The early Christians did not despise the dance; but as monkish asceticism drew away from the simple, natural teaching of Christ, the dance fell into disfavor and was frowned upon as a manifestation of the evil one. And just so it was with artistic perception and artistic appreciation. Where they were highest, in Hellenic antiquity, dancing had its place among the arts and was revered as the oldest of them all, that art upon which all the others were based. Dragged down to pander to luxury and profligacy, as were all the arts during the period of Roman triumph and Roman decadence, the dance fell under a cloud with the rest, and seemed to disappear during the dark ages, as did the others. (Text.)—Grace Isabel Colbron, The Cosmopolitan.
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Degradation Inciting Philanthropy—See [Degeneracy].
Degradation versus Transformation—See [Missionary Results].
Degrees, Honorary—See [Labels, Misleading].
DEISM
Deism of any type is morally impotent; and deism of the eighteenth-century type is nothing but a little patch of uncertain quicksand set in a black sea of atheism. It does not deny God’s existence, but it cancels Him out as a force in human life. It breaks the golden ladder of revelation between heaven and earth. It leaves the Bible discredited, duty a guess, heaven a freak of the uncharted imagination, and God a vague and far-off shadow. Men were left by it to climb into a shadowy heaven on some frail ladder of human logic.—Rev. W. H. Fitchett, “Wesley and His Century.”
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DELAY
The limited express that spans the distance between New York and Chicago in twenty-four hours accomplishes the feat not so much by increasing the speed as by reducing the delays. In the main the train does not travel much faster than the other trains that take a third more time do at their maximum; but it makes fewer stops, it attends more strictly to its through business. Chicago is its objective point.