WHAT THEY SAID ABOUT IT.
"Young soldiers of the cross, beware!
A watchful foe besets thy way."
THE carrier had just thrown the Westville "News" in at Deacon Griffin's front door. The good old man had rubbed his spectacles with his red and white spotted silk handkerchief, drawn his arm chair a little nearer the window, unfolded the limp sheet, and read a few moments, before he exclaimed—
"Can it be possible? Will the Lord suffer it?"
"What is it?" asked the soft-voiced woman who was darning the deacon's stockings in the other arm chair before the other window.
"Just hear this!
"'The Charles Dickens Society will hold their Annual Reunion at Waden's Hall, on Wednesday evening, January 6. Their friends are invited to attend. A company of amateurs will perform several popular plays. Musicians will be in attendance, and the hall will be cleared for dancing at an early hour. An elegant collation will also be provided. Proceeds to be applied to the Library Fund.
"'Single Tickets, 1 dollar. Lady and Gentleman, 1 dollar, 50 cents.
"'GEORGE BARNES, DUNCAN MCNAIR,
"'JOHN PETERS, FRANK LESTER,
"'ELMER GREEN, IRA BAKER.
"'Committee.'
"There! Can you make anything out of that but conformity to the world, unless it is worse? It seems to me like going right over to the enemy's ranks. What are we coming to? Here are two of our young brothers, to whom we must soon commit the gospel standard, giving their names and their labour to this unholy thing!"
"O, father, don't say that," said the soft-voiced woman. "Maybe it isn't so bad as you think, or as it looks at first. Sometimes things seem worse than they really are. And you know there have been a good many things, first and last, which you have condemned as worldly, which have turned out to be real spiritual helps. You remember how sorry you were that we gave Mabel Wynn a chair for the church parlour, because you thought it was going to introduce worldliness into the church, and you know we could hardly get along now without that room. Then remember the time we had the convention—"
"Yes, I remember. I opposed that, and I was wrong. It proved a great blessing, and I confessed my mistake. But, wife, you can't make this out to be an affair that a Christian should be mixed up with. It is a matter of worldly amusements of the most pernicious sort. Theatricals and dancing!"