, and will incur the displeasure of Almighty God in leaving here at +this time, and still further, I beg you to bear in mind this truth, that +duty never points in two ways. If it is your duty to be in Jefferson +practicing law, then it is not your duty to remain here and carry on +this meeting. God only can guide you aright." This conversation occurred +in the afternoon. At night the Major was in his place, and said to the +large congregation: "My friends, I have heard to-day of so many +slanderous reports about me that I determined to go home, but +remembering that so persecuted they the prophets, which were before me, +and that they persecuted my Master even unto death, I have only to say: +'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do?' I shall go on +with the meeting, 'looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of my +faith,' to sustain, protect and guide me in all things." It was, +perhaps, the drinking of this cup of persecution that passed our brother +across the Rubicon, that burned all the bridges behind him and caused +him to bow in humble submission to the will of Almighty God.</p> + +<div class='poem'><div class='stanza'> +<span>"'Tis ever so thy faithful love<br /></span> +<span>Does all thy children's graces prove;<br /></span> +<span>'Tis thus our pride and self must fall<br /></span> +<span>That Jesus may be all in all."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>As the meeting continued, and as the scores and hundreds came together +"at the sound of the church-going bell," from day to day the leader +seemed to develop in power from God to move, melt and sway the hearts of +the listening crowds, as he sung and prayed and talked "of Jesus and his +dying love." After more than five weeks' continuance, the services +closed. Scores were converted, many valuable additions were made to the +Church, Christians were renewed and developed in piety of heart and +life, and the leavening and saving power of the Gospel was extended +through the town and surrounding country.</p> + +<p>This meeting was the beginning and earnest of the blessings and success +that has attended Bro. Penn's labors for more than nine years past, +while in his life we see that,</p> + +<div class='poem'><div class='stanza'> +<span>"Defects thro' nature's best productions run.<br /></span> +<span>The saints have spots, and spots are in the sun,<br /></span> +<span>And that he, with all of Adam's race,<br /></span> +<span>Are only 'sinners' saved by grace."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Yet we rejoice and praise God for what has been manifested in his growth +and development in his work mentally and spiritually, for the life, +power and efficiency infused into our churches by his ministrations—for +his rebukes, exposures and denunciations of sin, in and out of the +Church; for holding up Christ at all times, as the only hope of lost +sinners; for tearing away the mask of a heartless formality in the +profession and practice of religion; for the thousands of all classes +and ages in the forests and prairies of Texas, where he has pitched his +great gospel tent, and in the cities of Galveston, Houston, San Antonio, +Dallas, Ft. Worth, Mobile, Memphis, Louisville, St. Louis, and in the +cities of California, in scores of crowded places of worship; in smaller +towns and in the country, who have been brought to Christ as lost +sinners through his instrumentality; and that at all times and through +his whole ministry he has declared "the whole counsel of God," and made +no compromises with error and heresy.</p> + +<p>As to the disquisition of Maj. Penn, which frowns on the modern dance, +we ask for it a careful reading and an honest and practical application +of its facts, arguments and illustration, as the prize, practical essay +of the age on this subject, so far as is known. That it is clear, +pointed and overwhelming in its exposures of the evils and crimes, the +corruptions and abominations of the modern dance is confirmed by +experience and observation.</p> + +<p>Let every lover of the dance, every friend of morals and of religion, +and each professing Christian, read and circulate this production among +all classes of men and women.</p> + +<p>And may the blessings of God attend it's circulation, as it may be +scattered into thousands of homes, and an increasing blessing attend its +author and his labors.</p> + +<p>J. H. STRIBLING,</p> + +<div class='blkquot'><p>Rockdale, Texas. October 14, 1884.</p></div> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='quotThere_is_No_Harm_in_Dancingquot'></a><h2>"There is No Harm in Dancing."</h2> + + +<div class='blkquot'><p>"Every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree + bringeth forth evil fruit."—Matt. 7, 17.</p></div> + +<p>If "THERE IS NO HARM IN DANCING," it must be a good tree, and if it is a +good tree, we shall be certain to find that it bears good fruit, and if +we find the fruit hanging on its boughs to be sound and wholesome food +for the <i>physical, mental</i> and <i>spiritual</i> man, we should strive to have +these trees planted in all our homes, our churches, Sabbath-schools, +school-houses, colleges, seminaries, or other institutions of learning. +But if we find the fruit injurious, to either the physical, mental or +spiritual, to such a degree that its injurious effects are not overcome +and destroyed by the benefits conferred upon us by the other two, it +should be condemned by every friend of humanity.</p> + +<p>Every tree should be cut down, and every dealer regarded as an enemy to +his race. Some trees are very tall and <i>graceful</i>, and dressed in +beautiful foliage, but the fruit is deadly poison. Some trees are not +comely to look upon, but the fruit very good and wholesome. So it is not +the tree, but the fruit, to which we must look. Some fruit may be very +bad but not dangerous to society, because of the very small quantity on +the market, and because it is not good to the <i>taste</i>, but little, if +any, of it is used. But this is not the case with dancing, for there is +a large quantity of it on hand all the time, and a great deal of it is +used, because it is <i>palatable</i> to the <i>natural</i> taste of men and women. +The demand is always far greater than the supply.</p> + +<p>This fruit being so very popular, of such great demand, we must conclude +that, as it is bound to be either good or bad, it must be <i>very</i> good, +or <i>very</i> bad. Now, reader, before we proceed to examine this fruit, +please do the author and yourself the justice to sign your name to the +following vow:</p> + +<p>"I do <i>solemnly vow</i> that I will carefully read the following pages as +nearly as possible free from all <i>prejudice</i> and <i>partiality, with a +desire to know the truth</i>, and that I will a true verdict render, +according to the honest conviction of my own mind and heart.</p> + +<p>"(Here sign name.)________________"</p> + +<p>When and where are the trees of dancing to be found? They grow in the +night and generally perish with the darkness when the morning light +appears.</p> + +<div class='blkquot'><p>"This is the condemnation that light is come into the world, and + men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were + evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light; neither + cometh to the light lest his deeds should be reproved."—John + 3-19-20.</p></div> + +<p>The trees are to be found in many private residences, dancing schools, +dancing academies, seminaries and colleges, where our girls are +educated; in public halls, in side shows, in some of our <i>so-called</i> +churches, in beer shops, beer gardens, variety theatres, music halls and +houses of ill-fame. In the five last-mentioned these trees grow much +taller, larger and more luxuriant than anywhere else, because it is +supposed by <i>naturalists</i> that they are more indigenous to this kind of +soil. In these places those are the favorite trees, the trees admired +above all others, because of the fruit they bear. Why the virtuous and +the vulgar are so fond of the same fruit, I shall not try to explain. I +must leave this knotty, ugly problem to be solved by <i>wiser</i> and more +experienced heads than mine. I asked the proprietors and proprietresses +of these last-mentioned places where they procured the sprouts from +which all these great trees had grown; these trees that have grown so +tall and strong, and the bark so thick, that they do not vanish with the +darkness when the morning light appears, but grow and flourish in the +brightest day, <i>even better on</i> SUNDAYS <i>than any other time</i>.</p> + +<p>They all, without a dissenting voice, made answer and said: "<i>The seeds</i> +were planted in the decent, respectable parlors, generally among the +polished and refined people of the towns and cities—were watered and +cultivated by the fathers and mothers, and then transplanted into the +dancing schools, church festivals, and then they are removed to the +public halls, and here they are kept until the bark on <i>some</i> of them +becomes hard enough to be carried to the beer gardens, masquerades, +variety theaters, music halls and other towns and cities in Sodom and +Gomorrah."</p> + +<p>Without the fascination for dancing, which is <i>germinated</i> and +<i>cultivated</i> in the private parlors among the <i>nice, respectable, +refined</i> people, many of the largest towns and cities of Sodom and +Gomorrah would soon be depopulated. We next come to enquire who it is +that attends dancing parties, balls, hops, etc., and when they usually +break up. But one answer can be given, viz.: young men and young women, +together with young married people, with an occasional <i>sear and yellow +leaf repainted</i>.</p> + +<p>With a very few exceptions, dancing parties, balls and hops are made up +of young men and girls of every grade of society, from the poorest to +the wealthiest in the community. Now it must be admitted that there is +as great a desire in the hearts of the poor young men, and as great a +desire in the hearts of the girls of poor parentage to make a favorable +impression in society, as there possibly could be with the wealthier +classes. As a rule, it may be said that not more than one in twenty of +all who participate in dancing parties have a sufficient "cash balance" +to gratify their pride in the purchase of the supposed necessary outfits +in clothing, jewelry, etc., without any misgivings as to the future +comforts and necessaries of life.</p> + +<p>When we consider the large number of young men, young husbands and +fathers and mothers who are not able, in justice to themselves and those +looking to and relying upon them for a support, to keep pace with the +rich in their extravagance, and that all must come together on the same +floor, in the same room and pass in review before the merciless critics +always to be found in the ball room, and find that the weakest and most +vulnerable points in human nature are here attacked by three of the +devil's most powerful armies, under command of three of his most +stratagetic and experienced generals—ENVY, JEALOUSY and WOUNDED +PRIDE—we may at once proceed to examine the fruit of dancing. Nearly +all of our young people are in love with some one, and not unfrequently +two or three or more are in love with the same one, or the lover +imagines that he or she has from one to a half dozen rivals, which is +the same to them as if it were true. It is often the case that an +engagement exists, or there is grave suspicion of its existence. A +dancing party or ball is in prospect. The same preparation must be made +by rich and poor. One young man who chanced to be born of rich or +well-to-do parents, and one young lady the same, order their outfits, +and they are paid for not unfrequently out of the usurious interest +wrung from the fathers and mothers of the poorer young men and girls. +Now the poorer and less able to purchase the necessary all outfits, +which are always costly, <i>must go</i>. They must go, because they <i>love</i> +the dance. They are PASSIONATELY fond of it.</p> + +<p>They must go, or it may be said they could not go on account of their +poverty. They must go, in order to keep pace with their rivals, so as to +keep an eye on them, lest they be supplanted in their affections. These +are three powerful inducements. Without Divine aid they are irresistible +when brought to bear on the young.</p> + +<p>THEY MUST GO!</p> + +<p>THEY WILL GO!</p> + +<p>THEY DO GO!</p> + +<p>Here thousands of fathers and mothers have been compelled to yield to +the entreaties of their daughters, and sometimes their sons, in +purchasing costly apparel, jewelry, etc., when they knew they were not +able, outfits that never would have been needed but for the dance. +Hundreds of thousands of young men, with small salaries, in moderate +circumstances, have been induced, under this heavy pressure, to resort +to many dishonest devices in order to make the necessary preparations. +Clerks have sold goods above the market price and put the excess in +their pockets. They have often <i>borrowed</i> money from their employer, +<i>without his knowledge</i>, small amounts, from day to day. They have +borrowed from friends by telling them they had money coming from an +estate, or friend or a debtor, which they knew to be false, and in the +same way, or by other false statements, have bought articles of +clothing, made large livery bills, which they knew would never be paid. +Many conceive the idea they can raise the desired amount at the gambling +table, and here do <i>their first</i> gambling. Where one succeeds, at least +one hundred fail. Some raise the required amount by transferring a few +cows, yearlings, steers, a horse or a mule, to distant pastures; some +are caught and some are not. Those not caught are in a far worse +condition than those in the jail or in the penitentiary, because they +have been checked in their mad career, and the others are emboldened by +their escape to commit other and greater crimes. "Be sure your sins will +find you out." Yes, inexorable, unerring justice is on the track of all +evil-doers, and will be certain to overtake them sooner or later. +Hundreds of thousands of fathers and mothers, and young married people, +have been brought to poverty and misery; some, within my knowledge, to +alms-houses, by the heavy draws made upon them by their sons, daughters +and wives, in preparing for dancing parties and balls. For weeks before +the ball comes off—and here let it be understood that I mean the ball +to cover hops, dancing parties and all manner of dancing—the young +people are wild with excitement; they are almost wholly incapable of any +kind of business. All manner of domestic affairs are almost entirely +neglected by the girls and young wives. The bright anticipation of great +pleasure in the near future, turns some of their little shallow brains +up-side-down, and they are often seen in a sort of deep reverie, wearing +a blank gaze, having very much the appearance of poor unfortunate +idiots. If the father, mother, husband, brother or teacher speaks to +them, unless it be on the subject of the ball, they grin like a baboon +and snap like a mad dog. If we run on at the rate we are now going, it +will not be a great while until it may be found to be cheaper to build a +few asylums for the sane, and let the idiots and lunatics run at large.</p> + +<p>THE BALL. THE HOP. THE DANCE.</p> + +<p>IT IS ALL THE SAME.</p> + +<p>Well, the long looked for day has come; it is now 8 P.M., and the boys, +girls and young wives are in their rooms donning their new and costly +apparel, which has been bought, borrowed or <i>stolen</i> in divers and +sundry ways. Some have been paid for, some will be paid for, and some +will remain open accounts until judgment day. The wealthy and those who +never pay their bills will be dressed in the costliest, richest apparel, +because only these classes can afford these luxuries. EXTREMES WILL +MEET. The young men go and bring in their girls, and when they get to +the door, they are met by the committee of reception, who politely show +the ladies a side room where they will go and lay off their wraps. The +young men go out into the corner of the yard or in the woods and lay off +their <i>wraps</i>—in the nature of a bottle of whiskey or brandy—or they +have left them in a buggy or carriage, or a room has been set apart for +this purpose, and the WRAPS have been provided before-hand, or they are +to be found in a convenient drinking saloon.</p> + +<p>THE WRAPS ARE THERE.</p> + +<p>The girls wear their wraps around them. The boys <i>wear</i> themselves +around their wraps. These <i>wraps</i> are brought into requisition as the +physical man begins to weaken under the excessive and unnatural +exercise. Unnatural, because the hours designed by God, our maker, to be +used in rest and sleep are appropriated to another and very different +purpose. Here the tempter discovers another weak point, and he makes the +attack. The great draw made upon the physical forces makes it +necessary—the tempter says—to use an artificial stimulant, which is +here often taken the first time, and which is not unfrequently repeated, +until many are so much under its influence and some get so drunk—no, +become so suddenly <i>indisposed</i>, that they have to be carried home. +These entertainments seldom break up until the light of the morning +begins to appear, but I will compromise on 2 o'clock, A.M. At 9 or 10 +o'clock, P.M., the performance begins, and I propose we shall <i>candidly</i> +and <i>honestly</i> examine this basket of fruit. Whether designed or not, it +is simply a fact that many of the girls and women are dressed in such a +way and manner as best and most successfully to excite the baser +passions of men.</p> + +<p>If the style of dress often, yea, nearly always, seen at the +<i>fashionable</i> balls and dancing parties is wholly without any evil +design—innocently following a fashion—and if those who thus dress are +really ignorant of the effect it has upon the opposite sex, it is high +time their eyes were being opened. If this be only a fashion, and I want +to believe it is nothing more, but when I remember distinctly that this +manner of dressing for balls and dancing parties has been the fashion +for forty years and that it has never changed, <i>except to become a +little more so</i>, and that all other fashions have changed at least +twenty times, my belief staggers and hangs its head for very shame. This +fruit alone has sent hundreds of thousands of men, women and girls to +premature graves, dishonored graves, felons' cells, and to an endless +hell. That this semi-nude condition, in which many girls and women are +seen in the dance, has been productive of a vast deal of sin and crime, +no honest man certainly will deny. In the whirl of the gay and giddy +dance, we see:</p> + +<div class='poem'><div class='stanza'> +<span>Strong men and women fair<br /></span> +<span>Are now within the tempter's snare,<br /></span> +<span>With arms around each slender waist,<br /></span> +<span>Each woman held in <i>close embrace</i>.<br /></span> +</div><div class='stanza'> +<span>If all the <i>thoughts</i> could be made known<br /></span> +<span>Of seeds of crime which here are sown,<br /></span> +<span>'Twould cause the <i>hardest</i> cheek to blush<br /></span> +<span>And every <i>virtuous</i> heart would crush.<br /></span> +</div><div class='stanza'> +<span>But so it is, and ere must be,<br /></span> +<span>While men and women thus agree<br /></span> +<span><i>To tempt themselves, and others too</i>,<br /></span> +<span>TO SINS AND CRIMES OF DEADLY HUE.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The following is the experience of a lady whose name is withheld, but +who has distinguished herself in literature, and made a world-wide +reputation:</p> + +<div class='blkquot'><p>"In those times I cared little for polka or varsovienne, and still + less for 'Money Musk' or 'Virginia Reel,' and wondered what people + could find to admire in these slow dances. But in the soft floating + of the waltz I found a strange pleasure, rather difficult to + intelligibly describe. The mere anticipation fluttered my pulse, + and when my partner approached to claim my promised hand for the + dance, I felt my cheeks glow a little sometimes, and I could not + look him in the eye with the same frank gayety as heretofore.</p> + +<p> "But the climax of my confusion was reached when, folded in his + warm embrace, and giddy with the whirl, a strange, sweet thrill + would shake me from head to foot, leaving me weak and almost + powerless, and really obliged to depend for support on the arm + which encircled me. If my partner failed, from ignorance, lack of + skill or innocence, to arouse these, to me, most pleasureable + sensations, I did not dance with him the second time.</p> + +<p> "I am speaking openly and frankly, and when I say that I did not + understand what I felt, or what were the real and greatest + pleasures I derived from this so-called dancing, I expect to be + believed. But if my cheeks grew red with uncomprehended pleasure + then, they grow pale to-day with shame when I think of it all. It + was the physical emotions engendered by the magnetic contact of + strong men that I was enamored of—not of the dance, not even of + the men themselves.</p> + +<p> "Thus I became abnormally developed in my lowest nature. I grew + bolder, and from being able to return shy glances at first, was + soon able to meet more daring ones, until the waltz became to me + and whomsoever danced with me, one lingering, sweet and purely + sensual pleasure, where heart beat against heart, hand was held in + hand and eyes looked burning words which lips dared not speak.</p> + +<p> "All this time no one said to me, 'You do wrong;' so I dreamed of + sweet words whispered during the dance, and often felt, while + alone, a thrill of joy indescribable, yet overpowering, when my + mind would turn from my study to remember a piece of temerity of + unusual grandeur on the part of one or another of my cavaliers.</p> + +<p> "Married now, with home and children around me, I can at least + thank God for the experience which will assuredly be the means of + preventing my little daughters from indulging in any such dangerous + pleasure. But if a young girl, pure and innocent in the beginning, + can be brought to feel what I have confessed to have felt, what + must be the experience of a married woman? She knows what every + glance of the eye, every bend of the head, every close clasp means, + and knowing that, reciprocates it, and is led by swifter steps and + a surer path down the dangerous, dishonorable road."</p></div> + +<p>I read in the Scripture, in that ever memorable sermon on the Mount, +this significant declaration: "Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust +after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." Some +may not receive this as sound doctrine, because it is the language of +Jesus Christ; but this will not give relief, because the <i>corrupting</i> +influence would be just the same if Christ had never said one word about +it. Christ only gave the great sin a name by calling it adultery. It was +in this way the seed was sown in the heart of the Psalmist David that +caused him to commit one of the greatest crimes ever committed on earth. +See 2 Samuel, 11 Ch. In the same way the seed has been sown in the +hearts of thousands of men in the ball room, in the dances and in the +private parlors, which has ripened into disruptions of the marital +relations—has ripened into husbands murdering their wives, has ripened +into husbands losing their wives by elopement, has ripened into husbands +being murdered, has ripened into young men killing each other; and last, +though not least, has resulted in the utter ruin of hundreds of +thousands of the fair daughters of our land and country. Taking the +declarations of Jesus Christ as true, and no honest man can doubt it, +<i>there never was and never will be a dancing party or ball that the +great sin He referred to was not and will not be committed in the hearts +of some men</i>.</p> + +<p>Here permit me to ask an important question, and solemnly charge every +reader to make answer as upon oath:</p> + +<p>WITH WHOM IS THIS GREAT SIN COMMITTED?</p> + +<p>If common honesty compels fathers, husbands and brothers to admit these +things to be true, will you ever again permit your wives, your daughters +or your sisters to be found at one of these places, however decent the +people may be, while they are under your control? If you do, after your +attention has been called to the hideous deformity of the dance, God, +man and your own conscience will condemn you. Whatsoever of evil or +crime may be committed, unyielding justice, unmixed with mercy, will +certainly hold you responsible. This last objection to the dance will +hold and be just as good against the theaters and operas, because no one +will deny but that a special effort is generally made at these places to +excite the passions of men and women by an indecent exposure of their +persons. To say the least of it, Christians have no business at these +places.</p> + +<p>A Christian has no business at any place where he cannot go in the name +of Jesus Christ, because the Scripture says: "They shall walk up and +down in His name."—Zach., 10 ch. 12v. Micah, 4 ch. 5v.—"His name shall +be on their foreheads."—Rev., 22 ch. 4 v. "Ye are my witnesses."—Isa., +43 ch. 10 v. Can a Christian, a true follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, +"walk up and down" in a ball room in His <i>name</i>? Can a Christian go into +a ball room with the name of Jesus Christ written on his or her +forehead? If a man has His name written on his forehead, and he goes +into a ball room, theater, opera, or a drinking saloon, does he not, by +that act, hide the name of Jesus Christ? Can a Christian be a witness +for God in the ball room, theater, opera, or drinking saloon? <i>If not, +his testimony is false, and he is a perjured man!</i> I have no doubt some +very nice people—<i>society people</i>—will be terribly <i>shocked</i> at the +developments herein made.</p> + +<p>I was raised in the country, and I remember a varmint got to visiting +our poultry yard and carrying off those <i>roosting nearest the ground</i>, +which were generally our <i>improved blooded (society)</i> chickens, and +whenever we would get after him, he would run down through a <i>very +muddy</i> place, and take refuge in a hole in the bank of a creek. We +rather dreaded the task of following him through all this <i>mud and +filth</i>; but, as a last resort, rather than let him have all the poultry, +or allow him to continue his depredations at pleasure, we waded through +the mud down to his den and dug into his hiding place; and when he was +struck on the head with the back of a hoe, he too was <i>terribly +shocked.</i></p> + +<p>Now this little animal was not, as may be supposed by some, one of the +"common or unclean," but he was one of the elite, a regular <i>society</i> +mink. He was covered with very fine fur, but had his stomach filled with +stolen chickens. I leave the application to all to whom these presents +may come, GREETING. <i>When I want to buy a hat, I never take one unless +it fits me</i>.</p> + +<p>More or less of the girls participating in the dance are engaged to be +married, and great effort is made to keep this a profound secret, so she +very naturally has every man for a partner except her intended. Here is +music in the back-ground, if her intended is present, and he is sure to +be there if he is in striking distance—if he is not down with typhoid +fever or in prison.</p> + +<p>This music is in his heart, in the nature of clamoring for blood, by a +legion of different sized devils. It may be there is not one man in the +room that would have his girl under any consideration whatever, but he +imagines that they all want her. The female outfit for the ball consists +of girls and a number of young married women, and some a little older, +and some old women, forty to fifty years old, with grown children, false +teeth, false hair, and bloats to swell out their wrinkled cheeks, and +they, too, are dressed in the <i>fashion</i> with red ribbons, and blue and +green; these furnish the <i>disgust</i> for the occasion—and one of them has +been known to furnish disgust enough for a city of ten thousand +inhabitants, and of the very best quality. Let us return to the basket +containing the young married people, and examine the fruit therein. +Reader, did you ever see the young married woman watching her husband as +he glides up and down in the merry dance, <i>with an old sweetheart in his +arms?</i> If you never did, the first opportunity you have, take a good +look at a cat's eyes in the dark and in imagination transfer them to the +young wife's head, and you will have a very correct idea of how <i>sweet</i> +and <i>amiable</i> she looks.</p> + +<p>Who among the living will ever forget that poor unfortunate girl, in the +State of Georgia, who was assassinated in the ball room by a jealous +young wife? The civilized world was shocked by the announcement of this +terrible tragedy, which was purely the fruit of the ball room. These +parties were not of the low and vulgar, but were of the society people +of the age. How many husbands have in the same way and for the same +cause had all the baser, brutish passions aroused to such an extent as +to have their reasoning faculties dethroned, and have been driven by the +raging devils within to commit many of the greatest, most shameful and +most disgraceful crimes that ever blackened the records of a criminal +court? How many have cursed and abused their wives while on the way home +from the ball room? How many, after their arrival at home, have used +their superior physical strength in abusing their wives in a most +shameful and disgraceful manner? How much of all this was the result of +a frenzied imagination, and not for any real misconduct? How many of all +these cruel wrongs and outrages are never known except by the parties +themselves? How many fathers and mothers have neglected their children +by leaving them in incompetent and unsafe hands, while they spent the +night in the ball room? How many husbands have left their wives, in poor +health, sometimes sick in bed, with two or three little children crying +around them, while they have spent the night in the ball room dancing +with other women? How many men and women, and especially women, from +physical and mental causes superinduced by the effects of the ball room, +have been driven to madness, and have thus become inmates of insane +asylums, or have deliberately taken their own lives? O! for the pen of a +Milton or a Pollock! But this would not suffice, because these questions +can only be answered at the Judgment Bar of God, when the secrets of all +hearts shall be made known.</p> + +<p>THEY WILL BE ANSWERED THEN.</p> + +<p>How many girls have innocently and <i>ignorantly</i> killed themselves, or +have sown the seed of some terrible lingering disease, by checking the +course of nature, by bathing or otherwise, in their preparation for the +ball room, which they would not have done to attend any other place? How +many women, all over the country, are suffering the pangs of death from +this cause alone?</p> + +<p>One of the handsomest and most accomplished girls I ever knew, at the +age of eighteen, ignorantly killed herself in this way. I know through +physicians of many others who have wrecked their health in the same way. +Let the invalids among the women tell their physicians the <i>truth</i>, and +then let the physicians and the <i>graves</i> speak out, and the world would +be horror-stricken at the awful report. Whiskey has slain its thousands, +but the ball, the hop, the dance, its tens of thousands.</p> + +<p>In this connection I wish to give young men some wholesome advice, +which, if observed, will keep them out of a great deal of trouble, and +save the payment of a great many bills. Whenever you hear that an old +clock, an old carriage, an old saw-mill, an old steamboat, or a woman or +girl who is <i>passionately</i> fond of dancing is on the market, be certain +to remain in bed or get the sheriff, which is much safer, to put you in +jail until these articles are disposed of. I respectfully refer to all +who have had any of these articles <i>knocked off on them</i>.</p> + +<p>When the ball closes, the young men take the girls to their homes. In a +little while the girls—darling angels—are in the land of dreams, but +they certainly never dream that they have been "sowing the seeds of +eternal shame, sowing the seeds of a maddened brain." They never dream +<i>that they are responsible for all the sins and crimes that flow from +the ball room</i>, BUT THEY CERTAINLY ARE, because if they would not go to +these places, there never would be another ball or hop or dance upon the +face of all the earth.</p> + +<p>MEN WILL NOT DANCE BY THEMSELVES.</p> + +<p>If they do, they will not injure any one but themselves, and they will +be certain not to keep late hours. While the girls are dreaming, the +young men are assembling at some favorite room or corner down in town. +If Jim gets there first he waits for Bill, and then they wait for Jack, +Bob, Ben, Charlie and the balance of the club. When they are all in, one +or two of the older ones propose to go across the way and take a drink +at the corner saloon, which is still in blast; yes, running at a full +head of steam, or rather mean whiskey. Now here is a very strange thing. +I have never heard of but one first-class saloon closing until after the +ball closed, and in this case the owner was very sick and the bar-tender +had skipped with the cash balance. Some of these boys have been taught +by their old-fogy fathers and mothers that such things are not to be +found on the straight and narrow road, because there is no <i>room</i> for +them along this road, <i>and no use for them either</i>.</p> + +<p>I have carefully examined my way-bill to heaven, and it was made out by +one who knows every foot of the way, but I find no mention made of +drinking saloons, ball rooms, theaters, operas, houses of ill-fame, and +<i>such like</i> places as being on or near this road. The same one has +furnished me a way-bill to hell, and I find all these places mentioned +as being on the line of this road. Whenever you find yourself, dear +reader, at one of these places, you may know beyond the shadow of a +doubt that you are not in the narrow road; and with equal certainty you +may know you are in the broad road. Now these boys are evidently on the +broad road, because the devil's sutler-shops are not to be found +anywhere else, for the very good reason that he cannot get a permit to +put them up on the narrow road. He would put them in the very center of +heaven if he possibly could. His impudence and daring is only equaled by +his fathomless corruption. The man or woman who will dare to say that +these places are found on the road to heaven, certainly has a very poor +idea of heaven and its inhabitants. If they are to be found along the +straight and narrow way, and the travelers along this way are to enter +and participate in the things therein going on, then they are certainly +designed of God to <i>aid in the salvation of immortal souls</i>. If this be +true, on entering the narrow way the first refreshments we shall get are +to be found in one of these places, having this sign over the door; +"FIRST CHANCE," and the last thing we pass in this life, just before we +enter heaven, will be another one of these houses with this inscription +over the door: "LAST CHANCE." Some of these boys don't understand it +this way; they have been raised to think that "<i>there is no harm in +dancing</i>," but were never told that the dancing shops of all kinds are +on the same road with all the drinking saloons and other places of a +like character. No, the same parents told their sons that the drinking +saloon is next door to hell, and these are the ones we read about in the +Bible, who "strain at a gnat and swallow a camel." That is to say, in +those days when Christ was on earth, there were some people so +peculiarly constituted that they strained at a gnat and swallowed a +camel; but we live in an age of improvement, an age in which some people +strain at a gnat, and swallow a Jumbo with perfect ease and in the most +graceful manner.</p> + +<p>I know an advocate of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, who often +dances all night, most <i>gracefully</i>, and in the morning she turneth up +her little nose, just as <i>gracefully</i> as the elephant turneth up his +snout when Peck's bad boy has thrown him a piece of tobacco, <i>at the +awful drinking saloon and saloon keepers</i>. The private parlor dance is +the beginning, the first depot on the great air-line route from this +world to the city of destruction; here the boys and men are drawn into +the coaches by the general passenger agents: the MOTHERS, WIVES, +DAUGHTERS, SISTERS and SWEETHEARTS. This line is advertised as the +finest and best equipped road beneath the sun. Fine sleepers; all the +way through, without change. Special guarantee against accidents. This +road is laid with smooth, glass rails, and the wheels are made of India +rubber. Drinking saloons, beer gardens, and some other places I'll not +mention, are the wood yards and tanks, where fuel and water is procured +which gets up the steam that draws the train with increasing velocity +down to the great city of destruction. When the train stops for wood and +water, all the passengers are expected to take part in the very +interesting and social performance. But here are same boys who beg to be +excused. "Can't excuse you," cries the brakesman. "Come along, you can +take a small <i>stick</i> in the way of a cigar;" and so these boys, not +wishing to appear ugly and incur the ill will of the brakesman, walk +into a saloon for the first time. They first take a cigar, but soon the +brakesman (an old stager) laughs them to scorn and confusion, and not +being able to stand the fire, they throw down the cigar and take their +<i>first drink in a drinking saloon</i>. After the drinks have been repeated +a few times, one of the brakesmen, well under the influence of whiskey +or wine, takes a careful look at all present, and if satisfied there is +no relative or sweetheart in hearing, he then and there tells an +<i>anecdote</i> on one of the nice girls or married ladies with whom they +have been dancing, that certainly would bring the blush of shame to the +cheeks of the blackest devil that inhabits the world of outer darkness. +The drink, and anecdotes of the same character, <i>only worse, if +possible</i>, are repeated until interrupted by the appearance of a +half-witted looking young man, entering from a back door, who seems to +have something of great importance to tell the bartender. He talks low, +but sufficiently loud to be heard by the boys, for it is really for +their ears. "Have you heard the news?" "No, what news." "Why, about Bill +Jones; he went in back here to-night with only five dollars for a stake, +and he has just now gone home with <i>five hundred dollars</i> in his +pocket." Then the boys slide out, and as soon as out in a dark corner, +they begin to enquire to see if a stake can be raised among them, +finding none, one or two being confidential clerks, go to the store, +bank or other place of business, and <i>borrow</i> fifteen or twenty dollars, +having no doubt of their ability to win a few hundred dollars in a +little while, and then replace the <i>borrowed</i> money without it ever +being known. Soon the <i>borrowed</i> stake is in the hands of the dealer. +They repeat the drinks, and then <i>borrow</i> some more in the same way, +which goes into the same hands as the first, and thus they continue +until the appearance of day-light, and then reeling to and fro under the +influence of the mean whiskey they have been drinking, and the ponderous +weight of their sins and crimes, they go to their rooms, cursing the day +on which they were born.</p> + +<p>THEY HAVE LOST ALL SELF-RESPECT.</p> + +<p>They are now at sea without chart or compass. When a man or woman loses +their self-respect, they are moral wrecks. "WANDERING STARS." There is +nothing left to build upon. It is from this cause that thousands commit +suicide, both men, women, and girls. It is the continual gnawings of the +conscience over the secret sins and crimes they have not the moral +courage to confess. Like the hidden spark of fire in a bale of cotton, +it continues its ravages until the whole bale is reduced to ashes. This +will account in great measure for the hundreds and thousands of +<i>unaccountable</i> suicides of to-day, which are principally confined to +the young of both sexes.</p> + +<p>I do not mean to say that all the young men go to drinking saloons as +soon as they carry their girls home, or as soon as the ball or dance is +over. No, many of them go to other places, such as are described in the +5th chapter of Proverbs. <i>Men will not deny this</i>. Who caused these men +to go to these places? Shall I answer? Shall I tell the truth? If I do, +I must say it is the virtuous wives, daughters, sisters and sweethearts, +who have been participating in the dance. <i>Every man knows that this is +true</i>. Let every honest physician send in a report of all his male +patients, giving the disease of each and the cause, and then let us have +a correct report from the dead of the same kind, and I am confident that +no husband, father or brother would ever permit his wife, daughter or +sister to be seen at a ball or dance. HUSBANDS, FATHERS, BROTHERS, your +wives, daughters and sisters do not know these things, <i>but you do know +them</i>, and now that your eyes are open, will you, can you, as a husband, +father or brother, ever permit the females under your care to even take +the chance of being RECRUITING OFFICERS for these sinks of perdition, +THESE ANTE-CHAMBERS OF HELL. These places, dripping with the blood of +hundreds and thousands of young and middle-aged men, who, but for their +enchantment, might have been good and true men, and have filled +honorable graves. These places have broken the hearts of thousands of +wives, mothers and: sisters, when they have seen their loved ones bound +in the fetters and chains of eternal death. These funnels, through which +thousands and millions of souls of both men and women have been poured +into an endless hell.</p> + +<p>I have tried to furnish fair samples of the fruit of dancing, if I have +failed, it is an error of the head and not of the heart. It may be said +by some that I have occupied forbidden ground in writing a book to be +read by the public generally. In reply I can only say that I have simply +<i>followed the varmint to his hiding place</i>. I have not used any stronger +or more indecent language than was used by Jesus Christ, and God forbid +that I should ever be guilty of the sacrilege of saying or even thinking +that Jesus Christ was <i>vulgar</i> or wanting in <i>refinement</i>; that ever I +should say of and concerning Him: "<i>I am holier than Thou</i>." If the +things I have herein mentioned have flowed from the ball room, if I have +stated FACTS, and <i>I know that I have</i>, you should not get mad at me, +but get mad at the <i>facts</i>. If a man lends a helping hand in removing a +<i>dead dog</i> from the yard, it is not the man that is indecent, <i>it is the +dead dog</i>. The man shows his decency and kindness by condescending to +give aid in removing the stench from the premises, and no one but a +contemptible <i>snipe dude</i> would stand off and turn up his nose and call +the man indecent and vulgar. If I am wrong, I rejoice to know that I am +in the best company on earth, for the whole religious world, with a +<i>few</i> exceptions, regards dancing as an enemy to good morals, and as +<i>destructive to all spirituality</i>, because it is productive of so much +evil and NO GOOD. Who upon all the earth has the opportunity of knowing +the true inwardness of dancing like the Catholic priests and bishops? +Who ever held and used such a <i>probing instrument</i> as the CONFESSIONAL? +Who on this earth can come as near knowing all the acts and deeds, yea, +and the very <i>thoughts</i>, that do pass through the minds and hearts of +men, women, boys and girls, as the Catholic priests and bishops can know +of and concerning those under their charge? Arch-Bishop J. Henry William +Elder, Co-Adjutor to the Arch-Bishop of Cincinnati, has issued a +circular letter to the clergy in his Diocese, from which I take this +very significant clipping:</p> + +<p>"THERE MUST BE NO ROUND DANCING AT ANY TIME, AND NO DANCING OF ANY KIND +AFTER DARK."</p> + +<p>What meaneth then this blating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing +of the oxen which I hear? Why does Arch-Bishop Elder inhibit the round +dance even in <i>day-light</i>? Mr. and Mrs. ECHO and their girls and boys +will please answer <i>why</i>? And why has he inhibited <i>all kinds</i> of +dancing after dark? Will some member of the same family please rise and +explain?</p> + +<div class='poem'><div class='stanza'> +<span>"Oh wad some power the giftie gie us,<br /></span> +<span>To see oursels as ithers see us."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>While this circular letter has an existence upon earth, let all +<i>so-called</i> Protestants and their friends, who say "<i>There is no harm in +dancing</i>," and who participate in dancing of <i>any kind at any time or +place</i>, or who simply attend such places, or who remain at a place after +it has been turned into a dance, (for the aiders and abettors of crime +are just as guilty as their principals), hang their heads for very +shame, as poor old dog Tray hangeth his head when caught in company with +sheep-killing dogs, and especially when some wool is found in his teeth. +Paul was present when Stephen, the first Christian martyr, was put to +death; he only held the clothes of those who cast the stones, but he was +just as guilty of murder as though he had cast the fatal missile, <i>by +his presence, and making no objection he was consenting to the crime</i>. +To have relieved himself of the blood of Stephen, he should not have +gone to the place where the murder was committed, if he knew, or had +good reason to know, that a crime was to be committed. If he had gone +there with the belief that it was an <i>innocent, harmless</i> gathering, and +after getting there he saw their murderous intent, he should at least +have left immediately and thus have withdrawn all his influence and +supposed sympathy with the criminals. The holding of their clothes did +not make him guilty, but was only <i>cumulative</i> evidence of the murderous +intent in his heart.</p> + +<p>Reader, if you go to a ball or dance, knowing it to be such, you are a +participant in all the sins and crimes which would not have been +committed, if such ball or dance had never been. So if the gathering be +for a <i>sinless, harmless</i> purpose, and you find, after arriving at the +place, that there is to be a dance, and you do not leave immediately, +you will be just as guilty as though you had gone with full knowledge of +what was to be. The encouragement and endorsement of your presence makes +you just as guilty as those who join in the dance. There is no +difference, except in degree, between the select parlor dance and the +masquerade ball, because the one is the stepping stone to the other. Not +one in ten thousand have done their first dancing at the masquerade +ball, just as not one in ten thousand ever took their first drink of +whiskey in a drinking saloon. But let it be remembered that hundreds of +thousands have taken their first drink of wine or whiskey at a ball or +dance.</p> + +<p>One of the greatest sins committed by children and young people is +<i>disobedience to parents.</i> It is one of the greatest, because it is one +of the first, and because if cultivated it becomes a cesspool of +iniquity. It is a pandora box, out of which ten thousand troubles, +trials, difficulties, sins and crimes will come. I claim that the <i>love</i> +of dancing is the most fruitful source of <i>disobedience to parents</i> to +be found beneath the sun, because it becomes a <i>ruling passion</i>. If +anything will cause a child to disobey its parents, it is to forbid them +going to a ball or dance when their heart is set upon it. <i>They go and +then deny it</i>. For all the disobedience brought about in this way, the +parents are generally far more to blame than the children because it is +the parents' fault that they have ever learned to dance. Some parents +have an idea that dancing is a necessary branch of education, that it +makes their children <i>graceful</i>, but never look far enough down the line +to see that they are opening the way to <i>graceful</i> disobedience, +<i>graceful</i> liars, <i>graceful</i> thieves, <i>graceful</i> gamblers, <i>graceful</i> +drunkards, <i>graceful</i> prostitutes, <i>graceful</i> whoremongers and to every +sin and crime that men and women can commit beneath the sun. They are +opening the very gates of hell to their own children.</p> + +<p>MANY, if not all, of the following sins and crimes are committed at +<i>every dance, hop or ball,</i> and every one present, whether participating +in the dance or not, is equally guilty with the perpetrators of all the +sins and crimes, which would not have been committed if there had been +no such gathering:</p> +<br /> + +<p>SAMPLES OF FRUIT FOUND ON THE TREE OF DANCING:</p> + +<p>ENVY.</p> + +<p>JEALOUSY.</p> + +<p>PRIDE.</p> + +<p>DECEIT.</p> + +<p>DISOBEDIENCE TO PARENTS</p> + +<p>BACKBITING.</p> + +<p>STRIFE.</p> + +<p>HATRED.</p> + +<p>LASCIVIOUSNESS.</p> + +<p>EMULATION.</p> + +<p>SEDITION.</p> + +<p>LYING.</p> + +<p>THEFT.</p> + +<p>DRUNKENNESS.</p> + +<p>SABBATH BREAKING.</p> + +<p>GAMBLING.</p> + +<p>EMBEZZLEMENT.</p> + +<p>SUICIDE.</p> + +<p>VULGARITY.</p> + +<p>FORNICATION.</p> + +<p>ADULTERY.</p> + +<p>OBSCENITY.</p> + +<p>EXTRAVAGANCE.</p> + +<p>DIVORCE.</p> + +<p>LUNACY.</p> + +<p>WANTONNESS.</p> + +<p>CRUELTY.</p> + +<p>IDOLATRY.</p> + +<p>PERJURY.</p> + +<p>SEDUCTION.</p> + +<p>PROSTITUTION.</p> + +<p>ABORTION.</p> + +<p>INFANTICIDE.</p> + +<p>ASSASSINATION.</p> + +<p>MURDER.</p> + +<p>"AND SUCH LIKE."</p> + +<p>Every honest man is compelled to admit that these sins and crimes are +the <i>natural fruit of dancing</i>; THAT THESE THINGS DO FLOW FROM THE +DANCE. I frankly admit that all these sins and crimes may and do come +from other sources, but I challenge the world to point to any <i>one</i> +thing that produces as many of these sins and crimes as the dance. The +drinking saloon is a prolific source of evil, but not one-half as much +as the dance, for it must be borne in mind that <i>men only</i> attend the +saloons, and that many of them are sent there <i>from the ball room</i>, and +many, who never would have seen the inside of a drinking saloon but for +the ball or dance. <i>The ball is a feeder for drinking saloons, gambling +saloons, and houses of ill-fame.</i></p> + +<p>I have delivered this lecture on dancing in seven States, before about +one hundred congregations, numbering from three hundred to ten thousand +people. I have called on all the men, old and young, saint and sinner, +at nearly every place, to give an expression of opinion from what they +had seen themselves, or what they had heard from those who had attended +balls, hops, and such like places, as to the correctness or +incorrectness of my charges against the dance, and out of I think not +less than fifty thousand men, I have never found but SEVEN who stood up, +thereby saying they did not believe that the sins and crimes I had +mentioned had ever flowed from the ball room, while nearly all the +balance stood up before their wives, daughters, sisters, and +sweethearts, saying that they do believe, from what they <i>know, and have +seen</i> and have heard from those who attend balls and hops, that these +sins and crimes are the natural fruit of all kinds of dancing, where the +sexes dance together. A few, perhaps one in twenty, kept their seats, +not expressing their opinion either way. Of this class I think I may +safely say that <i>four-fifths</i> failed to understand my proposition, or +thought it not necessary to rise; but if they had stood up, they would +have been with the affirmative. While I am not an apologist for saloon +keepers and gamblers, I want to record the fact right here that I have +had more or less of them in my congregations, at nearly every place +where I talked on this subject, and I have never known one, no, not one, +to keep his seat when an expression of opinion was called for, and not +one was found among the <i>immortal seven</i>.</p> + +<p>There are many men worse at heart than gamblers and saloon keepers. If +they and their families were treated by the Christian people with more +kindness, and less like they were outcasts, hundreds and thousands of +them would become Christians. I do not claim that all who attend dancing +parties, balls, and hops are ruined, but I do claim that <i>all who attend +such places take part in the eternal disgrace and ruin of others.</i> There +is not a man or woman among the living, or the dead, who has made a +practice of attending such places, but that has the blood of one or more +<i>lost souls</i> upon their garments, <i>and there it must remain throughout +the ceaseless ages of</i> ETERNITY, <i>unless it be washed away</i> BY THE BLOOD +OF JESUS CHRIST.</p> + +<p>My sainted mother and my wife have attended and participated in the +dance, but, like hundreds and thousands of girls and women of to-day, +they never had the most distant idea that the dancing party or ball was +a cesspool of iniquity, for, had they known the things brought to light +in this little book, they never would have made one step in that +direction. I believe that God has forgiven them, because, like Paul, +they did it ignorantly. "I obtained mercy, because I did it +<i>ignorantly</i>."—I. Tim. 1-13. Reader, if you ever go to one of these +places after your eyes have been opened, as they must be now, you cannot +plead <i>ignorance</i>, but you will sin <i>wilfully</i> and <i>knowingly.</i> See Heb. +10: 26, 27.</p> + +<p>Those who are turned into the paths of shame, of vice, and of crime, are +described in the Bible in the following terrible language, and where +could a better description be found? "Woe unto them! for they have gone +in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for +reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core. These are <i>spots</i> in +your feasts of charity when they feast with you, <i>feasting themselves +without fear.</i> Clouds they are without water, <i>carried about of winds</i>, +trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by +the roots. <i>Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own</i> SHAME; +<i>wandering</i> STARS to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness +forever."—Jude, 11, 12, 13.</p> + +<p>Mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, if there is a doubt left in your +minds as to the charges made against dancing, will you do yourselves, +and those under your influence, the justice to ask your husbands, +fathers and brothers to read this little book, and give you their +<i>honest opinions</i>?</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>VERDICT.</p> + +<p>This is to certify that I have carefully read this little book, and give +it as my honest conviction—from what I have seen and what I have heard +from those who have attended dancing parties, balls and hops—that the +charges and specifications are true, and believing them to be true, I +here promise to use all my influence against <i>all kinds</i> of dancing, +while I live on earth.</p> + +<p>(Here Sign Name.).............................</p> + +<p>Try and get four others to sign with you.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>If this little book should be of benefit to any one, I would like to +know it. As it is my intention to get out a second edition, I desire to +collect all <i>the facts</i> I can in support of the charges and +specifications against dancing. Ministers of the Gospel, physicians, and +fathers and mothers, can render me great assistance if they will.</p> + +<p><i>Names of correspondents will not be published without special +permission</i>.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<h5>There is No Harm in Dancing.</h5> + + +<table align='center' border='0' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary=''> +<tr><td align='center'>Single Copy, Paper Cover,</td><td align='center'>25 cts.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>Single Copy, Cloth Cover,</td><td align='center'>30 cts.</td></tr></table> +<br /> + +<p>Liberal discount to Pastors and Dealers.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>HARVEST BELLS, No. 2.</p> + +<p>A New Sabbath School Song Book, just published.</p> + +<p>Suitable also for Revivals.</p> + +<p>The <i>most popular</i> Song Book ever offered to the public.</p> + + +<table align='center' border='0' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary=''> +<tr><td align='center'>Single Copy,</td><td align='center'>$ .30.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>Per Dozen,</td><td align='center'>3.00.</td></tr></table> + + +<p>LIBERAL DISCOUNT TO DEALERS.</p> + +Address:<br /> +W. 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E. Penn, +et al</h1> +<pre> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: There is No Harm in Dancing</p> +<p>Author: W. E. Penn</p> +<p>Release Date: November 27, 2004 [eBook #14183]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THERE IS NO HARM IN DANCING***</p> +<br><br><h3>E-text prepared by Susan Skinner<br> + from images in the American Memory Collection<br> + of the Library of Congress</h3><br><br> +<center> +<table border=0 bgcolor="ccccff" cellpadding=10 width="80%"> + <tr> + <td valign="top"> + Note: + </td> + <td> + Images of the original pages are available in the American + Memory Collection of the Library of Congress. See<br> + <a href="http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html"> + http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html</a> + </td> + </tr> +</table> +</center> +<br> +<br> +<hr class="full" noshade> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h1>THERE IS NO HARM IN DANCING</h1> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>W. E. PENN</h2> + + +<h4>WITH AN</h4> + +<h3>INTRODUCTION</h3> + +<h4>BY</h4> + +<h3>Rev. J. H. STRIBLING, D.D.</h3> + +<br> +<h5>1884.</h5> +<br> +<br> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<br> + +<p>"Buy the TRUTH and sell it not; also WISDOM and INSTRUCTION and +UNDERSTANDING."—PROV. 23-23.</p> + +<p>"There is a way that SEEMETH right unto a man, but the end thereof are +the ways of DEATH."—PROV. 14-25</p> +<br> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<br> + +<h6>St. Louis, Mo.<br> + Lewis E. Kline, Publisher and Bookseller</h6> + +<br /> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<br> + +<p><i>This little book is respectfully and kindly dedicated to all Husbands, +Fathers and Brothers, who love their Wives, Daughters and Sisters, by</i></p> + +<p>THE AUTHOR.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='PREFACE'></a><h2>PREFACE.</h2> + +<p>During the past seven years I have delivered the substance of the +foregoing Lecture on Dancing, as a part of my work as an Evangelist, +before not less than one hundred thousand people. I have been requested +by hundreds of FATHERS and mothers, young men and girls, HUSBANDS and +BROTHERS, and pastors of churches to publish the Lecture in the form of +a book, that its influence may be extended to fields I shall never +visit. It is in compliance with these requests that the little book is +written, with the hope that at least some good may result in begetting +and fostering a better state of morals in our day and generation, and in +checking the terrible increase of crime which is rolling over the earth +like a mighty wave of the ocean. If I shall ever hear that this little +book has had some humble part in stopping one poor soul from taking one +more step down the "BROAD ROAD," <i>or that it has done any good in the +world</i>, I shall feel well paid for all the time and trouble it has cost +me in getting it into the hands of the printer. Most of persons speaking +or writing on the subject of the dance, are "<i>hear-say</i>" witnesses, but +I profess to having been an "<i>eye-witness</i>," which I propose to prove by +all the <i>bad</i> men, or those who have been <i>bad</i> men, who may carefully +read this book. Their verdict will be: "HE HAS BEEN THERE."</p> + +<p>While I believe that hundreds of thousands of fathers and mothers, +husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, and pastors, and Christians, +will bless the day this little book was written, and will offer many +earnest prayers for the author, I shall expect many Othellos to curse me +with all the bitterness of their souls, because I hope it may be said +wherever the book is read: "OTHELLO'S OCCUPATION IS GONE."</p> + +<p>THE AUTHOR.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='INTRODUCTION'></a><h2>INTRODUCTION.</h2> + +<p>Major W.C. Penn, the author of the following treatise on the modern +dance, has requested the writer to pen a few thoughts introductory to a +theme he has presented with such pith and power to listening thousands +in his travels as an Evangelist.</p> + +<p>Various inquiries have been made as to how Major Penn, a lawyer in a +lucrative practice, and with all the attractions of wealth and of fame +before him, and in a quiet, lovely and elegant home, with a wife who has +ever been as a guardian angel to his pathway, was led to change his +vocation to that of a wandering Evangelist, and how it is that he now +stands before the world beside Knapp, and Earle, and Moody, and other +world-renowned Evangelists of the 19th century, in leading multitudes to +Christ as a Savior?</p> + +<p>It is answered and centered in the sublime truth: "The love of Christ +constraineth us." As the stars are dimmed and lost sight of in the +brilliancy of the rising sun, so earthly pleasures, riches and honors +fade and dwindle in the glory of the Cross. As God was pleased to use +the writer as an instrument in getting brother Penn into this work, so +it seemed proper that a few incidents and facts which led to it, as +remembered in our associations together, should be stated.</p> + +<p>It was in Jefferson, Texas, where our brother then resided, that I first +saw him, in May, 1874, during the session of the Southern Baptist +Convention, at that place. But it was in June, the year after, at his +own home and during a series of meetings in the Baptist Church, that I +began to know more of him, as he brought up in our social interviews a +review of his life religiously—as he told of the time when, in the +ardor and vigor of youth, in Tennessee, at a meeting, he sought to defy +and brave a gospel message from the venerable brother James Hurt, by +taking a front seat; and then how his soul was convulsed and his heart +melted, as God's message wrenched the bolted door of that heart; how he +struggled with the agonies of conviction for sin, during the long, weary +hours of night; and how the joys of pardoning love through Christ came +to his soul with the brightness of the morning. As these conversations +were reviewed, he told of frequent backslidings, and how far away from +God he had been. Then he told of some things he had done in the Sunday +School and in the Church, and then at times gave his opinion as to the +best way of conducting a series of meetings and other things pertaining +to Christ's Kingdom. During these conversations the question was asked: +"Bro. Penn, are you satisfied and sure that you are in full discharge of +your duty?" After a pause he replied, as if conscience was awakened:</p> + +<p>"No Sir. I am not satisfied, and have not been for years past." Then +said he: "You are the first man that ever asked me that question." Then +the writer made known some impressions about him that must have been +made by the spirit of God, for he never had just such an interest to +burden his heart previously, and that was that God had a peculiar and +wonderful work for him to do. "But," said Bro. Penn, "at my age, in my +profession and in my condition, I cannot believe it to be my duty to +preach the Gospel"—his age being at that time forty-two years. Among +other things said at this time by the writer, as he now remembers them +one was: That the Spirit of God leads and teaches us in strange ways, +often, as to what God would have us do, and that our methods of holding +meetings seemed to the writer as being deficient in some things, and +that the good of the cause required a change from the ruts and grooves +in which these meetings had been run, and that we were making our +services monotonous and chilling out spirituality by common methods of +conducting divine service, in protracted meetings. Another thought was: +That he and men like himself, as lawyers, that were given to talking and +that knew much of men and the world, if the love of Christ was burning +in their souls, might do a great work in going out and helping in such +meetings, even if they never engaged regularly in the ministry.</p> + +<p>But it was in Tyler, Texas, at a Sunday School Institute, in July, 1875, +that a new era was to dawn on Major Penn.</p> + +<p>It was a fixed impression in the mind of the pastor that there ought to +be a change in our manner of conducting revival services; that the time +had come to begin the work, and that Bro. Penn was the man to inaugurate +such a change. In prayer this matter was carried to the Lord for His +direction. It was a settled impression in the heart of the writer, as +pastor of the Baptist Church, that the Church and community needed a +series of meetings at this time. There were preachers present of +experience, piety and ability, and he had no doubt they would remain and +aid in such services if invited to do so. But contrary to what was a +common practice at the close of such meetings, and after imploring the +Lord to direct him, he could not, from his heart, ask any of these +preachers to stay and aid in a meeting.</p> + +<p>While singing the last song, at the close of the service on Sunday +night, the writer approached Major Penn, who had been aiding in the +singing, and said to him: "Bro. Penn, I am going to appoint a prayer +meeting at 9 o'clock in the morning, and as your train does not leave +until 2 o'clock to-morrow evening, I shall expect to see you at the +meeting; will you come?" To which he replied. "I have some business with +the clerk of the Federal Court, and if I get through in time, I will try +and be here." A prayer meeting was announced for 9 o'clock the next +morning. At the appointed hour a fair congregation had assembled, and a +few minutes after 9 o'clock Maj. Penn came in and took a seat not far +from the door. The writer approached him and said: "I want you to +conduct this meeting." He replied: "You must excuse me, I am a lawyer, +and do not believe in mixing things in this way. You conduct the meeting +or get one of those preachers sitting there to do it, and I will help in +singing or lead in prayer, if desired." To which the writer replied: "If +all the preachers in the world were here I could not permit one of them +to conduct this meeting, and I am not physically able. You <i>must</i> do +it." To which he answered. "Very well, I will conduct a prayer meeting."</p> + +<p>The meeting was opened as is usual, when Brother Penn arose and read a +portion of the 20th chapter of John, and then talked about fifteen +minutes, which seemed to awaken a very deep interest throughout the +entire congregation. At the close of this talk quite a number of wives, +fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters arose one after another and in +great earnestness asked prayer for their loved ones. While singing the +last song, the writer asked Brother Penn to remain and conduct a service +at night, which he positively refused to do, saying that he must go +home. Whereupon the writer publicly entered a protest against his +leaving. Sister Penn and others of the company from Jefferson +consenting, he agreed to remain one more day. At night the house was +crowded, and great interest manifested by Christians and by many +unconverted. A prayer meeting was announced for 9 o'clock the next +morning. At this meeting the house was well filled, with a decided +increase of interest. One or two conversions-and a number of inquiries +were made.</p> + +<p>At the close of this meeting the writer said to Brother Penn, "You +cannot leave this meeting, it will never do, there never has been such +an interest in this town since I have been here." To which he replied "I +am bound to go home, I have no partner and no one to attend to my +business." The writer then arose, and in the name of the Lord Jesus +Christ entered another solemn protest against his leaving, saying: "I +believe before God that it is Bro. Penn's solemn duty to remain here and +carry on this meeting, and it is my firm conviction that if he leaves he +will commit the great sin of his life, and I call upon every member of +this church and of this congregation, who will join me in this protest, +to stand up." The entire congregation were standing in a moment. He then +said to the writer privately: "I tell you I am bound to go home; I +promised my wife yesterday that I would be certain to go home with her +to-day, and I know that she is bound to go home." The writer said: "Bro. +Penn, you are mistaken; Sister Penn would not have you leave this +meeting to go home with her. She will go with the young people." He then +went to where his wife was sitting and said to her: "I promised you +yesterday that I would go home with you to-day, and I am going to do +it." Sister Penn looked up in his face with tearful eyes and trembling +lips, and said, as only a true, noble hearted Christian woman could have +said: "I can go home with the young people, I do not think you ought to +go." This seems to have been the last hair that broke the camel's back. +We have seen many striking photographs of the Major as taken by artists +in his travels, and in various attitudes, but a picture delineating his +features on this occasion would be preferable to all others.</p> + +<p>As he rose to respond to the protest of the pastor, Church and +congregation, with his head thrown back, his eyes dilated, his lips +quivering, his voice stammering and tears coursing their way down his +cheeks, he tried to give expression to his astonishment and the deep +emotion of his heart; he seemed to realize that it was <i>God's call</i>, and +that he could not resist it.</p> + +<p>It was circulated through the town that a <i>lawyer</i>, and not a +<i>preacher</i>, was to conduct services at the Baptist Church. Some thought +it a strange freak in the pastor to suggest, and in the Church to +approve such a thing. Various opinions were freely expressed as to the +leader in these services. Then it was spoken in low tones of voice among +some good people, in substance, after this fashion: "Did you ever hear +of such a thing? Here are preachers all over the country that we know, +good men, who can preach the gospel, and here they've called in a +<i>lawyer to carry on the meeting</i>. Lord have mercy on us, what are we +coming to any how?"</p> + +<p>At every street corner and place of business, in the saloons, offices +and homes throughout Tyler, Maj. Penn and the services were discussed, +while his Satanic Majesty and his allies were busy in trying to cripple +and crush the good effects. A mighty and irresistable attraction drew +crowds to the house of God.</p> + +<p>At times it was apparent that the leader was embarrassed; now and then +fretted and and chafed; then at a loss what to say or do; and more than +once was he tempted to say he would leave the meeting; and that he had +not remained there to be slandered and persecuted. But he was reminded +that the best of men had thus suffered, that God had furnaces through +which we must pass, to burn up the dross, and that in the midst of this +state of things the Church was being revived, wanderers brought back, +souls awakened and converted from day to day, and that he had the +sympathy, prayers and co-operation of many pious, devoted hearts. Again +the new leader, after wrestling in prayer for grace and direction, took +courage and was renewed by the spirit of God to go on in pulling down +the strong-holds of iniquity. But Satan was not yet overcome, he made +another powerful assault upon him.</p> + +<p>When the meeting had been in progress about ten days, abuse, +misrepresentation, lying, together with the basest and most contemptible +slanders, were hurled at him with unmeasured severity. It was a new +ordeal, and he was tempted stronger than ever to lay off his armor and +leave the meeting. He decided to go home, and so stated to the pastor, +saying: "You have already kept me here longer than any man on earth +could have done, and now I am determined to go." "Well," said the +pastor, "I am sorry to hear it, and believe you will commit a great +wrong, and will incur the displeasure of Almighty God in leaving here at +this time, and still further, I beg you to bear in mind this truth, that +duty never points in two ways. If it is your duty to be in Jefferson +practicing law, then it is not your duty to remain here and carry on +this meeting. God only can guide you aright." This conversation occurred +in the afternoon. At night the Major was in his place, and said to the +large congregation: "My friends, I have heard to-day of so many +slanderous reports about me that I determined to go home, but +remembering that so persecuted they the prophets, which were before me, +and that they persecuted my Master even unto death, I have only to say: +'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do?' I shall go on +with the meeting, 'looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of my +faith,' to sustain, protect and guide me in all things." It was, +perhaps, the drinking of this cup of persecution that passed our brother +across the Rubicon, that burned all the bridges behind him and caused +him to bow in humble submission to the will of Almighty God.</p> + +<div class='poem'><div class='stanza'> +<span>"'Tis ever so thy faithful love<br /></span> +<span>Does all thy children's graces prove;<br /></span> +<span>'Tis thus our pride and self must fall<br /></span> +<span>That Jesus may be all in all."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>As the meeting continued, and as the scores and hundreds came together +"at the sound of the church-going bell," from day to day the leader +seemed to develop in power from God to move, melt and sway the hearts of +the listening crowds, as he sung and prayed and talked "of Jesus and his +dying love." After more than five weeks' continuance, the services +closed. Scores were converted, many valuable additions were made to the +Church, Christians were renewed and developed in piety of heart and +life, and the leavening and saving power of the Gospel was extended +through the town and surrounding country.</p> + +<p>This meeting was the beginning and earnest of the blessings and success +that has attended Bro. Penn's labors for more than nine years past, +while in his life we see that,</p> + +<div class='poem'><div class='stanza'> +<span>"Defects thro' nature's best productions run.<br /></span> +<span>The saints have spots, and spots are in the sun,<br /></span> +<span>And that he, with all of Adam's race,<br /></span> +<span>Are only 'sinners' saved by grace."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Yet we rejoice and praise God for what has been manifested in his growth +and development in his work mentally and spiritually, for the life, +power and efficiency infused into our churches by his ministrations—for +his rebukes, exposures and denunciations of sin, in and out of the +Church; for holding up Christ at all times, as the only hope of lost +sinners; for tearing away the mask of a heartless formality in the +profession and practice of religion; for the thousands of all classes +and ages in the forests and prairies of Texas, where he has pitched his +great gospel tent, and in the cities of Galveston, Houston, San Antonio, +Dallas, Ft. Worth, Mobile, Memphis, Louisville, St. Louis, and in the +cities of California, in scores of crowded places of worship; in smaller +towns and in the country, who have been brought to Christ as lost +sinners through his instrumentality; and that at all times and through +his whole ministry he has declared "the whole counsel of God," and made +no compromises with error and heresy.</p> + +<p>As to the disquisition of Maj. Penn, which frowns on the modern dance, +we ask for it a careful reading and an honest and practical application +of its facts, arguments and illustration, as the prize, practical essay +of the age on this subject, so far as is known. That it is clear, +pointed and overwhelming in its exposures of the evils and crimes, the +corruptions and abominations of the modern dance is confirmed by +experience and observation.</p> + +<p>Let every lover of the dance, every friend of morals and of religion, +and each professing Christian, read and circulate this production among +all classes of men and women.</p> + +<p>And may the blessings of God attend it's circulation, as it may be +scattered into thousands of homes, and an increasing blessing attend its +author and his labors.</p> + +<p>J. H. STRIBLING,</p> + +<div class='blkquot'><p>Rockdale, Texas. October 14, 1884.</p></div> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='quotThere_is_No_Harm_in_Dancingquot'></a><h2>"There is No Harm in Dancing."</h2> + + +<div class='blkquot'><p>"Every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree + bringeth forth evil fruit."—Matt. 7, 17.</p></div> + +<p>If "THERE IS NO HARM IN DANCING," it must be a good tree, and if it is a +good tree, we shall be certain to find that it bears good fruit, and if +we find the fruit hanging on its boughs to be sound and wholesome food +for the <i>physical, mental</i> and <i>spiritual</i> man, we should strive to have +these trees planted in all our homes, our churches, Sabbath-schools, +school-houses, colleges, seminaries, or other institutions of learning. +But if we find the fruit injurious, to either the physical, mental or +spiritual, to such a degree that its injurious effects are not overcome +and destroyed by the benefits conferred upon us by the other two, it +should be condemned by every friend of humanity.</p> + +<p>Every tree should be cut down, and every dealer regarded as an enemy to +his race. Some trees are very tall and <i>graceful</i>, and dressed in +beautiful foliage, but the fruit is deadly poison. Some trees are not +comely to look upon, but the fruit very good and wholesome. So it is not +the tree, but the fruit, to which we must look. Some fruit may be very +bad but not dangerous to society, because of the very small quantity on +the market, and because it is not good to the <i>taste</i>, but little, if +any, of it is used. But this is not the case with dancing, for there is +a large quantity of it on hand all the time, and a great deal of it is +used, because it is <i>palatable</i> to the <i>natural</i> taste of men and women. +The demand is always far greater than the supply.</p> + +<p>This fruit being so very popular, of such great demand, we must conclude +that, as it is bound to be either good or bad, it must be <i>very</i> good, +or <i>very</i> bad. Now, reader, before we proceed to examine this fruit, +please do the author and yourself the justice to sign your name to the +following vow:</p> + +<p>"I do <i>solemnly vow</i> that I will carefully read the following pages as +nearly as possible free from all <i>prejudice</i> and <i>partiality, with a +desire to know the truth</i>, and that I will a true verdict render, +according to the honest conviction of my own mind and heart.</p> + +<p>"(Here sign name.)________________"</p> + +<p>When and where are the trees of dancing to be found? They grow in the +night and generally perish with the darkness when the morning light +appears.</p> + +<div class='blkquot'><p>"This is the condemnation that light is come into the world, and + men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were + evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light; neither + cometh to the light lest his deeds should be reproved."—John + 3-19-20.</p></div> + +<p>The trees are to be found in many private residences, dancing schools, +dancing academies, seminaries and colleges, where our girls are +educated; in public halls, in side shows, in some of our <i>so-called</i> +churches, in beer shops, beer gardens, variety theatres, music halls and +houses of ill-fame. In the five last-mentioned these trees grow much +taller, larger and more luxuriant than anywhere else, because it is +supposed by <i>naturalists</i> that they are more indigenous to this kind of +soil. In these places those are the favorite trees, the trees admired +above all others, because of the fruit they bear. Why the virtuous and +the vulgar are so fond of the same fruit, I shall not try to explain. I +must leave this knotty, ugly problem to be solved by <i>wiser</i> and more +experienced heads than mine. I asked the proprietors and proprietresses +of these last-mentioned places where they procured the sprouts from +which all these great trees had grown; these trees that have grown so +tall and strong, and the bark so thick, that they do not vanish with the +darkness when the morning light appears, but grow and flourish in the +brightest day, <i>even better on</i> SUNDAYS <i>than any other time</i>.</p> + +<p>They all, without a dissenting voice, made answer and said: "<i>The seeds</i> +were planted in the decent, respectable parlors, generally among the +polished and refined people of the towns and cities—were watered and +cultivated by the fathers and mothers, and then transplanted into the +dancing schools, church festivals, and then they are removed to the +public halls, and here they are kept until the bark on <i>some</i> of them +becomes hard enough to be carried to the beer gardens, masquerades, +variety theaters, music halls and other towns and cities in Sodom and +Gomorrah."</p> + +<p>Without the fascination for dancing, which is <i>germinated</i> and +<i>cultivated</i> in the private parlors among the <i>nice, respectable, +refined</i> people, many of the largest towns and cities of Sodom and +Gomorrah would soon be depopulated. We next come to enquire who it is +that attends dancing parties, balls, hops, etc., and when they usually +break up. But one answer can be given, viz.: young men and young women, +together with young married people, with an occasional <i>sear and yellow +leaf repainted</i>.</p> + +<p>With a very few exceptions, dancing parties, balls and hops are made up +of young men and girls of every grade of society, from the poorest to +the wealthiest in the community. Now it must be admitted that there is +as great a desire in the hearts of the poor young men, and as great a +desire in the hearts of the girls of poor parentage to make a favorable +impression in society, as there possibly could be with the wealthier +classes. As a rule, it may be said that not more than one in twenty of +all who participate in dancing parties have a sufficient "cash balance" +to gratify their pride in the purchase of the supposed necessary outfits +in clothing, jewelry, etc., without any misgivings as to the future +comforts and necessaries of life.</p> + +<p>When we consider the large number of young men, young husbands and +fathers and mothers who are not able, in justice to themselves and those +looking to and relying upon them for a support, to keep pace with the +rich in their extravagance, and that all must come together on the same +floor, in the same room and pass in review before the merciless critics +always to be found in the ball room, and find that the weakest and most +vulnerable points in human nature are here attacked by three of the +devil's most powerful armies, under command of three of his most +stratagetic and experienced generals—ENVY, JEALOUSY and WOUNDED +PRIDE—we may at once proceed to examine the fruit of dancing. Nearly +all of our young people are in love with some one, and not unfrequently +two or three or more are in love with the same one, or the lover +imagines that he or she has from one to a half dozen rivals, which is +the same to them as if it were true. It is often the case that an +engagement exists, or there is grave suspicion of its existence. A +dancing party or ball is in prospect. The same preparation must be made +by rich and poor. One young man who chanced to be born of rich or +well-to-do parents, and one young lady the same, order their outfits, +and they are paid for not unfrequently out of the usurious interest +wrung from the fathers and mothers of the poorer young men and girls. +Now the poorer and less able to purchase the necessary all outfits, +which are always costly, <i>must go</i>. They must go, because they <i>love</i> +the dance. They are PASSIONATELY fond of it.</p> + +<p>They must go, or it may be said they could not go on account of their +poverty. They must go, in order to keep pace with their rivals, so as to +keep an eye on them, lest they be supplanted in their affections. These +are three powerful inducements. Without Divine aid they are irresistible +when brought to bear on the young.</p> + +<p>THEY MUST GO!</p> + +<p>THEY WILL GO!</p> + +<p>THEY DO GO!</p> + +<p>Here thousands of fathers and mothers have been compelled to yield to +the entreaties of their daughters, and sometimes their sons, in +purchasing costly apparel, jewelry, etc., when they knew they were not +able, outfits that never would have been needed but for the dance. +Hundreds of thousands of young men, with small salaries, in moderate +circumstances, have been induced, under this heavy pressure, to resort +to many dishonest devices in order to make the necessary preparations. +Clerks have sold goods above the market price and put the excess in +their pockets. They have often <i>borrowed</i> money from their employer, +<i>without his knowledge</i>, small amounts, from day to day. They have +borrowed from friends by telling them they had money coming from an +estate, or friend or a debtor, which they knew to be false, and in the +same way, or by other false statements, have bought articles of +clothing, made large livery bills, which they knew would never be paid. +Many conceive the idea they can raise the desired amount at the gambling +table, and here do <i>their first</i> gambling. Where one succeeds, at least +one hundred fail. Some raise the required amount by transferring a few +cows, yearlings, steers, a horse or a mule, to distant pastures; some +are caught and some are not. Those not caught are in a far worse +condition than those in the jail or in the penitentiary, because they +have been checked in their mad career, and the others are emboldened by +their escape to commit other and greater crimes. "Be sure your sins will +find you out." Yes, inexorable, unerring justice is on the track of all +evil-doers, and will be certain to overtake them sooner or later. +Hundreds of thousands of fathers and mothers, and young married people, +have been brought to poverty and misery; some, within my knowledge, to +alms-houses, by the heavy draws made upon them by their sons, daughters +and wives, in preparing for dancing parties and balls. For weeks before +the ball comes off—and here let it be understood that I mean the ball +to cover hops, dancing parties and all manner of dancing—the young +people are wild with excitement; they are almost wholly incapable of any +kind of business. All manner of domestic affairs are almost entirely +neglected by the girls and young wives. The bright anticipation of great +pleasure in the near future, turns some of their little shallow brains +up-side-down, and they are often seen in a sort of deep reverie, wearing +a blank gaze, having very much the appearance of poor unfortunate +idiots. If the father, mother, husband, brother or teacher speaks to +them, unless it be on the subject of the ball, they grin like a baboon +and snap like a mad dog. If we run on at the rate we are now going, it +will not be a great while until it may be found to be cheaper to build a +few asylums for the sane, and let the idiots and lunatics run at large.</p> + +<p>THE BALL. THE HOP. THE DANCE.</p> + +<p>IT IS ALL THE SAME.</p> + +<p>Well, the long looked for day has come; it is now 8 P.M., and the boys, +girls and young wives are in their rooms donning their new and costly +apparel, which has been bought, borrowed or <i>stolen</i> in divers and +sundry ways. Some have been paid for, some will be paid for, and some +will remain open accounts until judgment day. The wealthy and those who +never pay their bills will be dressed in the costliest, richest apparel, +because only these classes can afford these luxuries. EXTREMES WILL +MEET. The young men go and bring in their girls, and when they get to +the door, they are met by the committee of reception, who politely show +the ladies a side room where they will go and lay off their wraps. The +young men go out into the corner of the yard or in the woods and lay off +their <i>wraps</i>—in the nature of a bottle of whiskey or brandy—or they +have left them in a buggy or carriage, or a room has been set apart for +this purpose, and the WRAPS have been provided before-hand, or they are +to be found in a convenient drinking saloon.</p> + +<p>THE WRAPS ARE THERE.</p> + +<p>The girls wear their wraps around them. The boys <i>wear</i> themselves +around their wraps. These <i>wraps</i> are brought into requisition as the +physical man begins to weaken under the excessive and unnatural +exercise. Unnatural, because the hours designed by God, our maker, to be +used in rest and sleep are appropriated to another and very different +purpose. Here the tempter discovers another weak point, and he makes the +attack. The great draw made upon the physical forces makes it +necessary—the tempter says—to use an artificial stimulant, which is +here often taken the first time, and which is not unfrequently repeated, +until many are so much under its influence and some get so drunk—no, +become so suddenly <i>indisposed</i>, that they have to be carried home. +These entertainments seldom break up until the light of the morning +begins to appear, but I will compromise on 2 o'clock, A.M. At 9 or 10 +o'clock, P.M., the performance begins, and I propose we shall <i>candidly</i> +and <i>honestly</i> examine this basket of fruit. Whether designed or not, it +is simply a fact that many of the girls and women are dressed in such a +way and manner as best and most successfully to excite the baser +passions of men.</p> + +<p>If the style of dress often, yea, nearly always, seen at the +<i>fashionable</i> balls and dancing parties is wholly without any evil +design—innocently following a fashion—and if those who thus dress are +really ignorant of the effect it has upon the opposite sex, it is high +time their eyes were being opened. If this be only a fashion, and I want +to believe it is nothing more, but when I remember distinctly that this +manner of dressing for balls and dancing parties has been the fashion +for forty years and that it has never changed, <i>except to become a +little more so</i>, and that all other fashions have changed at least +twenty times, my belief staggers and hangs its head for very shame. This +fruit alone has sent hundreds of thousands of men, women and girls to +premature graves, dishonored graves, felons' cells, and to an endless +hell. That this semi-nude condition, in which many girls and women are +seen in the dance, has been productive of a vast deal of sin and crime, +no honest man certainly will deny. In the whirl of the gay and giddy +dance, we see:</p> + +<div class='poem'><div class='stanza'> +<span>Strong men and women fair<br /></span> +<span>Are now within the tempter's snare,<br /></span> +<span>With arms around each slender waist,<br /></span> +<span>Each woman held in <i>close embrace</i>.<br /></span> +</div><div class='stanza'> +<span>If all the <i>thoughts</i> could be made known<br /></span> +<span>Of seeds of crime which here are sown,<br /></span> +<span>'Twould cause the <i>hardest</i> cheek to blush<br /></span> +<span>And every <i>virtuous</i> heart would crush.<br /></span> +</div><div class='stanza'> +<span>But so it is, and ere must be,<br /></span> +<span>While men and women thus agree<br /></span> +<span><i>To tempt themselves, and others too</i>,<br /></span> +<span>TO SINS AND CRIMES OF DEADLY HUE.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The following is the experience of a lady whose name is withheld, but +who has distinguished herself in literature, and made a world-wide +reputation:</p> + +<div class='blkquot'><p>"In those times I cared little for polka or varsovienne, and still + less for 'Money Musk' or 'Virginia Reel,' and wondered what people + could find to admire in these slow dances. But in the soft floating + of the waltz I found a strange pleasure, rather difficult to + intelligibly describe. The mere anticipation fluttered my pulse, + and when my partner approached to claim my promised hand for the + dance, I felt my cheeks glow a little sometimes, and I could not + look him in the eye with the same frank gayety as heretofore.</p> + +<p> "But the climax of my confusion was reached when, folded in his + warm embrace, and giddy with the whirl, a strange, sweet thrill + would shake me from head to foot, leaving me weak and almost + powerless, and really obliged to depend for support on the arm + which encircled me. If my partner failed, from ignorance, lack of + skill or innocence, to arouse these, to me, most pleasureable + sensations, I did not dance with him the second time.</p> + +<p> "I am speaking openly and frankly, and when I say that I did not + understand what I felt, or what were the real and greatest + pleasures I derived from this so-called dancing, I expect to be + believed. But if my cheeks grew red with uncomprehended pleasure + then, they grow pale to-day with shame when I think of it all. It + was the physical emotions engendered by the magnetic contact of + strong men that I was enamored of—not of the dance, not even of + the men themselves.</p> + +<p> "Thus I became abnormally developed in my lowest nature. I grew + bolder, and from being able to return shy glances at first, was + soon able to meet more daring ones, until the waltz became to me + and whomsoever danced with me, one lingering, sweet and purely + sensual pleasure, where heart beat against heart, hand was held in + hand and eyes looked burning words which lips dared not speak.</p> + +<p> "All this time no one said to me, 'You do wrong;' so I dreamed of + sweet words whispered during the dance, and often felt, while + alone, a thrill of joy indescribable, yet overpowering, when my + mind would turn from my study to remember a piece of temerity of + unusual grandeur on the part of one or another of my cavaliers.</p> + +<p> "Married now, with home and children around me, I can at least + thank God for the experience which will assuredly be the means of + preventing my little daughters from indulging in any such dangerous + pleasure. But if a young girl, pure and innocent in the beginning, + can be brought to feel what I have confessed to have felt, what + must be the experience of a married woman? She knows what every + glance of the eye, every bend of the head, every close clasp means, + and knowing that, reciprocates it, and is led by swifter steps and + a surer path down the dangerous, dishonorable road."</p></div> + +<p>I read in the Scripture, in that ever memorable sermon on the Mount, +this significant declaration: "Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust +after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." Some +may not receive this as sound doctrine, because it is the language of +Jesus Christ; but this will not give relief, because the <i>corrupting</i> +influence would be just the same if Christ had never said one word about +it. Christ only gave the great sin a name by calling it adultery. It was +in this way the seed was sown in the heart of the Psalmist David that +caused him to commit one of the greatest crimes ever committed on earth. +See 2 Samuel, 11 Ch. In the same way the seed has been sown in the +hearts of thousands of men in the ball room, in the dances and in the +private parlors, which has ripened into disruptions of the marital +relations—has ripened into husbands murdering their wives, has ripened +into husbands losing their wives by elopement, has ripened into husbands +being murdered, has ripened into young men killing each other; and last, +though not least, has resulted in the utter ruin of hundreds of +thousands of the fair daughters of our land and country. Taking the +declarations of Jesus Christ as true, and no honest man can doubt it, +<i>there never was and never will be a dancing party or ball that the +great sin He referred to was not and will not be committed in the hearts +of some men</i>.</p> + +<p>Here permit me to ask an important question, and solemnly charge every +reader to make answer as upon oath:</p> + +<p>WITH WHOM IS THIS GREAT SIN COMMITTED?</p> + +<p>If common honesty compels fathers, husbands and brothers to admit these +things to be true, will you ever again permit your wives, your daughters +or your sisters to be found at one of these places, however decent the +people may be, while they are under your control? If you do, after your +attention has been called to the hideous deformity of the dance, God, +man and your own conscience will condemn you. Whatsoever of evil or +crime may be committed, unyielding justice, unmixed with mercy, will +certainly hold you responsible. This last objection to the dance will +hold and be just as good against the theaters and operas, because no one +will deny but that a special effort is generally made at these places to +excite the passions of men and women by an indecent exposure of their +persons. To say the least of it, Christians have no business at these +places.</p> + +<p>A Christian has no business at any place where he cannot go in the name +of Jesus Christ, because the Scripture says: "They shall walk up and +down in His name."—Zach., 10 ch. 12v. Micah, 4 ch. 5v.—"His name shall +be on their foreheads."—Rev., 22 ch. 4 v. "Ye are my witnesses."—Isa., +43 ch. 10 v. Can a Christian, a true follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, +"walk up and down" in a ball room in His <i>name</i>? Can a Christian go into +a ball room with the name of Jesus Christ written on his or her +forehead? If a man has His name written on his forehead, and he goes +into a ball room, theater, opera, or a drinking saloon, does he not, by +that act, hide the name of Jesus Christ? Can a Christian be a witness +for God in the ball room, theater, opera, or drinking saloon? <i>If not, +his testimony is false, and he is a perjured man!</i> I have no doubt some +very nice people—<i>society people</i>—will be terribly <i>shocked</i> at the +developments herein made.</p> + +<p>I was raised in the country, and I remember a varmint got to visiting +our poultry yard and carrying off those <i>roosting nearest the ground</i>, +which were generally our <i>improved blooded (society)</i> chickens, and +whenever we would get after him, he would run down through a <i>very +muddy</i> place, and take refuge in a hole in the bank of a creek. We +rather dreaded the task of following him through all this <i>mud and +filth</i>; but, as a last resort, rather than let him have all the poultry, +or allow him to continue his depredations at pleasure, we waded through +the mud down to his den and dug into his hiding place; and when he was +struck on the head with the back of a hoe, he too was <i>terribly +shocked.</i></p> + +<p>Now this little animal was not, as may be supposed by some, one of the +"common or unclean," but he was one of the elite, a regular <i>society</i> +mink. He was covered with very fine fur, but had his stomach filled with +stolen chickens. I leave the application to all to whom these presents +may come, GREETING. <i>When I want to buy a hat, I never take one unless +it fits me</i>.</p> + +<p>More or less of the girls participating in the dance are engaged to be +married, and great effort is made to keep this a profound secret, so she +very naturally has every man for a partner except her intended. Here is +music in the back-ground, if her intended is present, and he is sure to +be there if he is in striking distance—if he is not down with typhoid +fever or in prison.</p> + +<p>This music is in his heart, in the nature of clamoring for blood, by a +legion of different sized devils. It may be there is not one man in the +room that would have his girl under any consideration whatever, but he +imagines that they all want her. The female outfit for the ball consists +of girls and a number of young married women, and some a little older, +and some old women, forty to fifty years old, with grown children, false +teeth, false hair, and bloats to swell out their wrinkled cheeks, and +they, too, are dressed in the <i>fashion</i> with red ribbons, and blue and +green; these furnish the <i>disgust</i> for the occasion—and one of them has +been known to furnish disgust enough for a city of ten thousand +inhabitants, and of the very best quality. Let us return to the basket +containing the young married people, and examine the fruit therein. +Reader, did you ever see the young married woman watching her husband as +he glides up and down in the merry dance, <i>with an old sweetheart in his +arms?</i> If you never did, the first opportunity you have, take a good +look at a cat's eyes in the dark and in imagination transfer them to the +young wife's head, and you will have a very correct idea of how <i>sweet</i> +and <i>amiable</i> she looks.</p> + +<p>Who among the living will ever forget that poor unfortunate girl, in the +State of Georgia, who was assassinated in the ball room by a jealous +young wife? The civilized world was shocked by the announcement of this +terrible tragedy, which was purely the fruit of the ball room. These +parties were not of the low and vulgar, but were of the society people +of the age. How many husbands have in the same way and for the same +cause had all the baser, brutish passions aroused to such an extent as +to have their reasoning faculties dethroned, and have been driven by the +raging devils within to commit many of the greatest, most shameful and +most disgraceful crimes that ever blackened the records of a criminal +court? How many have cursed and abused their wives while on the way home +from the ball room? How many, after their arrival at home, have used +their superior physical strength in abusing their wives in a most +shameful and disgraceful manner? How much of all this was the result of +a frenzied imagination, and not for any real misconduct? How many of all +these cruel wrongs and outrages are never known except by the parties +themselves? How many fathers and mothers have neglected their children +by leaving them in incompetent and unsafe hands, while they spent the +night in the ball room? How many husbands have left their wives, in poor +health, sometimes sick in bed, with two or three little children crying +around them, while they have spent the night in the ball room dancing +with other women? How many men and women, and especially women, from +physical and mental causes superinduced by the effects of the ball room, +have been driven to madness, and have thus become inmates of insane +asylums, or have deliberately taken their own lives? O! for the pen of a +Milton or a Pollock! But this would not suffice, because these questions +can only be answered at the Judgment Bar of God, when the secrets of all +hearts shall be made known.</p> + +<p>THEY WILL BE ANSWERED THEN.</p> + +<p>How many girls have innocently and <i>ignorantly</i> killed themselves, or +have sown the seed of some terrible lingering disease, by checking the +course of nature, by bathing or otherwise, in their preparation for the +ball room, which they would not have done to attend any other place? How +many women, all over the country, are suffering the pangs of death from +this cause alone?</p> + +<p>One of the handsomest and most accomplished girls I ever knew, at the +age of eighteen, ignorantly killed herself in this way. I know through +physicians of many others who have wrecked their health in the same way. +Let the invalids among the women tell their physicians the <i>truth</i>, and +then let the physicians and the <i>graves</i> speak out, and the world would +be horror-stricken at the awful report. Whiskey has slain its thousands, +but the ball, the hop, the dance, its tens of thousands.</p> + +<p>In this connection I wish to give young men some wholesome advice, +which, if observed, will keep them out of a great deal of trouble, and +save the payment of a great many bills. Whenever you hear that an old +clock, an old carriage, an old saw-mill, an old steamboat, or a woman or +girl who is <i>passionately</i> fond of dancing is on the market, be certain +to remain in bed or get the sheriff, which is much safer, to put you in +jail until these articles are disposed of. I respectfully refer to all +who have had any of these articles <i>knocked off on them</i>.</p> + +<p>When the ball closes, the young men take the girls to their homes. In a +little while the girls—darling angels—are in the land of dreams, but +they certainly never dream that they have been "sowing the seeds of +eternal shame, sowing the seeds of a maddened brain." They never dream +<i>that they are responsible for all the sins and crimes that flow from +the ball room</i>, BUT THEY CERTAINLY ARE, because if they would not go to +these places, there never would be another ball or hop or dance upon the +face of all the earth.</p> + +<p>MEN WILL NOT DANCE BY THEMSELVES.</p> + +<p>If they do, they will not injure any one but themselves, and they will +be certain not to keep late hours. While the girls are dreaming, the +young men are assembling at some favorite room or corner down in town. +If Jim gets there first he waits for Bill, and then they wait for Jack, +Bob, Ben, Charlie and the balance of the club. When they are all in, one +or two of the older ones propose to go across the way and take a drink +at the corner saloon, which is still in blast; yes, running at a full +head of steam, or rather mean whiskey. Now here is a very strange thing. +I have never heard of but one first-class saloon closing until after the +ball closed, and in this case the owner was very sick and the bar-tender +had skipped with the cash balance. Some of these boys have been taught +by their old-fogy fathers and mothers that such things are not to be +found on the straight and narrow road, because there is no <i>room</i> for +them along this road, <i>and no use for them either</i>.</p> + +<p>I have carefully examined my way-bill to heaven, and it was made out by +one who knows every foot of the way, but I find no mention made of +drinking saloons, ball rooms, theaters, operas, houses of ill-fame, and +<i>such like</i> places as being on or near this road. The same one has +furnished me a way-bill to hell, and I find all these places mentioned +as being on the line of this road. Whenever you find yourself, dear +reader, at one of these places, you may know beyond the shadow of a +doubt that you are not in the narrow road; and with equal certainty you +may know you are in the broad road. Now these boys are evidently on the +broad road, because the devil's sutler-shops are not to be found +anywhere else, for the very good reason that he cannot get a permit to +put them up on the narrow road. He would put them in the very center of +heaven if he possibly could. His impudence and daring is only equaled by +his fathomless corruption. The man or woman who will dare to say that +these places are found on the road to heaven, certainly has a very poor +idea of heaven and its inhabitants. If they are to be found along the +straight and narrow way, and the travelers along this way are to enter +and participate in the things therein going on, then they are certainly +designed of God to <i>aid in the salvation of immortal souls</i>. If this be +true, on entering the narrow way the first refreshments we shall get are +to be found in one of these places, having this sign over the door; +"FIRST CHANCE," and the last thing we pass in this life, just before we +enter heaven, will be another one of these houses with this inscription +over the door: "LAST CHANCE." Some of these boys don't understand it +this way; they have been raised to think that "<i>there is no harm in +dancing</i>," but were never told that the dancing shops of all kinds are +on the same road with all the drinking saloons and other places of a +like character. No, the same parents told their sons that the drinking +saloon is next door to hell, and these are the ones we read about in the +Bible, who "strain at a gnat and swallow a camel." That is to say, in +those days when Christ was on earth, there were some people so +peculiarly constituted that they strained at a gnat and swallowed a +camel; but we live in an age of improvement, an age in which some people +strain at a gnat, and swallow a Jumbo with perfect ease and in the most +graceful manner.</p> + +<p>I know an advocate of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, who often +dances all night, most <i>gracefully</i>, and in the morning she turneth up +her little nose, just as <i>gracefully</i> as the elephant turneth up his +snout when Peck's bad boy has thrown him a piece of tobacco, <i>at the +awful drinking saloon and saloon keepers</i>. The private parlor dance is +the beginning, the first depot on the great air-line route from this +world to the city of destruction; here the boys and men are drawn into +the coaches by the general passenger agents: the MOTHERS, WIVES, +DAUGHTERS, SISTERS and SWEETHEARTS. This line is advertised as the +finest and best equipped road beneath the sun. Fine sleepers; all the +way through, without change. Special guarantee against accidents. This +road is laid with smooth, glass rails, and the wheels are made of India +rubber. Drinking saloons, beer gardens, and some other places I'll not +mention, are the wood yards and tanks, where fuel and water is procured +which gets up the steam that draws the train with increasing velocity +down to the great city of destruction. When the train stops for wood and +water, all the passengers are expected to take part in the very +interesting and social performance. But here are same boys who beg to be +excused. "Can't excuse you," cries the brakesman. "Come along, you can +take a small <i>stick</i> in the way of a cigar;" and so these boys, not +wishing to appear ugly and incur the ill will of the brakesman, walk +into a saloon for the first time. They first take a cigar, but soon the +brakesman (an old stager) laughs them to scorn and confusion, and not +being able to stand the fire, they throw down the cigar and take their +<i>first drink in a drinking saloon</i>. After the drinks have been repeated +a few times, one of the brakesmen, well under the influence of whiskey +or wine, takes a careful look at all present, and if satisfied there is +no relative or sweetheart in hearing, he then and there tells an +<i>anecdote</i> on one of the nice girls or married ladies with whom they +have been dancing, that certainly would bring the blush of shame to the +cheeks of the blackest devil that inhabits the world of outer darkness. +The drink, and anecdotes of the same character, <i>only worse, if +possible</i>, are repeated until interrupted by the appearance of a +half-witted looking young man, entering from a back door, who seems to +have something of great importance to tell the bartender. He talks low, +but sufficiently loud to be heard by the boys, for it is really for +their ears. "Have you heard the news?" "No, what news." "Why, about Bill +Jones; he went in back here to-night with only five dollars for a stake, +and he has just now gone home with <i>five hundred dollars</i> in his +pocket." Then the boys slide out, and as soon as out in a dark corner, +they begin to enquire to see if a stake can be raised among them, +finding none, one or two being confidential clerks, go to the store, +bank or other place of business, and <i>borrow</i> fifteen or twenty dollars, +having no doubt of their ability to win a few hundred dollars in a +little while, and then replace the <i>borrowed</i> money without it ever +being known. Soon the <i>borrowed</i> stake is in the hands of the dealer. +They repeat the drinks, and then <i>borrow</i> some more in the same way, +which goes into the same hands as the first, and thus they continue +until the appearance of day-light, and then reeling to and fro under the +influence of the mean whiskey they have been drinking, and the ponderous +weight of their sins and crimes, they go to their rooms, cursing the day +on which they were born.</p> + +<p>THEY HAVE LOST ALL SELF-RESPECT.</p> + +<p>They are now at sea without chart or compass. When a man or woman loses +their self-respect, they are moral wrecks. "WANDERING STARS." There is +nothing left to build upon. It is from this cause that thousands commit +suicide, both men, women, and girls. It is the continual gnawings of the +conscience over the secret sins and crimes they have not the moral +courage to confess. Like the hidden spark of fire in a bale of cotton, +it continues its ravages until the whole bale is reduced to ashes. This +will account in great measure for the hundreds and thousands of +<i>unaccountable</i> suicides of to-day, which are principally confined to +the young of both sexes.</p> + +<p>I do not mean to say that all the young men go to drinking saloons as +soon as they carry their girls home, or as soon as the ball or dance is +over. No, many of them go to other places, such as are described in the +5th chapter of Proverbs. <i>Men will not deny this</i>. Who caused these men +to go to these places? Shall I answer? Shall I tell the truth? If I do, +I must say it is the virtuous wives, daughters, sisters and sweethearts, +who have been participating in the dance. <i>Every man knows that this is +true</i>. Let every honest physician send in a report of all his male +patients, giving the disease of each and the cause, and then let us have +a correct report from the dead of the same kind, and I am confident that +no husband, father or brother would ever permit his wife, daughter or +sister to be seen at a ball or dance. HUSBANDS, FATHERS, BROTHERS, your +wives, daughters and sisters do not know these things, <i>but you do know +them</i>, and now that your eyes are open, will you, can you, as a husband, +father or brother, ever permit the females under your care to even take +the chance of being RECRUITING OFFICERS for these sinks of perdition, +THESE ANTE-CHAMBERS OF HELL. These places, dripping with the blood of +hundreds and thousands of young and middle-aged men, who, but for their +enchantment, might have been good and true men, and have filled +honorable graves. These places have broken the hearts of thousands of +wives, mothers and: sisters, when they have seen their loved ones bound +in the fetters and chains of eternal death. These funnels, through which +thousands and millions of souls of both men and women have been poured +into an endless hell.</p> + +<p>I have tried to furnish fair samples of the fruit of dancing, if I have +failed, it is an error of the head and not of the heart. It may be said +by some that I have occupied forbidden ground in writing a book to be +read by the public generally. In reply I can only say that I have simply +<i>followed the varmint to his hiding place</i>. I have not used any stronger +or more indecent language than was used by Jesus Christ, and God forbid +that I should ever be guilty of the sacrilege of saying or even thinking +that Jesus Christ was <i>vulgar</i> or wanting in <i>refinement</i>; that ever I +should say of and concerning Him: "<i>I am holier than Thou</i>." If the +things I have herein mentioned have flowed from the ball room, if I have +stated FACTS, and <i>I know that I have</i>, you should not get mad at me, +but get mad at the <i>facts</i>. If a man lends a helping hand in removing a +<i>dead dog</i> from the yard, it is not the man that is indecent, <i>it is the +dead dog</i>. The man shows his decency and kindness by condescending to +give aid in removing the stench from the premises, and no one but a +contemptible <i>snipe dude</i> would stand off and turn up his nose and call +the man indecent and vulgar. If I am wrong, I rejoice to know that I am +in the best company on earth, for the whole religious world, with a +<i>few</i> exceptions, regards dancing as an enemy to good morals, and as +<i>destructive to all spirituality</i>, because it is productive of so much +evil and NO GOOD. Who upon all the earth has the opportunity of knowing +the true inwardness of dancing like the Catholic priests and bishops? +Who ever held and used such a <i>probing instrument</i> as the CONFESSIONAL? +Who on this earth can come as near knowing all the acts and deeds, yea, +and the very <i>thoughts</i>, that do pass through the minds and hearts of +men, women, boys and girls, as the Catholic priests and bishops can know +of and concerning those under their charge? Arch-Bishop J. Henry William +Elder, Co-Adjutor to the Arch-Bishop of Cincinnati, has issued a +circular letter to the clergy in his Diocese, from which I take this +very significant clipping:</p> + +<p>"THERE MUST BE NO ROUND DANCING AT ANY TIME, AND NO DANCING OF ANY KIND +AFTER DARK."</p> + +<p>What meaneth then this blating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing +of the oxen which I hear? Why does Arch-Bishop Elder inhibit the round +dance even in <i>day-light</i>? Mr. and Mrs. ECHO and their girls and boys +will please answer <i>why</i>? And why has he inhibited <i>all kinds</i> of +dancing after dark? Will some member of the same family please rise and +explain?</p> + +<div class='poem'><div class='stanza'> +<span>"Oh wad some power the giftie gie us,<br /></span> +<span>To see oursels as ithers see us."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>While this circular letter has an existence upon earth, let all +<i>so-called</i> Protestants and their friends, who say "<i>There is no harm in +dancing</i>," and who participate in dancing of <i>any kind at any time or +place</i>, or who simply attend such places, or who remain at a place after +it has been turned into a dance, (for the aiders and abettors of crime +are just as guilty as their principals), hang their heads for very +shame, as poor old dog Tray hangeth his head when caught in company with +sheep-killing dogs, and especially when some wool is found in his teeth. +Paul was present when Stephen, the first Christian martyr, was put to +death; he only held the clothes of those who cast the stones, but he was +just as guilty of murder as though he had cast the fatal missile, <i>by +his presence, and making no objection he was consenting to the crime</i>. +To have relieved himself of the blood of Stephen, he should not have +gone to the place where the murder was committed, if he knew, or had +good reason to know, that a crime was to be committed. If he had gone +there with the belief that it was an <i>innocent, harmless</i> gathering, and +after getting there he saw their murderous intent, he should at least +have left immediately and thus have withdrawn all his influence and +supposed sympathy with the criminals. The holding of their clothes did +not make him guilty, but was only <i>cumulative</i> evidence of the murderous +intent in his heart.</p> + +<p>Reader, if you go to a ball or dance, knowing it to be such, you are a +participant in all the sins and crimes which would not have been +committed, if such ball or dance had never been. So if the gathering be +for a <i>sinless, harmless</i> purpose, and you find, after arriving at the +place, that there is to be a dance, and you do not leave immediately, +you will be just as guilty as though you had gone with full knowledge of +what was to be. The encouragement and endorsement of your presence makes +you just as guilty as those who join in the dance. There is no +difference, except in degree, between the select parlor dance and the +masquerade ball, because the one is the stepping stone to the other. Not +one in ten thousand have done their first dancing at the masquerade +ball, just as not one in ten thousand ever took their first drink of +whiskey in a drinking saloon. But let it be remembered that hundreds of +thousands have taken their first drink of wine or whiskey at a ball or +dance.</p> + +<p>One of the greatest sins committed by children and young people is +<i>disobedience to parents.</i> It is one of the greatest, because it is one +of the first, and because if cultivated it becomes a cesspool of +iniquity. It is a pandora box, out of which ten thousand troubles, +trials, difficulties, sins and crimes will come. I claim that the <i>love</i> +of dancing is the most fruitful source of <i>disobedience to parents</i> to +be found beneath the sun, because it becomes a <i>ruling passion</i>. If +anything will cause a child to disobey its parents, it is to forbid them +going to a ball or dance when their heart is set upon it. <i>They go and +then deny it</i>. For all the disobedience brought about in this way, the +parents are generally far more to blame than the children because it is +the parents' fault that they have ever learned to dance. Some parents +have an idea that dancing is a necessary branch of education, that it +makes their children <i>graceful</i>, but never look far enough down the line +to see that they are opening the way to <i>graceful</i> disobedience, +<i>graceful</i> liars, <i>graceful</i> thieves, <i>graceful</i> gamblers, <i>graceful</i> +drunkards, <i>graceful</i> prostitutes, <i>graceful</i> whoremongers and to every +sin and crime that men and women can commit beneath the sun. They are +opening the very gates of hell to their own children.</p> + +<p>MANY, if not all, of the following sins and crimes are committed at +<i>every dance, hop or ball,</i> and every one present, whether participating +in the dance or not, is equally guilty with the perpetrators of all the +sins and crimes, which would not have been committed if there had been +no such gathering:</p> +<br /> + +<p>SAMPLES OF FRUIT FOUND ON THE TREE OF DANCING:</p> + +<p>ENVY.</p> + +<p>JEALOUSY.</p> + +<p>PRIDE.</p> + +<p>DECEIT.</p> + +<p>DISOBEDIENCE TO PARENTS</p> + +<p>BACKBITING.</p> + +<p>STRIFE.</p> + +<p>HATRED.</p> + +<p>LASCIVIOUSNESS.</p> + +<p>EMULATION.</p> + +<p>SEDITION.</p> + +<p>LYING.</p> + +<p>THEFT.</p> + +<p>DRUNKENNESS.</p> + +<p>SABBATH BREAKING.</p> + +<p>GAMBLING.</p> + +<p>EMBEZZLEMENT.</p> + +<p>SUICIDE.</p> + +<p>VULGARITY.</p> + +<p>FORNICATION.</p> + +<p>ADULTERY.</p> + +<p>OBSCENITY.</p> + +<p>EXTRAVAGANCE.</p> + +<p>DIVORCE.</p> + +<p>LUNACY.</p> + +<p>WANTONNESS.</p> + +<p>CRUELTY.</p> + +<p>IDOLATRY.</p> + +<p>PERJURY.</p> + +<p>SEDUCTION.</p> + +<p>PROSTITUTION.</p> + +<p>ABORTION.</p> + +<p>INFANTICIDE.</p> + +<p>ASSASSINATION.</p> + +<p>MURDER.</p> + +<p>"AND SUCH LIKE."</p> + +<p>Every honest man is compelled to admit that these sins and crimes are +the <i>natural fruit of dancing</i>; THAT THESE THINGS DO FLOW FROM THE +DANCE. I frankly admit that all these sins and crimes may and do come +from other sources, but I challenge the world to point to any <i>one</i> +thing that produces as many of these sins and crimes as the dance. The +drinking saloon is a prolific source of evil, but not one-half as much +as the dance, for it must be borne in mind that <i>men only</i> attend the +saloons, and that many of them are sent there <i>from the ball room</i>, and +many, who never would have seen the inside of a drinking saloon but for +the ball or dance. <i>The ball is a feeder for drinking saloons, gambling +saloons, and houses of ill-fame.</i></p> + +<p>I have delivered this lecture on dancing in seven States, before about +one hundred congregations, numbering from three hundred to ten thousand +people. I have called on all the men, old and young, saint and sinner, +at nearly every place, to give an expression of opinion from what they +had seen themselves, or what they had heard from those who had attended +balls, hops, and such like places, as to the correctness or +incorrectness of my charges against the dance, and out of I think not +less than fifty thousand men, I have never found but SEVEN who stood up, +thereby saying they did not believe that the sins and crimes I had +mentioned had ever flowed from the ball room, while nearly all the +balance stood up before their wives, daughters, sisters, and +sweethearts, saying that they do believe, from what they <i>know, and have +seen</i> and have heard from those who attend balls and hops, that these +sins and crimes are the natural fruit of all kinds of dancing, where the +sexes dance together. A few, perhaps one in twenty, kept their seats, +not expressing their opinion either way. Of this class I think I may +safely say that <i>four-fifths</i> failed to understand my proposition, or +thought it not necessary to rise; but if they had stood up, they would +have been with the affirmative. While I am not an apologist for saloon +keepers and gamblers, I want to record the fact right here that I have +had more or less of them in my congregations, at nearly every place +where I talked on this subject, and I have never known one, no, not one, +to keep his seat when an expression of opinion was called for, and not +one was found among the <i>immortal seven</i>.</p> + +<p>There are many men worse at heart than gamblers and saloon keepers. If +they and their families were treated by the Christian people with more +kindness, and less like they were outcasts, hundreds and thousands of +them would become Christians. I do not claim that all who attend dancing +parties, balls, and hops are ruined, but I do claim that <i>all who attend +such places take part in the eternal disgrace and ruin of others.</i> There +is not a man or woman among the living, or the dead, who has made a +practice of attending such places, but that has the blood of one or more +<i>lost souls</i> upon their garments, <i>and there it must remain throughout +the ceaseless ages of</i> ETERNITY, <i>unless it be washed away</i> BY THE BLOOD +OF JESUS CHRIST.</p> + +<p>My sainted mother and my wife have attended and participated in the +dance, but, like hundreds and thousands of girls and women of to-day, +they never had the most distant idea that the dancing party or ball was +a cesspool of iniquity, for, had they known the things brought to light +in this little book, they never would have made one step in that +direction. I believe that God has forgiven them, because, like Paul, +they did it ignorantly. "I obtained mercy, because I did it +<i>ignorantly</i>."—I. Tim. 1-13. Reader, if you ever go to one of these +places after your eyes have been opened, as they must be now, you cannot +plead <i>ignorance</i>, but you will sin <i>wilfully</i> and <i>knowingly.</i> See Heb. +10: 26, 27.</p> + +<p>Those who are turned into the paths of shame, of vice, and of crime, are +described in the Bible in the following terrible language, and where +could a better description be found? "Woe unto them! for they have gone +in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for +reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core. These are <i>spots</i> in +your feasts of charity when they feast with you, <i>feasting themselves +without fear.</i> Clouds they are without water, <i>carried about of winds</i>, +trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by +the roots. <i>Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own</i> SHAME; +<i>wandering</i> STARS to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness +forever."—Jude, 11, 12, 13.</p> + +<p>Mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, if there is a doubt left in your +minds as to the charges made against dancing, will you do yourselves, +and those under your influence, the justice to ask your husbands, +fathers and brothers to read this little book, and give you their +<i>honest opinions</i>?</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>VERDICT.</p> + +<p>This is to certify that I have carefully read this little book, and give +it as my honest conviction—from what I have seen and what I have heard +from those who have attended dancing parties, balls and hops—that the +charges and specifications are true, and believing them to be true, I +here promise to use all my influence against <i>all kinds</i> of dancing, +while I live on earth.</p> + +<p>(Here Sign Name.).............................</p> + +<p>Try and get four others to sign with you.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>If this little book should be of benefit to any one, I would like to +know it. As it is my intention to get out a second edition, I desire to +collect all <i>the facts</i> I can in support of the charges and +specifications against dancing. Ministers of the Gospel, physicians, and +fathers and mothers, can render me great assistance if they will.</p> + +<p><i>Names of correspondents will not be published without special +permission</i>.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<h5>There is No Harm in Dancing.</h5> + + +<table align='center' border='0' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary=''> +<tr><td align='center'>Single Copy, Paper Cover,</td><td align='center'>25 cts.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>Single Copy, Cloth Cover,</td><td align='center'>30 cts.</td></tr></table> +<br /> + +<p>Liberal discount to Pastors and Dealers.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>HARVEST BELLS, No. 2.</p> + +<p>A New Sabbath School Song Book, just published.</p> + +<p>Suitable also for Revivals.</p> + +<p>The <i>most popular</i> Song Book ever offered to the public.</p> + + +<table align='center' border='0' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary=''> +<tr><td align='center'>Single Copy,</td><td align='center'>$ .30.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>Per Dozen,</td><td align='center'>3.00.</td></tr></table> + + +<p>LIBERAL DISCOUNT TO DEALERS.</p> + +Address:<br /> +W. E. PENN,<br /> +PALESTINE, TEXAS.<br /> + +<br> +<br> +<hr class="full" noshade> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THERE IS NO HARM IN DANCING***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 14183-h.txt or 14183-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/1/8/14183">https://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/1/8/14183</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: +<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL">https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL</a> + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** +</pre> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/old/14183.txt b/old/14183.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c07a121 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/14183.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1672 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, There is No Harm in Dancing, by W. E. Penn, +et al + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: There is No Harm in Dancing + +Author: W. E. Penn + +Release Date: November 27, 2004 [eBook #14183] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THERE IS NO HARM IN DANCING*** + + +E-text prepared by Susan Skinner from images in the American Memory +Collection of the Library of Congress + + + +Note: Images of the original pages are available in the American + Memory Collection of the Library of Congress. See + http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html + + + + + +THERE IS NO HARM IN DANCING + +by + +W. E. PENN + +With an Introduction by Rev. J.H. STRIBLING, D.D. + +St. Louis, Mo. +Lewis E. Kline, Publisher and Bookseller. + +1884 + + + + + + + +"Buy the TRUTH and sell it not; also WISDOM and INSTRUCTION and +UNDERSTANDING."--PROV. 23-23. + +"There is a way that SEEMETH right unto a man, but the end thereof are +the ways of DEATH."--PROV. 14-25 + + + + + +This little book is respectfully and kindly dedicated to all Husbands, +Fathers and Brothers, who love their Wives, Daughters and Sisters, by + +THE AUTHOR. + + + + +PREFACE. + +During the past seven years I have delivered the substance of the +foregoing Lecture on Dancing, as a part of my work as an Evangelist, +before not less than one hundred thousand people. I have been requested +by hundreds of FATHERS and mothers, young men and girls, HUSBANDS and +BROTHERS, and pastors of churches to publish the Lecture in the form of +a book, that its influence may be extended to fields I shall never +visit. It is in compliance with these requests that the little book is +written, with the hope that at least some good may result in begetting +and fostering a better state of morals in our day and generation, and in +checking the terrible increase of crime which is rolling over the earth +like a mighty wave of the ocean. If I shall ever hear that this little +book has had some humble part in stopping one poor soul from taking one +more step down the "BROAD ROAD," _or that it has done any good in the +world_, I shall feel well paid for all the time and trouble it has cost +me in getting it into the hands of the printer. Most of persons speaking +or writing on the subject of the dance, are "_hear-say_" witnesses, but +I profess to having been an "_eye-witness_," which I propose to prove by +all the _bad_ men, or those who have been _bad_ men, who may carefully +read this book. Their verdict will be: "HE HAS BEEN THERE." + +While I believe that hundreds of thousands of fathers and mothers, +husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, and pastors, and Christians, +will bless the day this little book was written, and will offer many +earnest prayers for the author, I shall expect many Othellos to curse me +with all the bitterness of their souls, because I hope it may be said +wherever the book is read: "OTHELLO'S OCCUPATION IS GONE." + +THE AUTHOR. + + + + +INTRODUCTION. + +Major W.C. Penn, the author of the following treatise on the modern +dance, has requested the writer to pen a few thoughts introductory to a +theme he has presented with such pith and power to listening thousands +in his travels as an Evangelist. + +Various inquiries have been made as to how Major Penn, a lawyer in a +lucrative practice, and with all the attractions of wealth and of fame +before him, and in a quiet, lovely and elegant home, with a wife who has +ever been as a guardian angel to his pathway, was led to change his +vocation to that of a wandering Evangelist, and how it is that he now +stands before the world beside Knapp, and Earle, and Moody, and other +world-renowned Evangelists of the 19th century, in leading multitudes to +Christ as a Savior? + +It is answered and centered in the sublime truth: "The love of Christ +constraineth us." As the stars are dimmed and lost sight of in the +brilliancy of the rising sun, so earthly pleasures, riches and honors +fade and dwindle in the glory of the Cross. As God was pleased to use +the writer as an instrument in getting brother Penn into this work, so +it seemed proper that a few incidents and facts which led to it, as +remembered in our associations together, should be stated. + +It was in Jefferson, Texas, where our brother then resided, that I first +saw him, in May, 1874, during the session of the Southern Baptist +Convention, at that place. But it was in June, the year after, at his +own home and during a series of meetings in the Baptist Church, that I +began to know more of him, as he brought up in our social interviews a +review of his life religiously--as he told of the time when, in the +ardor and vigor of youth, in Tennessee, at a meeting, he sought to defy +and brave a gospel message from the venerable brother James Hurt, by +taking a front seat; and then how his soul was convulsed and his heart +melted, as God's message wrenched the bolted door of that heart; how he +struggled with the agonies of conviction for sin, during the long, weary +hours of night; and how the joys of pardoning love through Christ came +to his soul with the brightness of the morning. As these conversations +were reviewed, he told of frequent backslidings, and how far away from +God he had been. Then he told of some things he had done in the Sunday +School and in the Church, and then at times gave his opinion as to the +best way of conducting a series of meetings and other things pertaining +to Christ's Kingdom. During these conversations the question was asked: +"Bro. Penn, are you satisfied and sure that you are in full discharge of +your duty?" After a pause he replied, as if conscience was awakened: + +"No Sir. I am not satisfied, and have not been for years past." Then +said he: "You are the first man that ever asked me that question." Then +the writer made known some impressions about him that must have been +made by the spirit of God, for he never had just such an interest to +burden his heart previously, and that was that God had a peculiar and +wonderful work for him to do. "But," said Bro. Penn, "at my age, in my +profession and in my condition, I cannot believe it to be my duty to +preach the Gospel"--his age being at that time forty-two years. Among +other things said at this time by the writer, as he now remembers them +one was: That the Spirit of God leads and teaches us in strange ways, +often, as to what God would have us do, and that our methods of holding +meetings seemed to the writer as being deficient in some things, and +that the good of the cause required a change from the ruts and grooves +in which these meetings had been run, and that we were making our +services monotonous and chilling out spirituality by common methods of +conducting divine service, in protracted meetings. Another thought was: +That he and men like himself, as lawyers, that were given to talking and +that knew much of men and the world, if the love of Christ was burning +in their souls, might do a great work in going out and helping in such +meetings, even if they never engaged regularly in the ministry. + +But it was in Tyler, Texas, at a Sunday School Institute, in July, 1875, +that a new era was to dawn on Major Penn. + +It was a fixed impression in the mind of the pastor that there ought to +be a change in our manner of conducting revival services; that the time +had come to begin the work, and that Bro. Penn was the man to inaugurate +such a change. In prayer this matter was carried to the Lord for His +direction. It was a settled impression in the heart of the writer, as +pastor of the Baptist Church, that the Church and community needed a +series of meetings at this time. There were preachers present of +experience, piety and ability, and he had no doubt they would remain and +aid in such services if invited to do so. But contrary to what was a +common practice at the close of such meetings, and after imploring the +Lord to direct him, he could not, from his heart, ask any of these +preachers to stay and aid in a meeting. + +While singing the last song, at the close of the service on Sunday +night, the writer approached Major Penn, who had been aiding in the +singing, and said to him: "Bro. Penn, I am going to appoint a prayer +meeting at 9 o'clock in the morning, and as your train does not leave +until 2 o'clock to-morrow evening, I shall expect to see you at the +meeting; will you come?" To which he replied. "I have some business with +the clerk of the Federal Court, and if I get through in time, I will try +and be here." A prayer meeting was announced for 9 o'clock the next +morning. At the appointed hour a fair congregation had assembled, and a +few minutes after 9 o'clock Maj. Penn came in and took a seat not far +from the door. The writer approached him and said: "I want you to +conduct this meeting." He replied: "You must excuse me, I am a lawyer, +and do not believe in mixing things in this way. You conduct the meeting +or get one of those preachers sitting there to do it, and I will help in +singing or lead in prayer, if desired." To which the writer replied: "If +all the preachers in the world were here I could not permit one of them +to conduct this meeting, and I am not physically able. You _must_ do +it." To which he answered. "Very well, I will conduct a prayer meeting." + +The meeting was opened as is usual, when Brother Penn arose and read a +portion of the 20th chapter of John, and then talked about fifteen +minutes, which seemed to awaken a very deep interest throughout the +entire congregation. At the close of this talk quite a number of wives, +fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters arose one after another and in +great earnestness asked prayer for their loved ones. While singing the +last song, the writer asked Brother Penn to remain and conduct a service +at night, which he positively refused to do, saying that he must go +home. Whereupon the writer publicly entered a protest against his +leaving. Sister Penn and others of the company from Jefferson +consenting, he agreed to remain one more day. At night the house was +crowded, and great interest manifested by Christians and by many +unconverted. A prayer meeting was announced for 9 o'clock the next +morning. At this meeting the house was well filled, with a decided +increase of interest. One or two conversions-and a number of inquiries +were made. + +At the close of this meeting the writer said to Brother Penn, "You +cannot leave this meeting, it will never do, there never has been such +an interest in this town since I have been here." To which he replied "I +am bound to go home, I have no partner and no one to attend to my +business." The writer then arose, and in the name of the Lord Jesus +Christ entered another solemn protest against his leaving, saying: "I +believe before God that it is Bro. Penn's solemn duty to remain here and +carry on this meeting, and it is my firm conviction that if he leaves he +will commit the great sin of his life, and I call upon every member of +this church and of this congregation, who will join me in this protest, +to stand up." The entire congregation were standing in a moment. He then +said to the writer privately: "I tell you I am bound to go home; I +promised my wife yesterday that I would be certain to go home with her +to-day, and I know that she is bound to go home." The writer said: "Bro. +Penn, you are mistaken; Sister Penn would not have you leave this +meeting to go home with her. She will go with the young people." He then +went to where his wife was sitting and said to her: "I promised you +yesterday that I would go home with you to-day, and I am going to do +it." Sister Penn looked up in his face with tearful eyes and trembling +lips, and said, as only a true, noble hearted Christian woman could have +said: "I can go home with the young people, I do not think you ought to +go." This seems to have been the last hair that broke the camel's back. +We have seen many striking photographs of the Major as taken by artists +in his travels, and in various attitudes, but a picture delineating his +features on this occasion would be preferable to all others. + +As he rose to respond to the protest of the pastor, Church and +congregation, with his head thrown back, his eyes dilated, his lips +quivering, his voice stammering and tears coursing their way down his +cheeks, he tried to give expression to his astonishment and the deep +emotion of his heart; he seemed to realize that it was _God's call_, and +that he could not resist it. + +It was circulated through the town that a _lawyer_, and not a +_preacher_, was to conduct services at the Baptist Church. Some thought +it a strange freak in the pastor to suggest, and in the Church to +approve such a thing. Various opinions were freely expressed as to the +leader in these services. Then it was spoken in low tones of voice among +some good people, in substance, after this fashion: "Did you ever hear +of such a thing? Here are preachers all over the country that we know, +good men, who can preach the gospel, and here they've called in a +_lawyer to carry on the meeting_. Lord have mercy on us, what are we +coming to any how?" + +At every street corner and place of business, in the saloons, offices +and homes throughout Tyler, Maj. Penn and the services were discussed, +while his Satanic Majesty and his allies were busy in trying to cripple +and crush the good effects. A mighty and irresistable attraction drew +crowds to the house of God. + +At times it was apparent that the leader was embarrassed; now and then +fretted and and chafed; then at a loss what to say or do; and more than +once was he tempted to say he would leave the meeting; and that he had +not remained there to be slandered and persecuted. But he was reminded +that the best of men had thus suffered, that God had furnaces through +which we must pass, to burn up the dross, and that in the midst of this +state of things the Church was being revived, wanderers brought back, +souls awakened and converted from day to day, and that he had the +sympathy, prayers and co-operation of many pious, devoted hearts. Again +the new leader, after wrestling in prayer for grace and direction, took +courage and was renewed by the spirit of God to go on in pulling down +the strong-holds of iniquity. But Satan was not yet overcome, he made +another powerful assault upon him. + +When the meeting had been in progress about ten days, abuse, +misrepresentation, lying, together with the basest and most contemptible +slanders, were hurled at him with unmeasured severity. It was a new +ordeal, and he was tempted stronger than ever to lay off his armor and +leave the meeting. He decided to go home, and so stated to the pastor, +saying: "You have already kept me here longer than any man on earth +could have done, and now I am determined to go." "Well," said the +pastor, "I am sorry to hear it, and believe you will commit a great +wrong, and will incur the displeasure of Almighty God in leaving here at +this time, and still further, I beg you to bear in mind this truth, that +duty never points in two ways. If it is your duty to be in Jefferson +practicing law, then it is not your duty to remain here and carry on +this meeting. God only can guide you aright." This conversation occurred +in the afternoon. At night the Major was in his place, and said to the +large congregation: "My friends, I have heard to-day of so many +slanderous reports about me that I determined to go home, but +remembering that so persecuted they the prophets, which were before me, +and that they persecuted my Master even unto death, I have only to say: +'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do?' I shall go on +with the meeting, 'looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of my +faith,' to sustain, protect and guide me in all things." It was, +perhaps, the drinking of this cup of persecution that passed our brother +across the Rubicon, that burned all the bridges behind him and caused +him to bow in humble submission to the will of Almighty God. + + "'Tis ever so thy faithful love + Does all thy children's graces prove; + 'Tis thus our pride and self must fall + That Jesus may be all in all." + +As the meeting continued, and as the scores and hundreds came together +"at the sound of the church-going bell," from day to day the leader +seemed to develop in power from God to move, melt and sway the hearts of +the listening crowds, as he sung and prayed and talked "of Jesus and his +dying love." After more than five weeks' continuance, the services +closed. Scores were converted, many valuable additions were made to the +Church, Christians were renewed and developed in piety of heart and +life, and the leavening and saving power of the Gospel was extended +through the town and surrounding country. + +This meeting was the beginning and earnest of the blessings and success +that has attended Bro. Penn's labors for more than nine years past, +while in his life we see that, + + "Defects thro' nature's best productions run. + The saints have spots, and spots are in the sun, + And that he, with all of Adam's race, + Are only 'sinners' saved by grace." + +Yet we rejoice and praise God for what has been manifested in his growth +and development in his work mentally and spiritually, for the life, +power and efficiency infused into our churches by his ministrations--for +his rebukes, exposures and denunciations of sin, in and out of the +Church; for holding up Christ at all times, as the only hope of lost +sinners; for tearing away the mask of a heartless formality in the +profession and practice of religion; for the thousands of all classes +and ages in the forests and prairies of Texas, where he has pitched his +great gospel tent, and in the cities of Galveston, Houston, San Antonio, +Dallas, Ft. Worth, Mobile, Memphis, Louisville, St. Louis, and in the +cities of California, in scores of crowded places of worship; in smaller +towns and in the country, who have been brought to Christ as lost +sinners through his instrumentality; and that at all times and through +his whole ministry he has declared "the whole counsel of God," and made +no compromises with error and heresy. + +As to the disquisition of Maj. Penn, which frowns on the modern dance, +we ask for it a careful reading and an honest and practical application +of its facts, arguments and illustration, as the prize, practical essay +of the age on this subject, so far as is known. That it is clear, +pointed and overwhelming in its exposures of the evils and crimes, the +corruptions and abominations of the modern dance is confirmed by +experience and observation. + +Let every lover of the dance, every friend of morals and of religion, +and each professing Christian, read and circulate this production among +all classes of men and women. + +And may the blessings of God attend it's circulation, as it may be +scattered into thousands of homes, and an increasing blessing attend its +author and his labors. + +J. H. STRIBLING, + + Rockdale, Texas. October 14, 1884. + + + + +"There is No Harm in Dancing." + + + "Every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree + bringeth forth evil fruit."--Matt. 7, 17. + +If "THERE IS NO HARM IN DANCING," it must be a good tree, and if it is a +good tree, we shall be certain to find that it bears good fruit, and if +we find the fruit hanging on its boughs to be sound and wholesome food +for the _physical, mental_ and _spiritual_ man, we should strive to have +these trees planted in all our homes, our churches, Sabbath-schools, +school-houses, colleges, seminaries, or other institutions of learning. +But if we find the fruit injurious, to either the physical, mental or +spiritual, to such a degree that its injurious effects are not overcome +and destroyed by the benefits conferred upon us by the other two, it +should be condemned by every friend of humanity. + +Every tree should be cut down, and every dealer regarded as an enemy to +his race. Some trees are very tall and _graceful_, and dressed in +beautiful foliage, but the fruit is deadly poison. Some trees are not +comely to look upon, but the fruit very good and wholesome. So it is not +the tree, but the fruit, to which we must look. Some fruit may be very +bad but not dangerous to society, because of the very small quantity on +the market, and because it is not good to the _taste_, but little, if +any, of it is used. But this is not the case with dancing, for there is +a large quantity of it on hand all the time, and a great deal of it is +used, because it is _palatable_ to the _natural_ taste of men and women. +The demand is always far greater than the supply. + +This fruit being so very popular, of such great demand, we must conclude +that, as it is bound to be either good or bad, it must be _very_ good, +or _very_ bad. Now, reader, before we proceed to examine this fruit, +please do the author and yourself the justice to sign your name to the +following vow: + +"I do _solemnly vow_ that I will carefully read the following pages as +nearly as possible free from all _prejudice_ and _partiality, with a +desire to know the truth_, and that I will a true verdict render, +according to the honest conviction of my own mind and heart. + +"(Here sign name.)________________" + +When and where are the trees of dancing to be found? They grow in the +night and generally perish with the darkness when the morning light +appears. + + "This is the condemnation that light is come into the world, and + men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were + evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light; neither + cometh to the light lest his deeds should be reproved."--John + 3-19-20. + +The trees are to be found in many private residences, dancing schools, +dancing academies, seminaries and colleges, where our girls are +educated; in public halls, in side shows, in some of our _so-called_ +churches, in beer shops, beer gardens, variety theatres, music halls and +houses of ill-fame. In the five last-mentioned these trees grow much +taller, larger and more luxuriant than anywhere else, because it is +supposed by _naturalists_ that they are more indigenous to this kind of +soil. In these places those are the favorite trees, the trees admired +above all others, because of the fruit they bear. Why the virtuous and +the vulgar are so fond of the same fruit, I shall not try to explain. I +must leave this knotty, ugly problem to be solved by _wiser_ and more +experienced heads than mine. I asked the proprietors and proprietresses +of these last-mentioned places where they procured the sprouts from +which all these great trees had grown; these trees that have grown so +tall and strong, and the bark so thick, that they do not vanish with the +darkness when the morning light appears, but grow and flourish in the +brightest day, _even better on_ SUNDAYS _than any other time_. + +They all, without a dissenting voice, made answer and said: "_The seeds_ +were planted in the decent, respectable parlors, generally among the +polished and refined people of the towns and cities--were watered and +cultivated by the fathers and mothers, and then transplanted into the +dancing schools, church festivals, and then they are removed to the +public halls, and here they are kept until the bark on _some_ of them +becomes hard enough to be carried to the beer gardens, masquerades, +variety theaters, music halls and other towns and cities in Sodom and +Gomorrah." + +Without the fascination for dancing, which is _germinated_ and +_cultivated_ in the private parlors among the _nice, respectable, +refined_ people, many of the largest towns and cities of Sodom and +Gomorrah would soon be depopulated. We next come to enquire who it is +that attends dancing parties, balls, hops, etc., and when they usually +break up. But one answer can be given, viz.: young men and young women, +together with young married people, with an occasional _sear and yellow +leaf repainted_. + +With a very few exceptions, dancing parties, balls and hops are made up +of young men and girls of every grade of society, from the poorest to +the wealthiest in the community. Now it must be admitted that there is +as great a desire in the hearts of the poor young men, and as great a +desire in the hearts of the girls of poor parentage to make a favorable +impression in society, as there possibly could be with the wealthier +classes. As a rule, it may be said that not more than one in twenty of +all who participate in dancing parties have a sufficient "cash balance" +to gratify their pride in the purchase of the supposed necessary outfits +in clothing, jewelry, etc., without any misgivings as to the future +comforts and necessaries of life. + +When we consider the large number of young men, young husbands and +fathers and mothers who are not able, in justice to themselves and those +looking to and relying upon them for a support, to keep pace with the +rich in their extravagance, and that all must come together on the same +floor, in the same room and pass in review before the merciless critics +always to be found in the ball room, and find that the weakest and most +vulnerable points in human nature are here attacked by three of the +devil's most powerful armies, under command of three of his most +stratagetic and experienced generals--ENVY, JEALOUSY and WOUNDED +PRIDE--we may at once proceed to examine the fruit of dancing. Nearly +all of our young people are in love with some one, and not unfrequently +two or three or more are in love with the same one, or the lover +imagines that he or she has from one to a half dozen rivals, which is +the same to them as if it were true. It is often the case that an +engagement exists, or there is grave suspicion of its existence. A +dancing party or ball is in prospect. The same preparation must be made +by rich and poor. One young man who chanced to be born of rich or +well-to-do parents, and one young lady the same, order their outfits, +and they are paid for not unfrequently out of the usurious interest +wrung from the fathers and mothers of the poorer young men and girls. +Now the poorer and less able to purchase the necessary all outfits, +which are always costly, _must go_. They must go, because they _love_ +the dance. They are PASSIONATELY fond of it. + +They must go, or it may be said they could not go on account of their +poverty. They must go, in order to keep pace with their rivals, so as to +keep an eye on them, lest they be supplanted in their affections. These +are three powerful inducements. Without Divine aid they are irresistible +when brought to bear on the young. + +THEY MUST GO! + +THEY WILL GO! + +THEY DO GO! + +Here thousands of fathers and mothers have been compelled to yield to +the entreaties of their daughters, and sometimes their sons, in +purchasing costly apparel, jewelry, etc., when they knew they were not +able, outfits that never would have been needed but for the dance. +Hundreds of thousands of young men, with small salaries, in moderate +circumstances, have been induced, under this heavy pressure, to resort +to many dishonest devices in order to make the necessary preparations. +Clerks have sold goods above the market price and put the excess in +their pockets. They have often _borrowed_ money from their employer, +_without his knowledge_, small amounts, from day to day. They have +borrowed from friends by telling them they had money coming from an +estate, or friend or a debtor, which they knew to be false, and in the +same way, or by other false statements, have bought articles of +clothing, made large livery bills, which they knew would never be paid. +Many conceive the idea they can raise the desired amount at the gambling +table, and here do _their first_ gambling. Where one succeeds, at least +one hundred fail. Some raise the required amount by transferring a few +cows, yearlings, steers, a horse or a mule, to distant pastures; some +are caught and some are not. Those not caught are in a far worse +condition than those in the jail or in the penitentiary, because they +have been checked in their mad career, and the others are emboldened by +their escape to commit other and greater crimes. "Be sure your sins will +find you out." Yes, inexorable, unerring justice is on the track of all +evil-doers, and will be certain to overtake them sooner or later. +Hundreds of thousands of fathers and mothers, and young married people, +have been brought to poverty and misery; some, within my knowledge, to +alms-houses, by the heavy draws made upon them by their sons, daughters +and wives, in preparing for dancing parties and balls. For weeks before +the ball comes off--and here let it be understood that I mean the ball +to cover hops, dancing parties and all manner of dancing--the young +people are wild with excitement; they are almost wholly incapable of any +kind of business. All manner of domestic affairs are almost entirely +neglected by the girls and young wives. The bright anticipation of great +pleasure in the near future, turns some of their little shallow brains +up-side-down, and they are often seen in a sort of deep reverie, wearing +a blank gaze, having very much the appearance of poor unfortunate +idiots. If the father, mother, husband, brother or teacher speaks to +them, unless it be on the subject of the ball, they grin like a baboon +and snap like a mad dog. If we run on at the rate we are now going, it +will not be a great while until it may be found to be cheaper to build a +few asylums for the sane, and let the idiots and lunatics run at large. + +THE BALL. THE HOP. THE DANCE. + +IT IS ALL THE SAME. + +Well, the long looked for day has come; it is now 8 P.M., and the boys, +girls and young wives are in their rooms donning their new and costly +apparel, which has been bought, borrowed or _stolen_ in divers and +sundry ways. Some have been paid for, some will be paid for, and some +will remain open accounts until judgment day. The wealthy and those who +never pay their bills will be dressed in the costliest, richest apparel, +because only these classes can afford these luxuries. EXTREMES WILL +MEET. The young men go and bring in their girls, and when they get to +the door, they are met by the committee of reception, who politely show +the ladies a side room where they will go and lay off their wraps. The +young men go out into the corner of the yard or in the woods and lay off +their _wraps_--in the nature of a bottle of whiskey or brandy--or they +have left them in a buggy or carriage, or a room has been set apart for +this purpose, and the WRAPS have been provided before-hand, or they are +to be found in a convenient drinking saloon. + +THE WRAPS ARE THERE. + +The girls wear their wraps around them. The boys _wear_ themselves +around their wraps. These _wraps_ are brought into requisition as the +physical man begins to weaken under the excessive and unnatural +exercise. Unnatural, because the hours designed by God, our maker, to be +used in rest and sleep are appropriated to another and very different +purpose. Here the tempter discovers another weak point, and he makes the +attack. The great draw made upon the physical forces makes it +necessary--the tempter says--to use an artificial stimulant, which is +here often taken the first time, and which is not unfrequently repeated, +until many are so much under its influence and some get so drunk--no, +become so suddenly _indisposed_, that they have to be carried home. +These entertainments seldom break up until the light of the morning +begins to appear, but I will compromise on 2 o'clock, A.M. At 9 or 10 +o'clock, P.M., the performance begins, and I propose we shall _candidly_ +and _honestly_ examine this basket of fruit. Whether designed or not, it +is simply a fact that many of the girls and women are dressed in such a +way and manner as best and most successfully to excite the baser +passions of men. + +If the style of dress often, yea, nearly always, seen at the +_fashionable_ balls and dancing parties is wholly without any evil +design--innocently following a fashion--and if those who thus dress are +really ignorant of the effect it has upon the opposite sex, it is high +time their eyes were being opened. If this be only a fashion, and I want +to believe it is nothing more, but when I remember distinctly that this +manner of dressing for balls and dancing parties has been the fashion +for forty years and that it has never changed, _except to become a +little more so_, and that all other fashions have changed at least +twenty times, my belief staggers and hangs its head for very shame. This +fruit alone has sent hundreds of thousands of men, women and girls to +premature graves, dishonored graves, felons' cells, and to an endless +hell. That this semi-nude condition, in which many girls and women are +seen in the dance, has been productive of a vast deal of sin and crime, +no honest man certainly will deny. In the whirl of the gay and giddy +dance, we see: + + Strong men and women fair + Are now within the tempter's snare, + With arms around each slender waist, + Each woman held in _close embrace_. + + If all the _thoughts_ could be made known + Of seeds of crime which here are sown, + 'Twould cause the _hardest_ cheek to blush + And every _virtuous_ heart would crush. + + But so it is, and ere must be, + While men and women thus agree + _To tempt themselves, and others too_, + TO SINS AND CRIMES OF DEADLY HUE. + +The following is the experience of a lady whose name is withheld, but +who has distinguished herself in literature, and made a world-wide +reputation: + + "In those times I cared little for polka or varsovienne, and still + less for 'Money Musk' or 'Virginia Reel,' and wondered what people + could find to admire in these slow dances. But in the soft floating + of the waltz I found a strange pleasure, rather difficult to + intelligibly describe. The mere anticipation fluttered my pulse, + and when my partner approached to claim my promised hand for the + dance, I felt my cheeks glow a little sometimes, and I could not + look him in the eye with the same frank gayety as heretofore. + + "But the climax of my confusion was reached when, folded in his + warm embrace, and giddy with the whirl, a strange, sweet thrill + would shake me from head to foot, leaving me weak and almost + powerless, and really obliged to depend for support on the arm + which encircled me. If my partner failed, from ignorance, lack of + skill or innocence, to arouse these, to me, most pleasureable + sensations, I did not dance with him the second time. + + "I am speaking openly and frankly, and when I say that I did not + understand what I felt, or what were the real and greatest + pleasures I derived from this so-called dancing, I expect to be + believed. But if my cheeks grew red with uncomprehended pleasure + then, they grow pale to-day with shame when I think of it all. It + was the physical emotions engendered by the magnetic contact of + strong men that I was enamored of--not of the dance, not even of + the men themselves. + + "Thus I became abnormally developed in my lowest nature. I grew + bolder, and from being able to return shy glances at first, was + soon able to meet more daring ones, until the waltz became to me + and whomsoever danced with me, one lingering, sweet and purely + sensual pleasure, where heart beat against heart, hand was held in + hand and eyes looked burning words which lips dared not speak. + + "All this time no one said to me, 'You do wrong;' so I dreamed of + sweet words whispered during the dance, and often felt, while + alone, a thrill of joy indescribable, yet overpowering, when my + mind would turn from my study to remember a piece of temerity of + unusual grandeur on the part of one or another of my cavaliers. + + "Married now, with home and children around me, I can at least + thank God for the experience which will assuredly be the means of + preventing my little daughters from indulging in any such dangerous + pleasure. But if a young girl, pure and innocent in the beginning, + can be brought to feel what I have confessed to have felt, what + must be the experience of a married woman? She knows what every + glance of the eye, every bend of the head, every close clasp means, + and knowing that, reciprocates it, and is led by swifter steps and + a surer path down the dangerous, dishonorable road." + +I read in the Scripture, in that ever memorable sermon on the Mount, +this significant declaration: "Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust +after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." Some +may not receive this as sound doctrine, because it is the language of +Jesus Christ; but this will not give relief, because the _corrupting_ +influence would be just the same if Christ had never said one word about +it. Christ only gave the great sin a name by calling it adultery. It was +in this way the seed was sown in the heart of the Psalmist David that +caused him to commit one of the greatest crimes ever committed on earth. +See 2 Samuel, 11 Ch. In the same way the seed has been sown in the +hearts of thousands of men in the ball room, in the dances and in the +private parlors, which has ripened into disruptions of the marital +relations--has ripened into husbands murdering their wives, has ripened +into husbands losing their wives by elopement, has ripened into husbands +being murdered, has ripened into young men killing each other; and last, +though not least, has resulted in the utter ruin of hundreds of +thousands of the fair daughters of our land and country. Taking the +declarations of Jesus Christ as true, and no honest man can doubt it, +_there never was and never will be a dancing party or ball that the +great sin He referred to was not and will not be committed in the hearts +of some men_. + +Here permit me to ask an important question, and solemnly charge every +reader to make answer as upon oath: + +WITH WHOM IS THIS GREAT SIN COMMITTED? + +If common honesty compels fathers, husbands and brothers to admit these +things to be true, will you ever again permit your wives, your daughters +or your sisters to be found at one of these places, however decent the +people may be, while they are under your control? If you do, after your +attention has been called to the hideous deformity of the dance, God, +man and your own conscience will condemn you. Whatsoever of evil or +crime may be committed, unyielding justice, unmixed with mercy, will +certainly hold you responsible. This last objection to the dance will +hold and be just as good against the theaters and operas, because no one +will deny but that a special effort is generally made at these places to +excite the passions of men and women by an indecent exposure of their +persons. To say the least of it, Christians have no business at these +places. + +A Christian has no business at any place where he cannot go in the name +of Jesus Christ, because the Scripture says: "They shall walk up and +down in His name."--Zach., 10 ch. 12v. Micah, 4 ch. 5v.--"His name shall +be on their foreheads."--Rev., 22 ch. 4 v. "Ye are my witnesses."--Isa., +43 ch. 10 v. Can a Christian, a true follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, +"walk up and down" in a ball room in His _name_? Can a Christian go into +a ball room with the name of Jesus Christ written on his or her +forehead? If a man has His name written on his forehead, and he goes +into a ball room, theater, opera, or a drinking saloon, does he not, by +that act, hide the name of Jesus Christ? Can a Christian be a witness +for God in the ball room, theater, opera, or drinking saloon? _If not, +his testimony is false, and he is a perjured man!_ I have no doubt some +very nice people--_society people_--will be terribly _shocked_ at the +developments herein made. + +I was raised in the country, and I remember a varmint got to visiting +our poultry yard and carrying off those _roosting nearest the ground_, +which were generally our _improved blooded (society)_ chickens, and +whenever we would get after him, he would run down through a _very +muddy_ place, and take refuge in a hole in the bank of a creek. We +rather dreaded the task of following him through all this _mud and +filth_; but, as a last resort, rather than let him have all the poultry, +or allow him to continue his depredations at pleasure, we waded through +the mud down to his den and dug into his hiding place; and when he was +struck on the head with the back of a hoe, he too was _terribly +shocked._ + +Now this little animal was not, as may be supposed by some, one of the +"common or unclean," but he was one of the elite, a regular _society_ +mink. He was covered with very fine fur, but had his stomach filled with +stolen chickens. I leave the application to all to whom these presents +may come, GREETING. _When I want to buy a hat, I never take one unless +it fits me_. + +More or less of the girls participating in the dance are engaged to be +married, and great effort is made to keep this a profound secret, so she +very naturally has every man for a partner except her intended. Here is +music in the back-ground, if her intended is present, and he is sure to +be there if he is in striking distance--if he is not down with typhoid +fever or in prison. + +This music is in his heart, in the nature of clamoring for blood, by a +legion of different sized devils. It may be there is not one man in the +room that would have his girl under any consideration whatever, but he +imagines that they all want her. The female outfit for the ball consists +of girls and a number of young married women, and some a little older, +and some old women, forty to fifty years old, with grown children, false +teeth, false hair, and bloats to swell out their wrinkled cheeks, and +they, too, are dressed in the _fashion_ with red ribbons, and blue and +green; these furnish the _disgust_ for the occasion--and one of them has +been known to furnish disgust enough for a city of ten thousand +inhabitants, and of the very best quality. Let us return to the basket +containing the young married people, and examine the fruit therein. +Reader, did you ever see the young married woman watching her husband as +he glides up and down in the merry dance, _with an old sweetheart in his +arms?_ If you never did, the first opportunity you have, take a good +look at a cat's eyes in the dark and in imagination transfer them to the +young wife's head, and you will have a very correct idea of how _sweet_ +and _amiable_ she looks. + +Who among the living will ever forget that poor unfortunate girl, in the +State of Georgia, who was assassinated in the ball room by a jealous +young wife? The civilized world was shocked by the announcement of this +terrible tragedy, which was purely the fruit of the ball room. These +parties were not of the low and vulgar, but were of the society people +of the age. How many husbands have in the same way and for the same +cause had all the baser, brutish passions aroused to such an extent as +to have their reasoning faculties dethroned, and have been driven by the +raging devils within to commit many of the greatest, most shameful and +most disgraceful crimes that ever blackened the records of a criminal +court? How many have cursed and abused their wives while on the way home +from the ball room? How many, after their arrival at home, have used +their superior physical strength in abusing their wives in a most +shameful and disgraceful manner? How much of all this was the result of +a frenzied imagination, and not for any real misconduct? How many of all +these cruel wrongs and outrages are never known except by the parties +themselves? How many fathers and mothers have neglected their children +by leaving them in incompetent and unsafe hands, while they spent the +night in the ball room? How many husbands have left their wives, in poor +health, sometimes sick in bed, with two or three little children crying +around them, while they have spent the night in the ball room dancing +with other women? How many men and women, and especially women, from +physical and mental causes superinduced by the effects of the ball room, +have been driven to madness, and have thus become inmates of insane +asylums, or have deliberately taken their own lives? O! for the pen of a +Milton or a Pollock! But this would not suffice, because these questions +can only be answered at the Judgment Bar of God, when the secrets of all +hearts shall be made known. + +THEY WILL BE ANSWERED THEN. + +How many girls have innocently and _ignorantly_ killed themselves, or +have sown the seed of some terrible lingering disease, by checking the +course of nature, by bathing or otherwise, in their preparation for the +ball room, which they would not have done to attend any other place? How +many women, all over the country, are suffering the pangs of death from +this cause alone? + +One of the handsomest and most accomplished girls I ever knew, at the +age of eighteen, ignorantly killed herself in this way. I know through +physicians of many others who have wrecked their health in the same way. +Let the invalids among the women tell their physicians the _truth_, and +then let the physicians and the _graves_ speak out, and the world would +be horror-stricken at the awful report. Whiskey has slain its thousands, +but the ball, the hop, the dance, its tens of thousands. + +In this connection I wish to give young men some wholesome advice, +which, if observed, will keep them out of a great deal of trouble, and +save the payment of a great many bills. Whenever you hear that an old +clock, an old carriage, an old saw-mill, an old steamboat, or a woman or +girl who is _passionately_ fond of dancing is on the market, be certain +to remain in bed or get the sheriff, which is much safer, to put you in +jail until these articles are disposed of. I respectfully refer to all +who have had any of these articles _knocked off on them_. + +When the ball closes, the young men take the girls to their homes. In a +little while the girls--darling angels--are in the land of dreams, but +they certainly never dream that they have been "sowing the seeds of +eternal shame, sowing the seeds of a maddened brain." They never dream +_that they are responsible for all the sins and crimes that flow from +the ball room_, BUT THEY CERTAINLY ARE, because if they would not go to +these places, there never would be another ball or hop or dance upon the +face of all the earth. + +MEN WILL NOT DANCE BY THEMSELVES. + +If they do, they will not injure any one but themselves, and they will +be certain not to keep late hours. While the girls are dreaming, the +young men are assembling at some favorite room or corner down in town. +If Jim gets there first he waits for Bill, and then they wait for Jack, +Bob, Ben, Charlie and the balance of the club. When they are all in, one +or two of the older ones propose to go across the way and take a drink +at the corner saloon, which is still in blast; yes, running at a full +head of steam, or rather mean whiskey. Now here is a very strange thing. +I have never heard of but one first-class saloon closing until after the +ball closed, and in this case the owner was very sick and the bar-tender +had skipped with the cash balance. Some of these boys have been taught +by their old-fogy fathers and mothers that such things are not to be +found on the straight and narrow road, because there is no _room_ for +them along this road, _and no use for them either_. + +I have carefully examined my way-bill to heaven, and it was made out by +one who knows every foot of the way, but I find no mention made of +drinking saloons, ball rooms, theaters, operas, houses of ill-fame, and +_such like_ places as being on or near this road. The same one has +furnished me a way-bill to hell, and I find all these places mentioned +as being on the line of this road. Whenever you find yourself, dear +reader, at one of these places, you may know beyond the shadow of a +doubt that you are not in the narrow road; and with equal certainty you +may know you are in the broad road. Now these boys are evidently on the +broad road, because the devil's sutler-shops are not to be found +anywhere else, for the very good reason that he cannot get a permit to +put them up on the narrow road. He would put them in the very center of +heaven if he possibly could. His impudence and daring is only equaled by +his fathomless corruption. The man or woman who will dare to say that +these places are found on the road to heaven, certainly has a very poor +idea of heaven and its inhabitants. If they are to be found along the +straight and narrow way, and the travelers along this way are to enter +and participate in the things therein going on, then they are certainly +designed of God to _aid in the salvation of immortal souls_. If this be +true, on entering the narrow way the first refreshments we shall get are +to be found in one of these places, having this sign over the door; +"FIRST CHANCE," and the last thing we pass in this life, just before we +enter heaven, will be another one of these houses with this inscription +over the door: "LAST CHANCE." Some of these boys don't understand it +this way; they have been raised to think that "_there is no harm in +dancing_," but were never told that the dancing shops of all kinds are +on the same road with all the drinking saloons and other places of a +like character. No, the same parents told their sons that the drinking +saloon is next door to hell, and these are the ones we read about in the +Bible, who "strain at a gnat and swallow a camel." That is to say, in +those days when Christ was on earth, there were some people so +peculiarly constituted that they strained at a gnat and swallowed a +camel; but we live in an age of improvement, an age in which some people +strain at a gnat, and swallow a Jumbo with perfect ease and in the most +graceful manner. + +I know an advocate of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, who often +dances all night, most _gracefully_, and in the morning she turneth up +her little nose, just as _gracefully_ as the elephant turneth up his +snout when Peck's bad boy has thrown him a piece of tobacco, _at the +awful drinking saloon and saloon keepers_. The private parlor dance is +the beginning, the first depot on the great air-line route from this +world to the city of destruction; here the boys and men are drawn into +the coaches by the general passenger agents: the MOTHERS, WIVES, +DAUGHTERS, SISTERS and SWEETHEARTS. This line is advertised as the +finest and best equipped road beneath the sun. Fine sleepers; all the +way through, without change. Special guarantee against accidents. This +road is laid with smooth, glass rails, and the wheels are made of India +rubber. Drinking saloons, beer gardens, and some other places I'll not +mention, are the wood yards and tanks, where fuel and water is procured +which gets up the steam that draws the train with increasing velocity +down to the great city of destruction. When the train stops for wood and +water, all the passengers are expected to take part in the very +interesting and social performance. But here are same boys who beg to be +excused. "Can't excuse you," cries the brakesman. "Come along, you can +take a small _stick_ in the way of a cigar;" and so these boys, not +wishing to appear ugly and incur the ill will of the brakesman, walk +into a saloon for the first time. They first take a cigar, but soon the +brakesman (an old stager) laughs them to scorn and confusion, and not +being able to stand the fire, they throw down the cigar and take their +_first drink in a drinking saloon_. After the drinks have been repeated +a few times, one of the brakesmen, well under the influence of whiskey +or wine, takes a careful look at all present, and if satisfied there is +no relative or sweetheart in hearing, he then and there tells an +_anecdote_ on one of the nice girls or married ladies with whom they +have been dancing, that certainly would bring the blush of shame to the +cheeks of the blackest devil that inhabits the world of outer darkness. +The drink, and anecdotes of the same character, _only worse, if +possible_, are repeated until interrupted by the appearance of a +half-witted looking young man, entering from a back door, who seems to +have something of great importance to tell the bartender. He talks low, +but sufficiently loud to be heard by the boys, for it is really for +their ears. "Have you heard the news?" "No, what news." "Why, about Bill +Jones; he went in back here to-night with only five dollars for a stake, +and he has just now gone home with _five hundred dollars_ in his +pocket." Then the boys slide out, and as soon as out in a dark corner, +they begin to enquire to see if a stake can be raised among them, +finding none, one or two being confidential clerks, go to the store, +bank or other place of business, and _borrow_ fifteen or twenty dollars, +having no doubt of their ability to win a few hundred dollars in a +little while, and then replace the _borrowed_ money without it ever +being known. Soon the _borrowed_ stake is in the hands of the dealer. +They repeat the drinks, and then _borrow_ some more in the same way, +which goes into the same hands as the first, and thus they continue +until the appearance of day-light, and then reeling to and fro under the +influence of the mean whiskey they have been drinking, and the ponderous +weight of their sins and crimes, they go to their rooms, cursing the day +on which they were born. + +THEY HAVE LOST ALL SELF-RESPECT. + +They are now at sea without chart or compass. When a man or woman loses +their self-respect, they are moral wrecks. "WANDERING STARS." There is +nothing left to build upon. It is from this cause that thousands commit +suicide, both men, women, and girls. It is the continual gnawings of the +conscience over the secret sins and crimes they have not the moral +courage to confess. Like the hidden spark of fire in a bale of cotton, +it continues its ravages until the whole bale is reduced to ashes. This +will account in great measure for the hundreds and thousands of +_unaccountable_ suicides of to-day, which are principally confined to +the young of both sexes. + +I do not mean to say that all the young men go to drinking saloons as +soon as they carry their girls home, or as soon as the ball or dance is +over. No, many of them go to other places, such as are described in the +5th chapter of Proverbs. _Men will not deny this_. Who caused these men +to go to these places? Shall I answer? Shall I tell the truth? If I do, +I must say it is the virtuous wives, daughters, sisters and sweethearts, +who have been participating in the dance. _Every man knows that this is +true_. Let every honest physician send in a report of all his male +patients, giving the disease of each and the cause, and then let us have +a correct report from the dead of the same kind, and I am confident that +no husband, father or brother would ever permit his wife, daughter or +sister to be seen at a ball or dance. HUSBANDS, FATHERS, BROTHERS, your +wives, daughters and sisters do not know these things, _but you do know +them_, and now that your eyes are open, will you, can you, as a husband, +father or brother, ever permit the females under your care to even take +the chance of being RECRUITING OFFICERS for these sinks of perdition, +THESE ANTE-CHAMBERS OF HELL. These places, dripping with the blood of +hundreds and thousands of young and middle-aged men, who, but for their +enchantment, might have been good and true men, and have filled +honorable graves. These places have broken the hearts of thousands of +wives, mothers and: sisters, when they have seen their loved ones bound +in the fetters and chains of eternal death. These funnels, through which +thousands and millions of souls of both men and women have been poured +into an endless hell. + +I have tried to furnish fair samples of the fruit of dancing, if I have +failed, it is an error of the head and not of the heart. It may be said +by some that I have occupied forbidden ground in writing a book to be +read by the public generally. In reply I can only say that I have simply +_followed the varmint to his hiding place_. I have not used any stronger +or more indecent language than was used by Jesus Christ, and God forbid +that I should ever be guilty of the sacrilege of saying or even thinking +that Jesus Christ was _vulgar_ or wanting in _refinement_; that ever I +should say of and concerning Him: "_I am holier than Thou_." If the +things I have herein mentioned have flowed from the ball room, if I have +stated FACTS, and _I know that I have_, you should not get mad at me, +but get mad at the _facts_. If a man lends a helping hand in removing a +_dead dog_ from the yard, it is not the man that is indecent, _it is the +dead dog_. The man shows his decency and kindness by condescending to +give aid in removing the stench from the premises, and no one but a +contemptible _snipe dude_ would stand off and turn up his nose and call +the man indecent and vulgar. If I am wrong, I rejoice to know that I am +in the best company on earth, for the whole religious world, with a +_few_ exceptions, regards dancing as an enemy to good morals, and as +_destructive to all spirituality_, because it is productive of so much +evil and NO GOOD. Who upon all the earth has the opportunity of knowing +the true inwardness of dancing like the Catholic priests and bishops? +Who ever held and used such a _probing instrument_ as the CONFESSIONAL? +Who on this earth can come as near knowing all the acts and deeds, yea, +and the very _thoughts_, that do pass through the minds and hearts of +men, women, boys and girls, as the Catholic priests and bishops can know +of and concerning those under their charge? Arch-Bishop J. Henry William +Elder, Co-Adjutor to the Arch-Bishop of Cincinnati, has issued a +circular letter to the clergy in his Diocese, from which I take this +very significant clipping: + +"THERE MUST BE NO ROUND DANCING AT ANY TIME, AND NO DANCING OF ANY KIND +AFTER DARK." + +What meaneth then this blating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing +of the oxen which I hear? Why does Arch-Bishop Elder inhibit the round +dance even in _day-light_? Mr. and Mrs. ECHO and their girls and boys +will please answer _why_? And why has he inhibited _all kinds_ of +dancing after dark? Will some member of the same family please rise and +explain? + + "Oh wad some power the giftie gie us, + To see oursels as ithers see us." + +While this circular letter has an existence upon earth, let all +_so-called_ Protestants and their friends, who say "_There is no harm in +dancing_," and who participate in dancing of _any kind at any time or +place_, or who simply attend such places, or who remain at a place after +it has been turned into a dance, (for the aiders and abettors of crime +are just as guilty as their principals), hang their heads for very +shame, as poor old dog Tray hangeth his head when caught in company with +sheep-killing dogs, and especially when some wool is found in his teeth. +Paul was present when Stephen, the first Christian martyr, was put to +death; he only held the clothes of those who cast the stones, but he was +just as guilty of murder as though he had cast the fatal missile, _by +his presence, and making no objection he was consenting to the crime_. +To have relieved himself of the blood of Stephen, he should not have +gone to the place where the murder was committed, if he knew, or had +good reason to know, that a crime was to be committed. If he had gone +there with the belief that it was an _innocent, harmless_ gathering, and +after getting there he saw their murderous intent, he should at least +have left immediately and thus have withdrawn all his influence and +supposed sympathy with the criminals. The holding of their clothes did +not make him guilty, but was only _cumulative_ evidence of the murderous +intent in his heart. + +Reader, if you go to a ball or dance, knowing it to be such, you are a +participant in all the sins and crimes which would not have been +committed, if such ball or dance had never been. So if the gathering be +for a _sinless, harmless_ purpose, and you find, after arriving at the +place, that there is to be a dance, and you do not leave immediately, +you will be just as guilty as though you had gone with full knowledge of +what was to be. The encouragement and endorsement of your presence makes +you just as guilty as those who join in the dance. There is no +difference, except in degree, between the select parlor dance and the +masquerade ball, because the one is the stepping stone to the other. Not +one in ten thousand have done their first dancing at the masquerade +ball, just as not one in ten thousand ever took their first drink of +whiskey in a drinking saloon. But let it be remembered that hundreds of +thousands have taken their first drink of wine or whiskey at a ball or +dance. + +One of the greatest sins committed by children and young people is +_disobedience to parents._ It is one of the greatest, because it is one +of the first, and because if cultivated it becomes a cesspool of +iniquity. It is a pandora box, out of which ten thousand troubles, +trials, difficulties, sins and crimes will come. I claim that the _love_ +of dancing is the most fruitful source of _disobedience to parents_ to +be found beneath the sun, because it becomes a _ruling passion_. If +anything will cause a child to disobey its parents, it is to forbid them +going to a ball or dance when their heart is set upon it. _They go and +then deny it_. For all the disobedience brought about in this way, the +parents are generally far more to blame than the children because it is +the parents' fault that they have ever learned to dance. Some parents +have an idea that dancing is a necessary branch of education, that it +makes their children _graceful_, but never look far enough down the line +to see that they are opening the way to _graceful_ disobedience, +_graceful_ liars, _graceful_ thieves, _graceful_ gamblers, _graceful_ +drunkards, _graceful_ prostitutes, _graceful_ whoremongers and to every +sin and crime that men and women can commit beneath the sun. They are +opening the very gates of hell to their own children. + +MANY, if not all, of the following sins and crimes are committed at +_every dance, hop or ball,_ and every one present, whether participating +in the dance or not, is equally guilty with the perpetrators of all the +sins and crimes, which would not have been committed if there had been +no such gathering: + + +SAMPLES OF FRUIT FOUND ON THE TREE OF DANCING: + +ENVY. + +JEALOUSY. + +PRIDE. + +DECEIT. + +DISOBEDIENCE TO PARENTS + +BACKBITING. + +STRIFE. + +HATRED. + +LASCIVIOUSNESS. + +EMULATION. + +SEDITION. + +LYING. + +THEFT. + +DRUNKENNESS. + +SABBATH BREAKING. + +GAMBLING. + +EMBEZZLEMENT. + +SUICIDE. + +VULGARITY. + +FORNICATION. + +ADULTERY. + +OBSCENITY. + +EXTRAVAGANCE. + +DIVORCE. + +LUNACY. + +WANTONNESS. + +CRUELTY. + +IDOLATRY. + +PERJURY. + +SEDUCTION. + +PROSTITUTION. + +ABORTION. + +INFANTICIDE. + +ASSASSINATION. + +MURDER. + +"AND SUCH LIKE." + +Every honest man is compelled to admit that these sins and crimes are +the _natural fruit of dancing_; THAT THESE THINGS DO FLOW FROM THE +DANCE. I frankly admit that all these sins and crimes may and do come +from other sources, but I challenge the world to point to any _one_ +thing that produces as many of these sins and crimes as the dance. The +drinking saloon is a prolific source of evil, but not one-half as much +as the dance, for it must be borne in mind that _men only_ attend the +saloons, and that many of them are sent there _from the ball room_, and +many, who never would have seen the inside of a drinking saloon but for +the ball or dance. _The ball is a feeder for drinking saloons, gambling +saloons, and houses of ill-fame._ + +I have delivered this lecture on dancing in seven States, before about +one hundred congregations, numbering from three hundred to ten thousand +people. I have called on all the men, old and young, saint and sinner, +at nearly every place, to give an expression of opinion from what they +had seen themselves, or what they had heard from those who had attended +balls, hops, and such like places, as to the correctness or +incorrectness of my charges against the dance, and out of I think not +less than fifty thousand men, I have never found but SEVEN who stood up, +thereby saying they did not believe that the sins and crimes I had +mentioned had ever flowed from the ball room, while nearly all the +balance stood up before their wives, daughters, sisters, and +sweethearts, saying that they do believe, from what they _know, and have +seen_ and have heard from those who attend balls and hops, that these +sins and crimes are the natural fruit of all kinds of dancing, where the +sexes dance together. A few, perhaps one in twenty, kept their seats, +not expressing their opinion either way. Of this class I think I may +safely say that _four-fifths_ failed to understand my proposition, or +thought it not necessary to rise; but if they had stood up, they would +have been with the affirmative. While I am not an apologist for saloon +keepers and gamblers, I want to record the fact right here that I have +had more or less of them in my congregations, at nearly every place +where I talked on this subject, and I have never known one, no, not one, +to keep his seat when an expression of opinion was called for, and not +one was found among the _immortal seven_. + +There are many men worse at heart than gamblers and saloon keepers. If +they and their families were treated by the Christian people with more +kindness, and less like they were outcasts, hundreds and thousands of +them would become Christians. I do not claim that all who attend dancing +parties, balls, and hops are ruined, but I do claim that _all who attend +such places take part in the eternal disgrace and ruin of others._ There +is not a man or woman among the living, or the dead, who has made a +practice of attending such places, but that has the blood of one or more +_lost souls_ upon their garments, _and there it must remain throughout +the ceaseless ages of_ ETERNITY, _unless it be washed away_ BY THE BLOOD +OF JESUS CHRIST. + +My sainted mother and my wife have attended and participated in the +dance, but, like hundreds and thousands of girls and women of to-day, +they never had the most distant idea that the dancing party or ball was +a cesspool of iniquity, for, had they known the things brought to light +in this little book, they never would have made one step in that +direction. I believe that God has forgiven them, because, like Paul, +they did it ignorantly. "I obtained mercy, because I did it +_ignorantly_."--I. Tim. 1-13. Reader, if you ever go to one of these +places after your eyes have been opened, as they must be now, you cannot +plead _ignorance_, but you will sin _wilfully_ and _knowingly._ See Heb. +10: 26, 27. + +Those who are turned into the paths of shame, of vice, and of crime, are +described in the Bible in the following terrible language, and where +could a better description be found? "Woe unto them! for they have gone +in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for +reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core. These are _spots_ in +your feasts of charity when they feast with you, _feasting themselves +without fear._ Clouds they are without water, _carried about of winds_, +trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by +the roots. _Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own_ SHAME; +_wandering_ STARS to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness +forever."--Jude, 11, 12, 13. + +Mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, if there is a doubt left in your +minds as to the charges made against dancing, will you do yourselves, +and those under your influence, the justice to ask your husbands, +fathers and brothers to read this little book, and give you their +_honest opinions_? + + * * * * * + +VERDICT. + +This is to certify that I have carefully read this little book, and give +it as my honest conviction--from what I have seen and what I have heard +from those who have attended dancing parties, balls and hops--that the +charges and specifications are true, and believing them to be true, I +here promise to use all my influence against _all kinds_ of dancing, +while I live on earth. + +(Here Sign Name.)............................. + +Try and get four others to sign with you. + + * * * * * + +If this little book should be of benefit to any one, I would like to +know it. As it is my intention to get out a second edition, I desire to +collect all _the facts_ I can in support of the charges and +specifications against dancing. Ministers of the Gospel, physicians, and +fathers and mothers, can render me great assistance if they will. + +_Names of correspondents will not be published without special +permission_. + + +There is No Harm in Dancing. + +Single Copy, Paper Cover, 25 cts. +Single Copy, Cloth Cover, 30 cts. + +Liberal discount to Pastors and Dealers. + + * * * * * + +HARVEST BELLS, No. 2. + +A New Sabbath School Song Book, just published. + +Suitable also for Revivals. + +The _most popular_ Song Book ever offered to the public. + +Single Copy, $ .30. +Per Dozen, 3.00. + +LIBERAL DISCOUNT TO DEALERS. + +Address: +W. E. PENN, +PALESTINE, TEXAS. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THERE IS NO HARM IN DANCING*** + + +******* This file should be named 14183.txt or 14183.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/1/8/14183 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. 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