"Certainly not; but it is from a Christian standpoint that I want you to speak now. I have some young Christians here who say to me, 'Now, Mr. Butler, what harm can there be in our dancing together occasionally, we boys and girls who know each other so well? We don't go to balls or large parties, but when we meet in this way, please tell us the harm?' And while it may be a very humiliating confession, I have never been able to answer them satisfactorily to myself. Suppose that a young girl who professed to belong to Christ should ask you the question, what would you say?"
"I should say, 'Whether, therefore, ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.' And then I should ask her to tell me how dancing could be made subservient to his glory."
"But, Mrs. Morgan, isn't that very high ground?"
"Certainly it is; is it higher than a follower of Christ ought to take?"
"Well, but the difficulty with such reasoning is that it condemns so many things which we consider innocent; for instance, that corn which Miss Dorothy and I popped the other evening, would it be possible to fit that to God's glory?"
"I find it by no means difficult," Louise said, giving him a bright smile. "I am not sure but that, while the corn popped, avenues were opened in the family which may lead to hearts, and make a road for you to lead them to your Master. I assure you that I believe even such trivialities as kernels of corn may tend to his glory. But then, if we became, as a family, infatuated with corn-popping, so that we spent our evenings away into the midnight, if not away beyond it, in popping corn, and unfitted ourselves for the next day's duties; and if some people, or occasionally one person, had been led by the popping of corn into temptation and danger and death, I should feel that you ought to use your influence against our amusement in that direction. And this world is in such a cranky state of mind that in order to use your influence against my excesses, you would have to refrain from ever popping one single kernel. Now, wouldn't you?"
"I might say," he answered, laughing, "that if you were so extremely foolish as to be led astray by such an innocent amusement as that, it was your own fault, and I was not responsible."
"And I should ask, 'Shall the weak sister perish for whom Christ died?'"
"But, Mrs. Morgan, seriously, many of our young people, or at least some of them, have so slight a knowledge of the world that they really cannot realize the possibility of persons being led astray by such causes; and where they have not wise mothers and tender fathers to influence them, in whose superior wisdom they can trust, how can I reach such?"
"There is one line of argument that ought to reach all such, I think. Take, for instance, my brother John; isn't it evident, Mr. Butler, that he doesn't consider dancing consistent with a Christian profession?"