Chapter 3

I have carefully examined my way-bill to heaven, and it was made out by one who knows every foot of the way, but I find no mention made of drinking saloons, ball rooms, theaters, operas, houses of ill-fame, and _such like_ places as being on or near this road. The same one has furnished me a way-bill to hell, and I find all these places mentioned as being on the line of this road. Whenever you find yourself, dear reader, at one of these places, you may know beyond the shadow of a doubt that you are not in the narrow road; and with equal certainty you may know you are in the broad road. Now these boys are evidently on the broad road, because the devil's sutler-shops are not to be found anywhere else, for the very good reason that he cannot get a permit to put them up on the narrow road. He would put them in the very center of heaven if he possibly could. His impudence and daring is only equaled by his fathomless corruption. The man or woman who will dare to say that these places are found on the road to heaven, certainly has a very poor idea of heaven and its inhabitants. If they are to be found along the straight and narrow way, and the travelers along this way are to enter and participate in the things therein going on, then they are certainly designed of God to _aid in the salvation of immortal souls_. If this be true, on entering the narrow way the first refreshments we shall get are to be found in one of these places, having this sign over the door; "FIRST CHANCE," and the last thing we pass in this life, just before we enter heaven, will be another one of these houses with this inscription over the door: "LAST CHANCE." Some of these boys don't understand it this way; they have been raised to think that "_there is no harm in dancing_," but were never told that the dancing shops of all kinds are on the same road with all the drinking saloons and other places of a like character. No, the same parents told their sons that the drinking saloon is next door to hell, and these are the ones we read about in the Bible, who "strain at a gnat and swallow a camel." That is to say, in those days when Christ was on earth, there were some people so peculiarly constituted that they strained at a gnat and swallowed a camel; but we live in an age of improvement, an age in which some people strain at a gnat, and swallow a Jumbo with perfect ease and in the most graceful manner.

I know an advocate of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, who often dances all night, most _gracefully_, and in the morning she turneth up her little nose, just as _gracefully_ as the elephant turneth up his snout when Peck's bad boy has thrown him a piece of tobacco, _at the awful drinking saloon and saloon keepers_. The private parlor dance is the beginning, the first depot on the great air-line route from this world to the city of destruction; here the boys and men are drawn into the coaches by the general passenger agents: the MOTHERS, WIVES, DAUGHTERS, SISTERS and SWEETHEARTS. This line is advertised as the finest and best equipped road beneath the sun. Fine sleepers; all the way through, without change. Special guarantee against accidents. This road is laid with smooth, glass rails, and the wheels are made of India rubber. Drinking saloons, beer gardens, and some other places I'll not mention, are the wood yards and tanks, where fuel and water is procured which gets up the steam that draws the train with increasing velocity down to the great city of destruction. When the train stops for wood and water, all the passengers are expected to take part in the very interesting and social performance. But here are same boys who beg to be excused. "Can't excuse you," cries the brakesman. "Come along, you can take a small _stick_ in the way of a cigar;" and so these boys, not wishing to appear ugly and incur the ill will of the brakesman, walk into a saloon for the first time. They first take a cigar, but soon the brakesman (an old stager) laughs them to scorn and confusion, and not being able to stand the fire, they throw down the cigar and take their _first drink in a drinking saloon_. After the drinks have been repeated a few times, one of the brakesmen, well under the influence of whiskey or wine, takes a careful look at all present, and if satisfied there is no relative or sweetheart in hearing, he then and there tells an _anecdote_ on one of the nice girls or married ladies with whom they have been dancing, that certainly would bring the blush of shame to the cheeks of the blackest devil that inhabits the world of outer darkness. The drink, and anecdotes of the same character, _only worse, if possible_, are repeated until interrupted by the appearance of a half-witted looking young man, entering from a back door, who seems to have something of great importance to tell the bartender. He talks low, but sufficiently loud to be heard by the boys, for it is really for their ears. "Have you heard the news?" "No, what news." "Why, about Bill Jones; he went in back here to-night with only five dollars for a stake, and he has just now gone home with _five hundred dollars_ in his pocket." Then the boys slide out, and as soon as out in a dark corner, they begin to enquire to see if a stake can be raised among them, finding none, one or two being confidential clerks, go to the store, bank or other place of business, and _borrow_ fifteen or twenty dollars, having no doubt of their ability to win a few hundred dollars in a little while, and then replace the _borrowed_ money without it ever being known. Soon the _borrowed_ stake is in the hands of the dealer. They repeat the drinks, and then _borrow_ some more in the same way, which goes into the same hands as the first, and thus they continue until the appearance of day-light, and then reeling to and fro under the influence of the mean whiskey they have been drinking, and the ponderous weight of their sins and crimes, they go to their rooms, cursing the day on which they were born.

THEY HAVE LOST ALL SELF-RESPECT.

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:

SAMPLES OF FRUIT FOUND ON THE TREE OF DANCING:

ENVY.

JEALOUSY.

PRIDE.

DECEIT.

DISOBEDIENCE TO PARENTS

BACKBITING.

STRIFE.

HATRED.

LASCIVIOUSNESS.

EMULATION.

SEDITION.

LYING.

THEFT.

DRUNKENNESS.

SABBATH BREAKING.

GAMBLING.

EMBEZZLEMENT.

SUICIDE.

VULGARITY.

FORNICATION.

ADULTERY.

OBSCENITY.

EXTRAVAGANCE.

DIVORCE.

LUNACY.

WANTONNESS.

CRUELTY.

IDOLATRY.

PERJURY.

SEDUCTION.

PROSTITUTION.

ABORTION.

INFANTICIDE.

ASSASSINATION.

MURDER.

"AND SUCH LIKE."

Every honest man is compelled to admit that these sins and crimes are the _natural fruit of dancing_; THAT THESE THINGS DO FLOW FROM THE DANCE. I frankly admit that all these sins and crimes may and do come from other sources, but I challenge the world to point to any _one_ thing that produces as many of these sins and crimes as the dance. The drinking saloon is a prolific source of evil, but not one-half as much as the dance, for it must be borne in mind that _men only_ attend the saloons, and that many of them are sent there _from the ball room_, and many, who never would have seen the inside of a drinking saloon but for the ball or dance. _The ball is a feeder for drinking saloons, gambling saloons, and houses of ill-fame._

I have delivered this lecture on dancing in seven States, before about one hundred congregations, numbering from three hundred to ten thousand people. I have called on all the men, old and young, saint and sinner, at nearly every place, to give an expression of opinion from what they had seen themselves, or what they had heard from those who had attended balls, hops, and such like places, as to the correctness or incorrectness of my charges against the dance, and out of I think not less than fifty thousand men, I have never found but SEVEN who stood up, thereby saying they did not believe that the sins and crimes I had mentioned had ever flowed from the ball room, while nearly all the balance stood up before their wives, daughters, sisters, and sweethearts, saying that they do believe, from what they _know, and have seen_ and have heard from those who attend balls and hops, that these sins and crimes are the natural fruit of all kinds of dancing, where the sexes dance together. A few, perhaps one in twenty, kept their seats, not expressing their opinion either way. Of this class I think I may safely say that _four-fifths_ failed to understand my proposition, or thought it not necessary to rise; but if they had stood up, they would have been with the affirmative. While I am not an apologist for saloon keepers and gamblers, I want to record the fact right here that I have had more or less of them in my congregations, at nearly every place where I talked on this subject, and I have never known one, no, not one, to keep his seat when an expression of opinion was called for, and not one was found among the _immortal seven_.

There are many men worse at heart than gamblers and saloon keepers. If they and their families were treated by the Christian people with more kindness, and less like they were outcasts, hundreds and thousands of them would become Christians. I do not claim that all who attend dancing parties, balls, and hops are ruined, but I do claim that _all who attend such places take part in the eternal disgrace and ruin of others._ There is not a man or woman among the living, or the dead, who has made a practice of attending such places, but that has the blood of one or more _lost souls_ upon their garments, _and there it must remain throughout the ceaseless ages of_ ETERNITY, _unless it be washed away_ BY THE BLOOD OF JESUS CHRIST.

My sainted mother and my wife have attended and participated in the dance, but, like hundreds and thousands of girls and women of to-day, they never had the most distant idea that the dancing party or ball was a cesspool of iniquity, for, had they known the things brought to light in this little book, they never would have made one step in that direction. I believe that God has forgiven them, because, like Paul, they did it ignorantly. "I obtained mercy, because I did it _ignorantly_."--I. Tim. 1-13. Reader, if you ever go to one of these places after your eyes have been opened, as they must be now, you cannot plead _ignorance_, but you will sin _wilfully_ and _knowingly._ See Heb. 10: 26, 27.

Those who are turned into the paths of shame, of vice, and of crime, are described in the Bible in the following terrible language, and where could a better description be found? "Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core. These are _spots_ in your feasts of charity when they feast with you, _feasting themselves without fear._ Clouds they are without water, _carried about of winds_, trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots. _Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own_ SHAME; _wandering_ STARS to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever."--Jude, 11, 12, 13.

Mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, if there is a doubt left in your minds as to the charges made against dancing, will you do yourselves, and those under your influence, the justice to ask your husbands, fathers and brothers to read this little book, and give you their _honest opinions_?

* * * * *

VERDICT.

This is to certify that I have carefully read this little book, and give it as my honest conviction--from what I have seen and what I have heard from those who have attended dancing parties, balls and hops--that the charges and specifications are true, and believing them to be true, I here promise to use all my influence against _all kinds_ of dancing, while I live on earth.

(Here Sign Name.).............................

Try and get four others to sign with you.

* * * * *

If this little book should be of benefit to any one, I would like to know it. As it is my intention to get out a second edition, I desire to collect all _the facts_ I can in support of the charges and specifications against dancing. Ministers of the Gospel, physicians, and fathers and mothers, can render me great assistance if they will.

_Names of correspondents will not be published without special permission_.

There is No Harm in Dancing.

Single Copy, Paper Cover, 25 cts. Single Copy, Cloth Cover, 30 cts.

Liberal discount to Pastors and Dealers.

* * * * *

HARVEST BELLS, No. 2.

A New Sabbath School Song Book, just published.

Suitable also for Revivals.

The _most popular_ Song Book ever offered to the public.

Single Copy, $ .30. Per Dozen, 3.00.

LIBERAL DISCOUNT TO DEALERS.

Address: W. E. PENN, PALESTINE, TEXAS.