joint heirs with Jesus Christ. And they reflect the love and holiness of Jesus, as those who bear the Saviour's image.

A wide and unalterable distinction exists, therefore, between the servants of God and the people of the world, a distinction as perceptible as that which divides the night from the day, and the darkness from the light. "The one are born from above, the other from beneath. The one are quickened by Divine grace; the other are dead in trespasses and sins. The one are governed by the Spirit of God, and the other are under the dominion of Satan. The one consult the glory of God, and cheerfully resign all for Christ; the other make self the centre around which they move."

Such irreconcilable discordance in the primary elements of their character forbids the thought of their amalgamation. We might as reasonably expect that oil and water would commingle and become one fluid, as that true Christians should blend their hopes and interests with those of the world. The natural and ardent opposition, growing out of their respective principles and aims, renders a separation between them inevitable, absolutely necessary, necessary at least for the safety, comfort, consistency, and usefulness of believers.

There is no need of further exposition, to show that the injunction of the text is deep-laid in the very constitution of things—and is the natural result of the incompatible differences between submission to the will of God and rebellion against his moral government. The followers of Christ can never consent to a compromise involving these principles, unless they are willing to sacrifice his cause. Allegiance to Heaven demands that true Christians should never shrink in the hour of trial from the ignominy or suffering of the cross. If they would be holy, they must possess the courage to dare to be singular, and to meet the world's derisive laugh on account of the tenderness of their consciences, or their inexperience in the vanities and customs of fashionable life. They should receive as an honor its scorn and ridicule, when heaped upon them because they continue faithful to Christ; because they implicitly follow the directions of his humbling doctrines before men; and because they steadily maintain the line of separation between the church and the world.

No man deserves the name of Christian, no man can indulge a good hope of salvation, unless his faith in Christ is productive of non-conformity to the world; a stand which is indispensable to his separation from a perishing race and his incorporation into the Kingdom of Heaven.

II. In the second place we proceed to adduce the facts proving that Dancing is an act of conformity to the world.

1. Even if could be shown that it is a healthful amusement, the position assumed by the text, would exclude it from the recreations of those who love and obey God, imposing on them the obligation to refrain from it, and to resort to other means of exercise, to which no valid objection could be made.

No apology, we are sure, can be offered for Dancing, as usually conducted, more weak than the common one, that it promotes the health of the body. Some thing doubtless might be accomplished by it for the attainment of this object, if it were practised in the day-time and in the open air. But usually, in obedience to the arbitrary decree of fashion, the most unseasonable hour, and the most unfavorable circumstances are chosen.

Many an untimely death has been the dreadful penalty incurred by exposure on such occasions; and the fearful blow has generally fallen among the ranks of lovely woman. Follow the fragile, venturesome forms of our delicate, modernly dressed ladies to the ball room. They pass from their habitations, arrayed in a garb whose style and materials would render it a fit garment to be worn only at mid-summer; covered with a light wrapper, lest the decorations of the toilet should be deranged, and protected from the snow or frozen pavement only by thin soled shoes. They spend several hours together under the excitement of lively strains of music, and of the glittering array of beauty and fashion, in a chamber brilliant with a multitude of dazzling lights, and crowded with guests to the destruction of the vital properties of the atmosphere; and in physical exertions to which they have been unaccustomed, and which open all the pores of the skin. The system is also deranged by loading the stomach with indigestible food, and by encroaching on the ordinary and necessary hours of repose. Then with heated and wearied frames, in that state peculiarly exposed to the injurious action of the cold, they suddenly exchange the warm temperature of the assembly chamber for the chilliness of the damp night air—the tropic of the ball room for the Siberia of the street. Alas! what a perilous price to pay for the admiration of the fashionable throng, or for the fleeting gratification of the hour. In that wintry blast consumption smites his smiling victims, and fills up the weekly calendar of his fearful ravages. In our large cities, where this insane contempt of health and life is sanctioned by the uniform practice of the God-forgetting multitude, this fell destroyer snatches his prey from the ranks of fashion by scores, and scourges them more fatally than the pestilence.

And yet individuals can be found in the midst of our community, so devoid of wisdom and foresight as to advocate the introduction of this pernicious amusement into our social circles. We trust that if they cannot be reached by any higher motives, that a regard for the health and lives which will be sacrificed to this modern idol, will induce them to pause, and to consider well the way of their steps.

2. The position assumed by the text, would exclude Dancing from the list of Christian diversions, even if it could be shown that it is innocent in itself.

This, however, is a point which the worldling labors in vain to prove by the most skilful use of religious sophistry.

Persons on whose judgment we rely with great confidence in matters of this sort, have abandoned the idea which they, in common with others, once entertained, that Dancing, if properly regulated, might be harmless. It is their settled opinion, founded on considerable personal experience and on observation, "that the nature of the amusement itself, even in its least exceptionable forms and in limited exercise, is such—that it has a tendency to inflame passion, to poison virtue, to endanger purity, and to lead on to gross and deadly evils."

Modern dancing, as generally practised, is a gay and guilty pleasure. It receives no warrant from the Bible. The only kind of Dances recorded in the Sacred Scriptures, are religious Dances, forming part of the worship of God: "with the exception of that of the vain fellows devoid of shame, of the irreligious families described by Job, and of Herodias"—which are no more an example for us because they are recorded in the sacred narrative, than the treachery of Judas Iscariot, in betraying his master with a kiss.

But then we must remember the fact that the Religious Dance was practised only on joyful occasions; that it was performed in the day time, in the open air, and only by one of the sexes at a time. There is not a historical notice in the word of God, of promiscuous dancing either as an act of worship or amusement.

And those persons were reckoned among the vilest of mankind who perverted Dancing from a sacred use to mere purposes of amusement.

At the present time, as we cast our eyes over the map of the world, we discover that dancing is still practised as an important part of religious worship by the inhabitants of all heathen countries; by the Indians of our own Western forests; by the superstitious natives of Africa, and by the effeminate and luxurious Asiatics. But as employed among the