Year: 1864

The Time To Dance.


A ACoRREsPoNDENr Of the New York
Examiner Baptist paper) talks very
much as we believe, on subject about
which there is an honest difference OF
opinion among good people. We think
it will do our readers good to digest what
he writes:


..Ihave been young. and am now older,
and have discovered great need of find
ing home entertainment for the youth
about me. Dancing is a natural eX
preston of pleasure, or joy of any kind
either animal or spiritual. 1t is also the
generator of joy, in the glow and excite
ment which pleasant exercises of any
description afford


Now, if asked the meaning of the
passage, "A time to dance" / should
say it stood there. because there IS "a
time to Dance as well as "a time to die,
and "a time to weep l should say the
time to dance is on the evening of q
rainy day, when all the family have the
blues for want of exercise. An hour or
two of dancing, after tea, would send
them to their rooms cheerful, happy, and
devout, instead of doleful, and discon-
tented with home and home friends.


Il should say "a time to dance was
any time in the day, or before ten clock
at night, for all young women engaged
in sewing. drawing, designing, or other
sedentary employments, that they may
have vitality enough in their blood to
bless God, and rejoice with, instead of
groaning over doubts and fears, begotten
often by wretched state of health "A
time to dance" is when you take firty or
hundred children to the woods on
picnic or excursion; or when shut up on
board of ship for weeks together; or
for the patients of a hospital when they
are convalescent; or when son, husband,
brother. or friend comes home safe, and
with honor, from the war When peace
is established, and slavery is abolished,
shall be "a time to dance" and it will be
religious dancing, according to the feel
inos and emotions of the hearts of those
engaged.


Now, no one can look on such dane
ing as here described, and at the eleven
including the Savior's
own '.new commandment" and make it
out breach of either of them. The real
and only difficulty is the great fascination
of this amusement, which renders 1T so
difficult of control Yet Scotch Presby
terians have danced for centuries Swiss
Calvinists dance before their own cottage
doors French peasants dance, and sleep
with quiet conscience; and can not We
Americana learn an equal amount OF self
control in such matters


s.There are one or two items worthy Of
note in the Bible view of the question
~ oil i-
not condemned, but the idolatry or liccn-
tiousnass connected with it. Now, that
dancing and sin have gone hand and
glove from the beginning Of the world,
needs no proof. but so has music and
sin. eating and sin What we want is an
eve clear enough to discover rhat and
uhich is the sin, and strength of will or
grace enough to leave the one while tax
ing the other


I'm the glorious lists of gfaces and
virtues named by the variou, Apostles
as the fruits of the Spirit. dancing is not
named as one of them. therefore have no
faith in religious dancing" but neither
is it named in any list of the fruits of the
carnal mind The just inference, then,
ter whatever. and that its right or ,rrong



stances.


Mote. also, that Solomon makes no
mention of a time to lie,' or "a time to
or "a time to be drunk, =
real immoralities The fact is, the sub
ject of ,ehat is sin, and schat is not, is still
greatly ystifed-hundreds OF men,
whose consciences are quite easy while
those who reap down their fields receive
naught for their work, would be horror
stricken to see son or daughter skip
ping about the parlor to the music OF the
piano. Hundreds of women ill keep
girls working in their kitchens cooking
heavy dinners on the Sabbath, who would
be shocked not TO be seen in their own
seats in the church themselves, and yet
have never pointed one soul to Christ
during all their life, and do not feel con
demned.


when shall we cease tithing mint
and cummin. and attend to The weightier
matter Of the law?


Let all young persons take especial
notice that make no plea or excuse for
balls, masked balls. expensive dressing,
and always planning about dress, late
hours, and being so fatigued by ''recrea
tomas to require, perhaps, more than
the next day to recover from it Living
in and for pleasure, IL any form or shape
is often enough condemned both by
Moses and Christ; but learn, young
friends, to use the world as your own
and Christ's serpaut, resisting all its at
tempts to overcome