Chapter 2
When we consider the large number of young men, young husbands and fathers and mothers who are not able, in justice to themselves and those looking to and relying upon them for a support, to keep pace with the rich in their extravagance, and that all must come together on the same floor, in the same room and pass in review before the merciless critics always to be found in the ball room, and find that the weakest and most vulnerable points in human nature are here attacked by three of the devil's most powerful armies, under command of three of his most stratagetic and experienced generals--ENVY, JEALOUSY and WOUNDED PRIDE--we may at once proceed to examine the fruit of dancing. Nearly all of our young people are in love with some one, and not unfrequently two or three or more are in love with the same one, or the lover imagines that he or she has from one to a half dozen rivals, which is the same to them as if it were true. It is often the case that an engagement exists, or there is grave suspicion of its existence. A dancing party or ball is in prospect. The same preparation must be made by rich and poor. One young man who chanced to be born of rich or well-to-do parents, and one young lady the same, order their outfits, and they are paid for not unfrequently out of the usurious interest wrung from the fathers and mothers of the poorer young men and girls. Now the poorer and less able to purchase the necessary all outfits, which are always costly, _must go_. They must go, because they _love_ the dance. They are PASSIONATELY fond of it.
They must go, or it may be said they could not go on account of their poverty. They must go, in order to keep pace with their rivals, so as to keep an eye on them, lest they be supplanted in their affections. These are three powerful inducements. Without Divine aid they are irresistible when brought to bear on the young.
THEY MUST GO!
THEY WILL GO!
THEY DO GO!
Here thousands of fathers and mothers have been compelled to yield to the entreaties of their daughters, and sometimes their sons, in purchasing costly apparel, jewelry, etc., when they knew they were not able, outfits that never would have been needed but for the dance. Hundreds of thousands of young men, with small salaries, in moderate circumstances, have been induced, under this heavy pressure, to resort to many dishonest devices in order to make the necessary preparations. Clerks have sold goods above the market price and put the excess in their pockets. They have often _borrowed_ money from their employer, _without his knowledge_, small amounts, from day to day. They have borrowed from friends by telling them they had money coming from an estate, or friend or a debtor, which they knew to be false, and in the same way, or by other false statements, have bought articles of clothing, made large livery bills, which they knew would never be paid. Many conceive the idea they can raise the desired amount at the gambling table, and here do _their first_ gambling. Where one succeeds, at least one hundred fail. Some raise the required amount by transferring a few cows, yearlings, steers, a horse or a mule, to distant pastures; some are caught and some are not. Those not caught are in a far worse condition than those in the jail or in the penitentiary, because they have been checked in their mad career, and the others are emboldened by their escape to commit other and greater crimes. "Be sure your sins will find you out." Yes, inexorable, unerring justice is on the track of all evil-doers, and will be certain to overtake them sooner or later. Hundreds of thousands of fathers and mothers, and young married people, have been brought to poverty and misery; some, within my knowledge, to alms-houses, by the heavy draws made upon them by their sons, daughters and wives, in preparing for dancing parties and balls. For weeks before the ball comes off--and here let it be understood that I mean the ball to cover hops, dancing parties and all manner of dancing--the young people are wild with excitement; they are almost wholly incapable of any kind of business. All manner of domestic affairs are almost entirely neglected by the girls and young wives. The bright anticipation of great pleasure in the near future, turns some of their little shallow brains up-side-down, and they are often seen in a sort of deep reverie, wearing a blank gaze, having very much the appearance of poor unfortunate idiots. If the father, mother, husband, brother or teacher speaks to them, unless it be on the subject of the ball, they grin like a baboon and snap like a mad dog. If we run on at the rate we are now going, it will not be a great while until it may be found to be cheaper to build a few asylums for the sane, and let the idiots and lunatics run at large.
THE BALL. THE HOP. THE DANCE.
IT IS ALL THE SAME.
Well, the long looked for day has come; it is now 8 P.M., and the boys, girls and young wives are in their rooms donning their new and costly apparel, which has been bought, borrowed or _stolen_ in divers and sundry ways. Some have been paid for, some will be paid for, and some will remain open accounts until judgment day. The wealthy and those who never pay their bills will be dressed in the costliest, richest apparel, because only these classes can afford these luxuries. EXTREMES WILL MEET. The young men go and bring in their girls, and when they get to the door, they are met by the committee of reception, who politely show the ladies a side room where they will go and lay off their wraps. The young men go out into the corner of the yard or in the woods and lay off their _wraps_--in the nature of a bottle of whiskey or brandy--or they have left them in a buggy or carriage, or a room has been set apart for this purpose, and the WRAPS have been provided before-hand, or they are to be found in a convenient drinking saloon.
THE WRAPS ARE THERE.
The girls wear their wraps around them. The boys _wear_ themselves around their wraps. These _wraps_ are brought into requisition as the physical man begins to weaken under the excessive and unnatural exercise. Unnatural, because the hours designed by God, our maker, to be used in rest and sleep are appropriated to another and very different purpose. Here the tempter discovers another weak point, and he makes the attack. The great draw made upon the physical forces makes it necessary--the tempter says--to use an artificial stimulant, which is here often taken the first time, and which is not unfrequently repeated, until many are so much under its influence and some get so drunk--no, become so suddenly _indisposed_, that they have to be carried home. These entertainments seldom break up until the light of the morning begins to appear, but I will compromise on 2 o'clock, A.M. At 9 or 10 o'clock, P.M., the performance begins, and I propose we shall _candidly_ and _honestly_ examine this basket of fruit. Whether designed or not, it is simply a fact that many of the girls and women are dressed in such a way and manner as best and most successfully to excite the baser passions of men.
If the style of dress often, yea, nearly always, seen at the _fashionable_ balls and dancing parties is wholly without any evil design--innocently following a fashion--and if those who thus dress are really ignorant of the effect it has upon the opposite sex, it is high time their eyes were being opened. If this be only a fashion, and I want to believe it is nothing more, but when I remember distinctly that this manner of dressing for balls and dancing parties has been the fashion for forty years and that it has never changed, _except to become a little more so_, and that all other fashions have changed at least twenty times, my belief staggers and hangs its head for very shame. This fruit alone has sent hundreds of thousands of men, women and girls to premature graves, dishonored graves, felons' cells, and to an endless hell. That this semi-nude condition, in which many girls and women are seen in the dance, has been productive of a vast deal of sin and crime, no honest man certainly will deny. In the whirl of the gay and giddy dance, we see:
Strong men and women fair Are now within the tempter's snare, With arms around each slender waist, Each woman held in _close embrace_.
If all the _thoughts_ could be made known Of seeds of crime which here are sown, 'Twould cause the _hardest_ cheek to blush And every _virtuous_ heart would crush.
But so it is, and ere must be, While men and women thus agree _To tempt themselves, and others too_, TO SINS AND CRIMES OF DEADLY HUE.
The following is the experience of a lady whose name is withheld, but who has distinguished herself in literature, and made a world-wide reputation:
"In those times I cared little for polka or varsovienne, and still less for 'Money Musk' or 'Virginia Reel,' and wondered what people could find to admire in these slow dances. But in the soft floating of the waltz I found a strange pleasure, rather difficult to intelligibly describe. The mere anticipation fluttered my pulse, and when my partner approached to claim my promised hand for the dance, I felt my cheeks glow a little sometimes, and I could not look him in the eye with the same frank gayety as heretofore.
"But the climax of my confusion was reached when, folded in his warm embrace, and giddy with the whirl, a strange, sweet thrill would shake me from head to foot, leaving me weak and almost powerless, and really obliged to depend for support on the arm which encircled me. If my partner failed, from ignorance, lack of skill or innocence, to arouse these, to me, most pleasureable sensations, I did not dance with him the second time.
"I am speaking openly and frankly, and when I say that I did not understand what I felt, or what were the real and greatest pleasures I derived from this so-called dancing, I expect to be believed. But if my cheeks grew red with uncomprehended pleasure then, they grow pale to-day with shame when I think of it all. It was the physical emotions engendered by the magnetic contact of strong men that I was enamored of--not of the dance, not even of the men themselves.
"Thus I became abnormally developed in my lowest nature. I grew bolder, and from being able to return shy glances at first, was soon able to meet more daring ones, until the waltz became to me and whomsoever danced with me, one lingering, sweet and purely sensual pleasure, where heart beat against heart, hand was held in hand and eyes looked burning words which lips dared not speak.
"All this time no one said to me, 'You do wrong;' so I dreamed of sweet words whispered during the dance, and often felt, while alone, a thrill of joy indescribable, yet overpowering, when my mind would turn from my study to remember a piece of temerity of unusual grandeur on the part of one or another of my cavaliers.
"Married now, with home and children around me, I can at least thank God for the experience which will assuredly be the means of preventing my little daughters from indulging in any such dangerous pleasure. But if a young girl, pure and innocent in the beginning, can be brought to feel what I have confessed to have felt, what must be the experience of a married woman? She knows what every glance of the eye, every bend of the head, every close clasp means, and knowing that, reciprocates it, and is led by swifter steps and a surer path down the dangerous, dishonorable road."
I read in the Scripture, in that ever memorable sermon on the Mount, this significant declaration: "Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." Some may not receive this as sound doctrine, because it is the language of Jesus Christ; but this will not give relief, because the _corrupting_ influence would be just the same if Christ had never said one word about it. Christ only gave the great sin a name by calling it adultery. It was in this way the seed was sown in the heart of the Psalmist David that caused him to commit one of the greatest crimes ever committed on earth. See 2 Samuel, 11 Ch. In the same way the seed has been sown in the hearts of thousands of men in the ball room, in the dances and in the private parlors, which has ripened into disruptions of the marital relations--has ripened into husbands murdering their wives, has ripened into husbands losing their wives by elopement, has ripened into husbands being murdered, has ripened into young men killing each other; and last, though not least, has resulted in the utter ruin of hundreds of thousands of the fair daughters of our land and country. Taking the declarations of Jesus Christ as true, and no honest man can doubt it, _there never was and never will be a dancing party or ball that the great sin He referred to was not and will not be committed in the hearts of some men_.
Here permit me to ask an important question, and solemnly charge every reader to make answer as upon oath:
WITH WHOM IS THIS GREAT SIN COMMITTED?
If common honesty compels fathers, husbands and brothers to admit these things to be true, will you ever again permit your wives, your daughters or your sisters to be found at one of these places, however decent the people may be, while they are under your control? If you do, after your attention has been called to the hideous deformity of the dance, God, man and your own conscience will condemn you. Whatsoever of evil or crime may be committed, unyielding justice, unmixed with mercy, will certainly hold you responsible. This last objection to the dance will hold and be just as good against the theaters and operas, because no one will deny but that a special effort is generally made at these places to excite the passions of men and women by an indecent exposure of their persons. To say the least of it, Christians have no business at these places.
A Christian has no business at any place where he cannot go in the name of Jesus Christ, because the Scripture says: "They shall walk up and down in His name."--Zach., 10 ch. 12v. Micah, 4 ch. 5v.--"His name shall be on their foreheads."--Rev., 22 ch. 4 v. "Ye are my witnesses."--Isa., 43 ch. 10 v. Can a Christian, a true follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, "walk up and down" in a ball room in His _name_? Can a Christian go into a ball room with the name of Jesus Christ written on his or her forehead? If a man has His name written on his forehead, and he goes into a ball room, theater, opera, or a drinking saloon, does he not, by that act, hide the name of Jesus Christ? Can a Christian be a witness for God in the ball room, theater, opera, or drinking saloon? _If not, his testimony is false, and he is a perjured man!_ I have no doubt some very nice people--_society people_--will be terribly _shocked_ at the developments herein made.
I was raised in the country, and I remember a varmint got to visiting our poultry yard and carrying off those _roosting nearest the ground_, which were generally our _improved blooded (society)_ chickens, and whenever we would get after him, he would run down through a _very muddy_ place, and take refuge in a hole in the bank of a creek. We rather dreaded the task of following him through all this _mud and filth_; but, as a last resort, rather than let him have all the poultry, or allow him to continue his depredations at pleasure, we waded through the mud down to his den and dug into his hiding place; and when he was struck on the head with the back of a hoe, he too was _terribly shocked._
Now this little animal was not, as may be supposed by some, one of the "common or unclean," but he was one of the elite, a regular _society_ mink. He was covered with very fine fur, but had his stomach filled with stolen chickens. I leave the application to all to whom these presents may come, GREETING. _When I want to buy a hat, I never take one unless it fits me_.
More or less of the girls participating in the dance are engaged to be married, and great effort is made to keep this a profound secret, so she very naturally has every man for a partner except her intended. Here is music in the back-ground, if her intended is present, and he is sure to be there if he is in striking distance--if he is not down with typhoid fever or in prison.
This music is in his heart, in the nature of clamoring for blood, by a legion of different sized devils. It may be there is not one man in the room that would have his girl under any consideration whatever, but he imagines that they all want her. The female outfit for the ball consists of girls and a number of young married women, and some a little older, and some old women, forty to fifty years old, with grown children, false teeth, false hair, and bloats to swell out their wrinkled cheeks, and they, too, are dressed in the _fashion_ with red ribbons, and blue and green; these furnish the _disgust_ for the occasion--and one of them has been known to furnish disgust enough for a city of ten thousand inhabitants, and of the very best quality. Let us return to the basket containing the young married people, and examine the fruit therein. Reader, did you ever see the young married woman watching her husband as he glides up and down in the merry dance, _with an old sweetheart in his arms?_ If you never did, the first opportunity you have, take a good look at a cat's eyes in the dark and in imagination transfer them to the young wife's head, and you will have a very correct idea of how _sweet_ and _amiable_ she looks.
Who among the living will ever forget that poor unfortunate girl, in the State of Georgia, who was assassinated in the ball room by a jealous young wife? The civilized world was shocked by the announcement of this terrible tragedy, which was purely the fruit of the ball room. These parties were not of the low and vulgar, but were of the society people of the age. How many husbands have in the same way and for the same cause had all the baser, brutish passions aroused to such an extent as to have their reasoning faculties dethroned, and have been driven by the raging devils within to commit many of the greatest, most shameful and most disgraceful crimes that ever blackened the records of a criminal court? How many have cursed and abused their wives while on the way home from the ball room? How many, after their arrival at home, have used their superior physical strength in abusing their wives in a most shameful and disgraceful manner? How much of all this was the result of a frenzied imagination, and not for any real misconduct? How many of all these cruel wrongs and outrages are never known except by the parties themselves? How many fathers and mothers have neglected their children by leaving them in incompetent and unsafe hands, while they spent the night in the ball room? How many husbands have left their wives, in poor health, sometimes sick in bed, with two or three little children crying around them, while they have spent the night in the ball room dancing with other women? How many men and women, and especially women, from physical and mental causes superinduced by the effects of the ball room, have been driven to madness, and have thus become inmates of insane asylums, or have deliberately taken their own lives? O! for the pen of a Milton or a Pollock! But this would not suffice, because these questions can only be answered at the Judgment Bar of God, when the secrets of all hearts shall be made known.
THEY WILL BE ANSWERED THEN.
How many girls have innocently and _ignorantly_ killed themselves, or have sown the seed of some terrible lingering disease, by checking the course of nature, by bathing or otherwise, in their preparation for the ball room, which they would not have done to attend any other place? How many women, all over the country, are suffering the pangs of death from this cause alone?
One of the handsomest and most accomplished girls I ever knew, at the age of eighteen, ignorantly killed herself in this way. I know through physicians of many others who have wrecked their health in the same way. Let the invalids among the women tell their physicians the _truth_, and then let the physicians and the _graves_ speak out, and the world would be horror-stricken at the awful report. Whiskey has slain its thousands, but the ball, the hop, the dance, its tens of thousands.
In this connection I wish to give young men some wholesome advice, which, if observed, will keep them out of a great deal of trouble, and save the payment of a great many bills. Whenever you hear that an old clock, an old carriage, an old saw-mill, an old steamboat, or a woman or girl who is _passionately_ fond of dancing is on the market, be certain to remain in bed or get the sheriff, which is much safer, to put you in jail until these articles are disposed of. I respectfully refer to all who have had any of these articles _knocked off on them_.
When the ball closes, the young men take the girls to their homes. In a little while the girls--darling angels--are in the land of dreams, but they certainly never dream that they have been "sowing the seeds of eternal shame, sowing the seeds of a maddened brain." They never dream _that they are responsible for all the sins and crimes that flow from the ball room_, BUT THEY CERTAINLY ARE, because if they would not go to these places, there never would be another ball or hop or dance upon the face of all the earth.
MEN WILL NOT DANCE BY THEMSELVES.
If they do, they will not injure any one but themselves, and they will be certain not to keep late hours. While the girls are dreaming, the young men are assembling at some favorite room or corner down in town. If Jim gets there first he waits for Bill, and then they wait for Jack, Bob, Ben, Charlie and the balance of the club. When they are all in, one or two of the older ones propose to go across the way and take a drink at the corner saloon, which is still in blast; yes, running at a full head of steam, or rather mean whiskey. Now here is a very strange thing. I have never heard of but one first-class saloon closing until after the ball closed, and in this case the owner was very sick and the bar-tender had skipped with the cash balance. Some of these boys have been taught by their old-fogy fathers and mothers that such things are not to be found on the straight and narrow road, because there is no _room_ for them along this road, _and no use for them either_.