This wholesale and indiscriminate denunciation grew out of the utter dissoluteness of those ancient plays.  So great at one time was the offence to all decency, that the Roman Senate decreed the expulsion of all dancers and dancing-masters from Rome.

Yet we are not to discuss the customs of that day, but the customs of the present.  We cannot let the fathers decide the question for us.  Our reason, enlightened by the Bible, shall be the standard.  I am not ready to excommunicate all those who lift their feet beyond a certain height.  I would not visit our youth with a rigor of criticism that would put out all their ardor of soul.  I do not believe that all the inhabitants of Wales, who used to step to the sound of the rustic pibcorn, went down to ruin.  I would give to all of our youth the right to romp and play.  God meant it, or he would not have surcharged our natures with such exuberance.  If a mother join hands with her children, and while the eldest strikes the keys, fill all the house with the sound of agile feet, I see no harm.  If a few friends, gathered in happy circle, conclude to cross and recross the room to the sound of the piano well played, I see no harm.  I for a long while tried to see in it a harm, but I never could, and I probably never will.  I would to God men kept young for a greater length of time.  Never since my school-boy days have I loved so well as now the hilarities of life.  What if we have felt heavy burdens, and suffered a multitude of hard knocks, is it any reason why we should stand in the path of those who, unstung by life’s misfortunes, are exhilarated and full of glee?

God bless the young!  They will have to live many a day if they want to hear me say one word to dampen their ardor or clip their wings, or to throw a cloud upon their life by telling them that it is hard, and dark, and doleful.  It is no such thing.  You will meet with many a trial; but, speaking from my own experience, let me tell you that you will be treated a great deal better than you deserve.

Let us not grudge to the young their joy.  As we go further on in life, let us go with the remembrance that we have had our gleeful days.  When old age frosts our locks, and stiffens our limbs, let us not block up the way, but say, “We had our good times:  now let others have theirs.”  As our children come on, let us cheerfully give them our places.  How glad will I be to let them have everything,—­my house, my books, my place in society, my heritage!  By the time we get old we will have had our way long enough.  Then let our children come on and we’ll have it their way.  For thirty, forty, or fifty years, we have been drinking from the cup of life; and we ought not to complain if called to pass the cup along and let others take a drink.

But, while we have a right to the enjoyments of life, we never will countenance sinful indulgences.  I here set forth a group of what might be called the dissipations of the ball-room.  They swing an awful scythe of death.  Are we to stand idly by, and let the work go on, lest in the rebuke we tread upon the long trail of some popular vanity?  The whirlpool of the ball-room drags down the life, the beauty, and the moral worth of the city.  In this whirlwind of imported silks goes out the life of many of our best families.  Bodies and souls innumerable are annually consumed in this conflagration of ribbons.