Evening star., 1924-11-11
DANCING is EVIL,
EVANGELIST SHOUTS
Rev. Burke CuIpepper Says
Craze Will Ruin Church
if Not Stopped.

"Any man who can take plump,
sweet little girl in his arms on the
dance floor and feel like going to
Sunday School is either more than
a man, not man, or dirty mar.
Thus did Burke Culpepper. Billy
Sunday of the South" illustrate to
his revival audience at the Mount
Vernon NJ f. Church, South, last
night his shouted contention that the
modern dance and the church cam
not be reconciled.
IF the dance craze isn't stopped,
he yelled earnestly, 1T will damn
the church,
Striding from one end of the plat
form in the church auditorium to the
other now waving his arms wildly
or hating suddenly to shake clenched
fists at an imaginary demon in the
form OF a deck of cards, the shimmy
or Sunday base ball, the noted
evangelist alternately held his list
eners spellbound with his fiery ora
tory or sent them into convulsions of
laughter with his perturbation of
wealthy dowagers, spineless happers
or the busy" business man.
scores Shnday sports.
Virtually all the modern-da amuse-
m-ntS came in for a severe lambaSt-
ing at the hands of the evangelist,
including, in addition to the dance,
cards and Sunday base ball, such
diversions as the movies, especially
on Sunday; Sabbath golf and, in fact,
any form of Sunday amusement.
Mr.. Culpepper landed telling blow
at the lying habit right at the out
set, when he started to announce his
text, and then interrupted himself by
asking if any one in the audience had
read the fifteenth chapter of King
Hezekiah." Several persons raised
their hands, at which the evangelist
remarked sarcastically that they
must be mistaken, as thAr isn't any
such book in the Bible.
On top of this he asked how many
in the audience were born in the
country. There was a general raising
of hands, which seemed to satisfy the
preacher, for he announced, Il
thought So" adding that only back
woods congregation would have bit
on the Hezekiah chestnut.
Holds Dancing Worst.
Taking as his text The Wages of
Sin Is Death" he held up the modern
dance as one of the greatest of sins.
1T is a menace to civilization" he
shouted. 1t is time to stop it. The
preachers of the country must stop
listening to a small clique of wealthy
church members with lots of money
but little brains. Any preacher who
hasn't the courage to stand up and
fight the dance ought to be sprinkled
with insect powder and eXtermi-
mated"
He pictured the modern smart
set with its cigarette-puffing girls,
who think they are the cats eye
brow's."
1T doesn't take any brains to know
how to dance" he asserted vocifer-
ously, "and it doesn't take any brains
to play cards. l have heard about a
patient on an operating table who
got up and walked away after his
brains had been cut out and the doc
tor didn't find him till several hours
later, in a ballroom. When the es-
capped patient saw the surgeon COM
ing to get him he waved him away
with the statement that he didn't
need brains now, he was in society,""
"Fat and Forty"
Declaring that "sin is silly" he de-
nounced the women who are fiat and
~ for trying to act as though they
are II, saying: when woman gets
to be fat and 40 some one ought to
take her aside and tell her that she
isn't cute any more"
At this point the preacher de-
scribed dinner dance he blundered
upon in Kansas hotel, where sim
P'' ehiiu SiiiS DuuS anu
were hopping around between the
tables to the tune of a jazz orches-
ira
They would sit down and eat a
mouthful and then jump up and
shake 1t down." he said. "One pretty
girl not more than II years old, with
not enough clothes on to flag a hand
car, started to shimmy all over the
place. She shimmied into my table
and nearly upset the coffee which
didn't need any more percolating."
Makes Women ImbeciIes.
The dance of today makes women
lmbeclles, he went on. THE world
hasn't been as good to live in since
woman left the home. Woman's
place is at home baking biscuits and
spanking babies. A girl who de-
hberately deserts the home life for a
business career is cheapening herself
/ am not condemning the girl who
makes the magnificent sacrifice of
home comforts to earn a living for
her family when they are needy She
is heroine.
Dancing is vulgarizing and max
ing common our pure girls It's a
divorce breeder, church destroyer
1t is animalistic and heather. 1t is
degrading to men and women
Il have had men come to me and
say that the dance hasn't hurt them
any. That is not the point. The ques-
tion is not whether it hurts you, but
whether it hurts the church or wom-
anhood. Bullets fired into a crowd
don't hurt everybody, either"
Dissertation of Sabbath.
Switching to desecration of the Sab
bath, Mr.. Culpepper denounced Sun
day movies. Sunday base ball, Sunday
golf and the various other Sunday
pastimes. He declared that most of
the movies nowadays emphasize the
sex problem and that only once in
every two or three weeks was there
a decent picture shown. He charac-
terized any non-church member who
went to the movies on Sunday as "a
burglar" and any church member
who did the same thing as IAN en-
bezzler, r,'-"one working against the
church from the outside, the other
from within"
If the earth had no atmosphere it
would be subjected to a constant bonn
bardment of shooting stars
~ H$s9z1 9z\19Ae %a