"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?"