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قراءة كتاب There is No Harm in Dancing
تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"
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:
Are now within the tempter's snare,
With arms around each slender waist,
Each woman held in close embrace.
Of seeds of crime which here are sown,
'Twould cause the hardest cheek to blush
And every virtuous heart would crush.
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