There is No Harm in Dancing

by W. E. Penn

They are now at sea without chart or compass. When a man or woman loses their self-respect, they are moral wrecks. "WANDERING STARS." There is nothing left to build upon. It is from this cause that thousands commit suicide, both men, women, and girls. It is the continual gnawings of the conscience over the secret sins and crimes they have not the moral courage to confess. Like the hidden spark of fire in a bale of cotton, it continues its ravages until the whole bale is reduced to ashes. This will account in great measure for the hundreds and thousands of unaccountable suicides of to-day, which are principally confined to the young of both sexes.

I do not mean to say that all the young men go to drinking saloons as soon as they carry their girls home, or as soon as the ball or dance is over. No, many of them go to other places, such as are described in the 5th chapter of Proverbs. Men will not deny this. Who caused these men to go to these places? Shall I answer? Shall I tell the truth? If I do, I must say it is the virtuous wives, daughters, sisters and sweethearts, who have been participating in the dance. Every man knows that this is true. Let every honest physician send in a report of all his male patients, giving the disease of each and the cause, and then let us have a correct report from the dead of the same kind, and I am confident that no husband, father or brother would ever permit his wife, daughter or sister to be seen at a ball or dance. HUSBANDS, FATHERS, BROTHERS, your wives, daughters and sisters do not know these things, but you do know them, and now that your eyes are open, will you, can you, as a husband, father or brother, ever permit the females under your care to even take the chance of being RECRUITING OFFICERS for these sinks of perdition, THESE ANTE-CHAMBERS OF HELL. These places, dripping with the blood of hundreds and thousands of young and middle-aged men, who, but for their enchantment, might have been good and true men, and have filled honorable graves. These places have broken the hearts of thousands of wives, mothers and: sisters, when they have seen their loved ones bound in the fetters and chains of eternal death. These funnels, through which thousands and millions of souls of both men and women have been poured into an endless hell.

I have tried to furnish fair samples of the fruit of dancing, if I have failed, it is an error of the head and not of the heart. It may be said by some that I have occupied forbidden ground in writing a book to be read by the public generally. In reply I can only say that I have simply followed the varmint to his hiding place. I have not used any stronger or more indecent language than was used by Jesus Christ, and God forbid that I should ever be guilty of the sacrilege of saying or even thinking that Jesus Christ was vulgar or wanting in refinement; that ever I should say of and concerning Him: "I am holier than Thou." If the things I have herein mentioned have flowed from the ball room, if I have stated FACTS, and I know that I have, you should not get mad at me, but get mad at the facts. If a man lends a helping hand in removing a dead dog from the yard, it is not the man that is indecent, it is the dead dog. The man shows his decency and kindness by condescending to give aid in removing the stench from the premises, and no one but a contemptible snipe dude would stand off and turn up his nose and call the man indecent and vulgar. If I am wrong, I rejoice to know that I am in the best company on earth, for the whole religious world, with a few exceptions, regards dancing as an enemy to good morals, and as destructive to all spirituality, because it is productive of so much evil and NO GOOD. Who upon all the earth has the opportunity of knowing the true inwardness of dancing like the Catholic priests and bishops? Who ever held and used such a probing instrument as the CONFESSIONAL? Who on this earth can come as near knowing all the acts and deeds, yea, and the very thoughts, that do pass through the minds and hearts of men, women, boys and girls, as the Catholic priests and bishops can know of and concerning those under their charge? Arch-Bishop J. Henry William Elder, Co-Adjutor to the Arch-Bishop of Cincinnati, has issued a circular letter to the clergy in his Diocese, from which I take this very significant clipping:

"THERE MUST BE NO ROUND DANCING AT ANY TIME, AND NO DANCING OF ANY KIND AFTER DARK."

What meaneth then this blating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear? Why does Arch-Bishop Elder inhibit the round dance even in day-light? Mr. and Mrs. ECHO and their girls and boys will please answer why? And why has he inhibited all kinds of dancing after dark? Will some member of the same family please rise and explain?

"Oh wad some power the giftie gie us,
To see oursels as ithers see us."

While this circular letter has an existence upon earth, let all so-called Protestants and their friends, who say "There is no harm in dancing," and who participate in dancing of any kind at any time or place, or who simply attend such places, or who remain at a place after it has been turned into a dance, (for the aiders and abettors of crime are just as guilty as their principals), hang their heads for very shame, as poor old dog Tray hangeth his head when caught in company with sheep-killing dogs, and especially when some wool is found in his teeth. Paul was present when Stephen, the first Christian martyr, was put to death; he only held the clothes of those who cast the stones, but he was just as guilty of murder as though he had cast the fatal missile, by his presence, and making no objection he was consenting to the crime. To have relieved himself of the blood of Stephen, he should not have gone to the place where the murder was committed, if he knew, or had good reason to know, that a crime was to be committed. If he had gone there with the belief that it was an innocent, harmless gathering, and after getting there he saw their murderous intent, he should at least have left immediately and thus have withdrawn all his influence and supposed sympathy with the criminals. The holding of their clothes did not make him guilty, but was only cumulative evidence of the murderous intent in his heart.

Reader, if you go to a ball or dance, knowing it to be such, you are a participant in all the sins and crimes which would not have been committed, if such ball or dance had never been. So if the gathering be for a sinless, harmless purpose, and you find, after arriving at the place, that there is to be a dance, and you do not leave immediately, you will be just as guilty as though you had gone with full knowledge of what was to be. The encouragement and endorsement of your presence makes you just as guilty as those who join in the dance. There is no difference, except in degree, between the select parlor dance and the masquerade ball, because the one is the stepping stone to the other. Not one in ten thousand have done their first dancing at the masquerade ball, just as not one in ten thousand ever took their first drink of whiskey in a drinking saloon. But let it be remembered that hundreds of thousands have taken their first drink of wine or whiskey at a ball or dance.

One of the greatest sins committed by children and young people is disobedience to parents. It is one of the greatest, because it is one of the first, and because if cultivated it becomes a cesspool of iniquity. It is a pandora box, out of which ten thousand troubles, trials, difficulties, sins and crimes will come. I claim that the love of dancing is the most fruitful source of disobedience to parents to be found beneath the sun, because it becomes a ruling passion. If anything will cause a child to disobey its parents, it is to forbid them going to a ball or dance when their heart is set upon it. They go and then deny it. For all the disobedience brought about in this way, the parents are generally far more to blame than the children because it is the parents' fault that they have ever learned to dance. Some parents have an idea that dancing is a necessary branch of education, that it makes their children graceful, but never look far enough down the line to see that they are opening the way to graceful disobedience, graceful liars, graceful thieves, graceful gamblers, graceful drunkards, graceful prostitutes, graceful whoremongers and to every sin and crime that men and women can commit beneath the sun. They are opening the very gates of hell to their own children.

MANY, if not all, of the following sins and crimes are committed at every dance, hop or ball, and every one present, whether participating in the dance or not, is equally guilty with the perpetrators of all the sins and crimes, which would not have been committed if there had been no such gathering: