Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Wylie
request the pleasure of
.................................’s
company on Tuesday evening, June sixth,
at nine o’clock,
to meet
HON. W. W. BRACE.
R. S. V. P. 64 Lark Street.

or, the wording may be “request the pleasure of your company,” etc. The same form of invitation can be adapted to almost any reception, party or other social entertainment, with such variations as suit the circumstances. If a series of receptions are to be given, the lower line on the left of the card may be simply:

Wednesdays in December,
from three to seven o’clock.

Dancing.

There is no phase of social life that contains so much of hidden peril as that which relates to dancing. Of itself, there is nothing sinful in dancing; but its associations and temptations, and the tendencies of modern dancing to frivolity, unhealthful dissipation and immorality are so obvious as to need no enumeration here. It is a positive detriment to the spiritual growth of young men and women, and is prolific of promiscuous acquaintanceships that cannot be claimed to be safe or desirable for any young person having a serious object in life. The ball-room has to many thousands proved the first step to perdition.

Of dancing, the Rev. Dr. Talmage has said:

“It is the graceful motion of the body adjusted by art to the sound and measures of musical instrument or of the human voice. All nations have danced. The ancients thought that Castor and Pollux taught the art to the Lacedæmonians. But whoever started it, all climes have adopted it. In ancient times they had the festal dance, the military dance, the mediatorial dance, the bacchanalian dance, and queens and lords swayed to and fro in the gardens, and the rough backwoodsman with this exercise awakened the echo of the forest. There is something in the sound of lively music to evoke the movement of the hand and foot, whether cultured or uncultured. Passing down the street we unconsciously keep step to the sound of the brass band, while the Christian in church with his foot beats time while his soul rises upon some great harmony. While this is so in civilized lands, the red men of the forest have their scalp dances, their green-corn dances, their war dances.

“The exercise was so utterly and completely depraved in ancient times that the church anathematized it. The old Christian fathers expressed themselves most vehemently against it. St. Chrysostom says: ‘The feet were not given for dancing but to walk modestly, not to leap impudently like camels.’ One of the dogmas of the ancient church reads: ‘A dance is the devil’s possession, and he that entereth into a dance entereth into his possession. As many paces as a man makes in dancing, so many paces does he make to hell.’ Elsewhere the old dogmas declared this: ‘The woman that singeth in the dance is the princess of the devil, and those that answer are her clerks, and the beholders are his friends, and the music is his bellows, and the fiddlers are the ministers of the devil. For as when hogs are strayed, if the hogsherd call one all assemble together, so when the devil calleth one woman to sing in the dance, or to play on some musical instrument, presently all the dancers gather together.’ This indiscriminate and universal denunciation of the exercise came from the fact that it was utterly and completely depraved.

“How many people in America have stepped from the ball-room into the graveyard! Consumptions and swift neuralgias are close on their track. Amid many of the glittering scenes of social life in America diseases stand right and left and balance and chain. The breath of the sepulchre floats up through the perfume, and the froth of Death’s lip bubbles up in the champagne.

“It is the anniversary of Herod’s birthday. The palace is lighted. The highways leading thereto are all ablaze with the pomp of invited guests. Lords, captains, merchant princes, the mighty men of the land, are coming to mingle in the festivities. The table is spread with all the luxuries that royal purveyors can gather. The guests, white-robed and anointed and perfumed, come in and sit at the table. Music! The jests evoke roars of laughter. Riddles are propounded. Repartee is indulged. Toasts are drank. The brain is befogged. The wit rolls on into uproar and blasphemy. They are not satisfied yet. Turn on more light. Pour out more wine. Music! Sound all the trumpets. Clear the floor for a dance. Bring in Salome, the beautiful and accomplished princess. The door opens, and in bounds the dancer. The lords are enchanted. Stand back and make room for the brilliant gyrations. These men never saw such ‘poetry of motion.’ Their souls whirl in the reel and bound with the bounding feet. Herod forgets crown and throne and everything but the fascinations of Salome. All the magnificence of his realm is as nothing now compared with the splendor that whirls on tiptoe before him. His body sways from side to side, corresponding with the motions of the enchantress. His soul is thrilled with the pulsations of the feet and bewitched with the taking postures and attitudes more and more amazing. After awhile he sits in enchanted silence looking at the flashing, leaping, bounding beauty, and as the dance closes and the tinkling cymbals cease to clap and the thunders of applause that shook the palace begin to abate, the enchanted monarch swears to the princely performer: ‘Whatsoever thou shalt ask of me I will give it thee, to the half of my kingdom.’ At the instigation of her mother, Salome takes advantage of the extravagant promise of the king and says, ‘Bring me the head of John the Baptist on a dinner plate.’ Hark to the sound of feet outside the door and the clatter of swords. The executioners are returning from their awful errand. Open the door. They enter, and they present the platter to Salome. What is on this platter? A new glass of wine to continue the uproarious merriment? No. Something redder and costlier—the ghastly, bleeding head of John the Baptist, the death glare still in the eye, the locks dabbled with the gore, the features still distressed with the last agony. This woman, who had whirled so gracefully in the dance, bends over the awful burden without a shudder.