THE DISCUSSION.
ARION went about her dingy room brushing off a bit of dust here, setting a chair straight there, trying in what ways she might to brighten its homeliness. She was a trifle sore sometimes over the contrast between that room and the homes of her three friends. Sometimes she thought it a wonder that they could endure to leave the brightness and cheer that surrounded their home lives and seek her out.
There were times when she was very much tempted to spend a large portion of her not too large salary in bestowing little home-looking things on this corner of the second-rate boarding-house; a rocking-chair; a cozy-looking, bright-covered old-fashioned lounge; a tiny centre-table, instead of the square, boxy-looking thing that she had; not very extravagant her notions were, just a suggestion of comfort and a touch of brightness for her beauty-loving eyes to dwell on; but these home things, and these bright things, cost money, more money than she felt at liberty to spend.
When her necessary expenses of books and dress, and a dozen apparently trifling incidentals were met, there was little enough left to send to that far-away, struggling uncle and aunt, who needed her help sadly enough, and who had shared their little with her in earlier days.
There was no special love about this offering of hers; it was just a matter of hard duty; they had taken care of her in her orphanhood, a grave, preoccupied sort of care, bestowing little time and no love on her that she could discover; at the same time they had never either of them been unkind, and they had fed and clothed her, and never said in her presence that they grudged it; they had never asked her for any return, never seemed to expect any; and they were regularly surprised every half year when the remittance came.
But so far as that was concerned Marion did not know it; they were a very undemonstrative people. Uncle Reuben had told her once that she need not do it, that they had not expected it of her; and Aunt Hannah had added, "No more they didn't." But Marion had hushed them both by a decided sentence, to the effect that it was nothing more than ordinary justice and decency. And she did not know even now that the gratitude they might have expressed was hushed back by her cold, business-like words.
Still, the remittances always went; it had required some special scrimping to make the check the same as usual, and yet bring in Chautauqua; it had been delayed beyond its usual time by these new departures, and it was on this particular evening that she was getting it ready for the mail. For seven years, twice a year, she had regularly written her note:
Aunt Hannah:—I inclose in this letter a check for ——. I hope you are as well as usual. In haste,
M. J. Wilbur.
This, or a kindred sentence as brief and as much to the point. To-night her fingers had played with the pen instead of writing, and at last, with a curious smile hovering around her lip, she wrote the unaccustomed words, "Dear Aunt." It would have taken very little to have made the smile into a quiver; it seemed just then so strange that she should have no one to write that word "dear" to; that she should use it so rarely that it actually looked like a stranger to her. Then the writing went on thus:
"I hope I have not caused you discomfort by being somewhat later than usual with your check. Matters shaped themselves in such a way that I could not send it before. I hope it will be of a little help and comfort to you. I wish it were larger. Give my re—love to Uncle Reuben."
The "re" was the beginning of the word "regards," but she thought better of it and wrote "love." He was her father's brother, and the only relative she had. Then the pen paused again, and the writer gnawed at the painted holder, and mused, and looked sober first, then bright-faced, and finally she dashed down this line:
"Dear Aunt Hannah, I have found my father's Friend, even the Lord Jesus Christ. He is indeed mighty to save, as father used to say that he was. I have proved it, for he has saved me. I wish you and Uncle Reuben knew him.
"Yours truly, Marion."
I suppose Marion would have been very much surprised had she known what I know, that Aunt Hannah and Uncle Reuben shed tears over that letter, and put it in the family Bible. And, someway, they felt more thankful for the check than they had ever done before.
Marion did not know this, but she knew that her own heart felt lighter than usual as she hurried about her room. The girls came before she was fairly through with her preparations—a bright trio, with enough of beauty and grace and elegance about them to fairly make her room glow.
"Here we are," said Eurie. "We have run the gauntlet of five calls and a concert, and I don't know how many other things in prospective, for the sake of getting to you."
"Did you come alone?"
"No; my blessed Nell came with us to the door, and most dreadfully did he want to come in. I should have let him in, only I knew by Ruth's face she thought it awful; but he would have enjoyed the evening. Nell does enjoy new things."
"There is no special sensation about Bible verses. I presume they would have palled on him before the evening was over." This was said in Ruth's coldest tones.
"You are mistaken in that, my lady Ruth. I have found several verses in my search that have given me a real sensation. Besides which, I have proved my side beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt, and I am very anxious to begin."
Marion laughed.
"I dare say we have each proved our sides to our entire satisfaction," she said. "The question is, which side will bear the test of our combined intellects being brought to bear on it? Did you bring your Bibles, girls? Oh, yes, you are armed. Flossy, your Bible is splendid; when the millennium dawns I am going to have just such a one. By the way, won't that be a blissful time? Don't you want to live to see it? Eurie, inasmuch as you are so anxious to begin, you may do so. Let us 'carry on our investigations in a scientific way,' as Prof. Easton says. Give us your 'unanswerable argument,' and I will answer it with my unanswerable one on the other side; then if Ruth can prove to us that we are both mistaken, and each can follow her own judgment in the matter, we will be quenched, you see, unless Flossy can give a balancing vote."
"Well, in the first place," Eurie said, "I found to my infinite astonishment, and, of course, to my delight, that the Bible actually stated that there was a time to dance. Now, if there is a time for it, of course it is the proper thing to do; that just settles the whole question. How absurd it would be to put in the Bible a statement that there was a time to dance, and then to tell us that it was wrong to dance!"
"Eurie, are you in earnest or in sport?" Marion asked, at last, looking at her with a puzzled air, and not sure whether to laugh or be disgusted.
"A little of both," Eurie said, breaking into a laugh. "But now, to be serious, there really is such a verse; did you know it? I am sure I didn't. I was very much astonished; and I think it does prove something. It indicates that dancing is a legitimate amusement, and one that was indulged in during those times."
"Do you advocate its use under the same circumstances in which it was used in those times?"
"I'm sure I don't know. Was there anything peculiar in its use?"
"Didn't you follow out the references as to dancing?"
"No, indeed, I didn't. I wish I had. Does it give an account of it? That would have been better yet."
"It would have enlightened you somewhat," Marion said, laughing. "If you had been on the other side now, you would have been sure to have followed out the connection as I did; then you would have found that to be true to your Bible you must dance in prayer-meeting, or in church on the Sabbath, or at some time when you desired to express religious joy."
"Pooh!" said Eurie, "Now is that so?"
"Of course it's so. Just amuse yourself by looking up the references to the word in the concordance, and I will read them for our enlightenment."
"Well," said Eurie, after several readings, "I admit that I am rather glad that form of worship is done away with. I am fond of dancing, but I don't care to indulge when I go to prayer-meeting. But, after all, that doesn't prove that dancing is wrong."
"Nor right?" Ruth said, questioningly. "Doesn't it simply prove nothing at all? That is just as I said; we have to decide these questions for ourselves."
"But, Eurie, did you content yourself with just one text? I thought you were to have an army of them."
"What is the use in that?" Ruth asked. "One text is as good as a dozen if it proves one's position."
"A multitude of witnesses," Marion said, significantly; and added, "girls, Ruth has but one text in support of her position; see if she has."
"Well, I have another," said Eurie. "The wisest man who ever lived said, 'A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.' Now I am sure that advocates bright, cheerful, merry times, just such as one has in dancing; and there are dozens of such verses, indicating that it is a duty we owe to society to have happy and merry times together; and a simpler way of doing it than any I know is to dance. We are not gossiping, nor saying censorious things, when we are dancing; and we are having a very pleasant time for our friends."
"'Is any merry, let him sing psalms,'" quoted Marion. "Would you like to indulge in that entertainment at the same time you were dancing; or do you think the same state of mind could be expressed as well by either dancing, or psalm-singing, as one chose?"
"Eurie Mitchell, you are just being nonsensical!" Ruth said, speaking in a half-annoyed tone. "You are not absurd enough to suppose that either of those verses are arguments in favor of dancing, or against dancing, or indeed have anything to do with the subject? What is the use in trying to make people think you are a simpleton, when you aren't."
"Dreadful!" said Eurie. "Is that what I'm doing? Now, I thought I was proving the subtle nature of my argumentative powers. See here, I will be as sober as a judge. No, I don't think those verses have to do with it; at least the latter hasn't. I admit that I thought the fact that a time to dance was mentioned in the Bible was an item in its favor as far as it went; but it seems I should rather have said as far as I went, for it went farther, as Marion has made me prove with that dreadful concordance of hers. We don't own such a terrible book as that, and I have to go skimming over the whole Bible in a distracting manner. I just happened on the verse that says 'there is a time to dance,' and I didn't know but there might be a special providence in it. But now, frankly, I am on the side that Ruth has taken. It seems to be a question that is left to individual judgment. There is no 'thus saith the Lord' about it, any more than there is about having company, and going out to tea, and a dozen other things. We are to do in these matters what we think is right; and that, in my opinion, is all there is about it."
"Then you retire from the lists?" Marion asked.
"Not a bit of it. I am just as emphatically of the opinion that there is no harm in dancing as I ever was. What I say is, that the Bible is silent on that subject, leaving each to judge for herself."
"'As he thinketh in his heart, so is he,'" quoted Ruth. "That is my verse, one of them; and I think it is unanswerable. If you, Marion, think it is wicked to dance, then you would be doing a wrong thing to dance; but, Eurie, believing it to be right and proper, has a right to dance. Each person as he thinks in his heart."
"Then, if I think in my heart that it is right to go skating on Sunday, it will be quite right for me to go? Is that the reasoning, Ruth?"
"No, of course; because in that instance you have the direct command, 'Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.'"
"But who is going to prove to me in what way I should keep it holy? I may skate with very good thoughts in my heart, and feel that I am keeping the spirit of the command; and, if I think so in my heart, why, isn't it so?"
"You know it isn't a parallel case," Ruth said, slightly nettled.
"Flossy, would you speak for a dollar?" Eurie asked, suddenly turning to her. She had been utterly grave and silent during all this war of words, but, to judge from her face, by no means uninterested. She shook her head now, with a quiet smile.
"I know what I think," she said, "but I don't want to speak yet; only I want to know, Ruth, about that verse; I found that, and thought about it. I couldn't see that it means what you think it does. I used to think in my very heart that joining the church, and trying to do about right, was all there was of religion; but I have found that I was wonderfully mistaken. Can't persons be honest, and yet be very much in the dark because they have not informed themselves?"
"Why, dear me!" said Marion, "only see, Ruth, where your doctrine would lead you! What about the heathen women who think in their hearts that they do a good deed when they give their babies to the crocodiles?"
"I found that verse about Paul persecuting all who called on the name of Jesus, and he says he verily thought he was doing God's service." This was Flossy's added word.
"See here," said Eurie, "we are not getting at it at all. I haven't any verses, and you have demolished Ruth's. The way is for you and Flossy to open your batteries on us, and let us prove to you that they don't any of them mean a single word they say, or you say; or something, anything, so that we win the argument. What I want to know is, what earthly harm do people see in dancing? I don't mean, of course, going to balls and mingling with all sorts of people and dancing indecent figures. I mean the way we girls have been in the habit of it, Ruth and Flossy and I. We never went to a ball in our lives, and we were never injured by dancing, so far as I can discover, and yet we have done a good deal of it. Now I love to dance; it is the very pleasantest amusement I can think of; and yet I honestly want to get at the truth of this matter; I want to learn; I don't in the least know why churches and Christians think such dancing is wrong. I couldn't find a thing in the Bible that showed me the reason. To be sure I had very little time to look, and a very ignorant brain to do it with, and no helps. But I am ready to be convinced, if anybody has anything that will convince me."
"Just let me ask you a question," Marion said: "Why did you think, before you were converted, that it was wrong for Christian people to dance?"
"How do you know I did?" asked Eurie, flushing and laughing.
"Never mind how I know; though you must have forgotten some of the remarks I have heard you make about others, to ask me. But please tell me."
"Honestly, then, I don't know; and it is that thought, or rather that remembrance, which disturbs me now. I had a feeling that someway it was an inconsistent thing to do, and that if I was converted I should have to give it up, and it was a real stumbling-block in my way for some days. But I don't this minute know a single definite reason why I, in common with the rest of the girls and the young men in our set, felt amused whenever we saw dancing church-members. I have thought perhaps it was prejudice, or a misunderstanding of the Christian life."
