A Discourse on the Evils of Dancing

by John F. Mesick

Many an untimely death has been the dreadful penalty incurred by exposure on such occasions; and the fearful blow has generally fallen among the ranks of lovely woman. Follow the fragile, venturesome forms of our delicate, modernly dressed ladies to the ball room. They pass from their habitations, arrayed in a garb whose style and materials would render it a fit garment to be worn only at mid-summer; covered with a light wrapper, lest the decorations of the toilet should be deranged, and protected from the snow or frozen pavement only by thin soled shoes. They spend several hours together under the excitement of lively strains of music, and of the glittering array of beauty and fashion, in a chamber brilliant with a multitude of dazzling lights, and crowded with guests to the destruction of the vital properties of the atmosphere; and in physical exertions to which they have been unaccustomed, and which open all the pores of the skin. The system is also deranged by loading the stomach with indigestible food, and by encroaching on the ordinary and necessary hours of repose. Then with heated and wearied frames, in that state peculiarly exposed to the injurious action of the cold, they suddenly exchange the warm temperature of the assembly chamber for the chilliness of the damp night air—the tropic of the ball room for the Siberia of the street. Alas! what a perilous price to pay for the admiration of the fashionable throng, or for the fleeting gratification of the hour. In that wintry blast consumption smites his smiling victims, and fills up the weekly calendar of his fearful ravages. In our large cities, where this insane contempt of health and life is sanctioned by the uniform practice of the God-forgetting multitude, this fell destroyer snatches his prey from the ranks of fashion by scores, and scourges them more fatally than the pestilence.

And yet individuals can be found in the midst of our community, so devoid of wisdom and foresight as to advocate the introduction of this pernicious amusement into our social circles. We trust that if they cannot be reached by any higher motives, that a regard for the health and lives which will be sacrificed to this modern idol, will induce them to pause, and to consider well the way of their steps.

2. The position assumed by the text, would exclude Dancing from the list of Christian diversions, even if it could be shown that it is innocent in itself.

This, however, is a point which the worldling labors in vain to prove by the most skilful use of religious sophistry.

Persons on whose judgment we rely with great confidence in matters of this sort, have abandoned the idea which they, in common with others, once entertained, that Dancing, if properly regulated, might be harmless. It is their settled opinion, founded on considerable personal experience and on observation, "that the nature of the amusement itself, even in its least exceptionable forms and in limited exercise, is such—that it has a tendency to inflame passion, to poison virtue, to endanger purity, and to lead on to gross and deadly evils."

Modern dancing, as generally practised, is a gay and guilty pleasure. It receives no warrant from the Bible. The only kind of Dances recorded in the Sacred Scriptures, are religious Dances, forming part of the worship of God: "with the exception of that of the vain fellows devoid of shame, of the irreligious families described by Job, and of Herodias"—which are no more an example for us because they are recorded in the sacred narrative, than the treachery of Judas Iscariot, in betraying his master with a kiss.

But then we must remember the fact that the Religious Dance was practised only on joyful occasions; that it was performed in the day time, in the open air, and only by one of the sexes at a time. There is not a historical notice in the word of God, of promiscuous dancing either as an act of worship or amusement.

And those persons were reckoned among the vilest of mankind who perverted Dancing from a sacred use to mere purposes of amusement.

At the present time, as we cast our eyes over the map of the world, we discover that dancing is still practised as an important part of religious worship by the inhabitants of all heathen countries; by the Indians of our own Western forests; by the superstitious natives of Africa, and by the effeminate and luxurious Asiatics. But as employed among the ceremonies of idolatry in Southern Asia, it has been changed from the slow measured movements, practised by the ancient Greeks and Romans, to a style, which one Missionary remarks, "would not be tolerated on the boards of the lowest theatre in Europe, or in America." Dancing girls, arrayed in the most costly ornaments of dress, and quite equal in skill to some of the modern exhibitors of that art in the theatres of civilized lands, are invariably connected with heathen temples in the East Indies, as their constant attendants.

Let us turn our attention from these regions of idolatry, and inquire among what nations of Christendom this amusement is most popular, that we may trace it throughout its various existing associations. At the head of what are usually denominated civilized countries, we must place France, Italy and Spain, where on the Sabbath it is deemed entirely consistent with the claims of Christianity to go to the house of God in the morning, and to a bull-fight and a dance in the public gardens in the afternoon. And it might be an instructive commentary as to the evil effects of this amusement on the morals of those nations, to go more into particulars, were it not that the facts concerning the virtue, purity and chastity of the fashionable circles of France and Italy, disclosed by travellers, are too appalling to be repeated.