slighted by all her old companions, and was running away from home. I knew that her parents would be heart broken, and that she, without the protection of a home, would soon sink to utter abandonment, and I tried every persuasion to induce her to return to the home she was leaving. I—who was still teaching the very thing which had been her ruin, now that self-respect and all for which life was worth the living, was lost to her forever—I tried to save her from further degradation.

After I had argued for some time with her she turned fiercely upon me, her once beautiful eyes now filled with a desperation born of despair, and said, with a look and tone of reproach which I shall never forget: "Mr. Faulkner, when you will close your dancing schools and stop this business, which is sending so many girls by swift stages on a straight road to hell, then, sir, and not till then, will I think of reform."

I was stirred by her words as I had never been stirred before. But for them I might, perhaps, not have been writing this book to-day. At this I know many may sneer and say that I have myself done more than most men towards the furtherance of the evil I so strongly condemn.

I bow my acknowledgements. I own it all.

"I lived for self, I thought for self,
For self and none beside,
Just as if Christ had never lived.
As though he had never died."

I sinned against heaven and in the sight of God and man, and was in no wise worthy to become a child of him to whom I came ten months ago, and he received me just as I was, all stained with many, many sins, and in his boundless love and mercy he forgave them all.

I feel I cannot close this book without just a word to any of my old companions who may chance to read it, and to others who are leading the life I once led. I want you to forsake that old life I once shared with you and, as I have done, give yourselves into the hands of the Master, Jesus Christ.

You don't know what you are missing of happiness in this world and what you may miss in the world to come. I do not ask you to take my life for an example. That would be a poor example, indeed. We do not have to take any human life for a copy. The life of Christ is the one true example for us all, and I believe that when we stand before, the great Judge of all, the question will not be, if we have lived as well as this professing Christian or that church member, but if we have lived our life as nearly like the life of Christ as we could.

And right here let me say a few words to professing Christians and church members who dance. I say "professing" Christians because I believe there is a vast difference between a Christian and a "professing" Christian and church member who dances.

To be a Christian is to be Christlike, and I believe there is nothing Christlike in partaking of such pleasures as have been described in the foregoing pages, even though you indulge no further than the license of the waltz. And even granting (if this were possible) that you only engage in the indecent and suggestive position and motions, without a single sinful thought or feeling, do you believe that your Heavenly Father could say to you, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Thou hast spent the evening to my honor and glory. Thou art in the world and not of it. Thou hast done nothing that could cause thy brother to offend, but hast set a good and Godly example. Thou art letting thy light so shine before men that they will see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven. Thou art denying thyself and taking thy cross daily and following me. I left my home in glory and lived and suffered and died the death of the crucified that thou mightest take thine ease, dance, drink, and be merry, and then, lay down thy cross and take up thy crown in glory to be with thy Savior and be like Him."

"The Son of man cometh at an hour when ye know not."

If he should come and find you at the dance, locked in the embrace of another woman's husband, do you feel that he would consider you ready?

Do you not feel the slightest fear that He would say, "Depart from me, I never knew you?"

Ah, my friends, I should fear it very much. I should fear that to my account would be laid the sin of the harlot.

You say that you dance very properly. What have you to say for those who, looking to you for a Christian example, see that you, a church member, dance, and conclude that there can be no harm in it for them, so they indulge and are ruined by it, and in after days are to be found leading a life of shame in the brothel, all because of your example which led them to take the first step on the downward road?

Do you believe that when you shall both stand before the bar of God for just judgment that none of her sin will be laid to your charge?