THE SIN OF DANCING.

Inangahua Times, Volume X, Issue 1510, 16 February 1885, Page 2

THE SIN OF DANCING.

— •- [London Gloi-e, Dec. 4] . Yesterday the Aberdeen Free Presbytery — pious bodies —unanimously conl detuned dancing as a wile of the Evil j One, and enjoined all " ministers, office I bearers, and heads of the Church, to keep themselves free from the frivolity and other evils connected with such things." The "other evils" parenthetically, but pathetically, explained to be •' winebibhmg and fcoddysipping " and "immoralities" generally. It is quite possible tbat toddy sipping may be a special feature of Scotch balls. In England the apparition of relays of hot water, sugar, spoons, slices of lemon, and " the graund Hieland whuskey hersel," on a tray at intervals of the dancing, or even served rouud at the supper table, would be regarded as a nov.'.ty. Bat we must not judg.i others by our own standard, aud if tiie worthy auuidters of the Freo Preabjf-

tery really feel that their religion community is the worse for the ho liquor imbibed by its members ai dancing assemblies, by all means le them raise their protest as shrilly a: pleases thera. They thereby h Mgllten their own reputation for sancti y, anr add a sweetness to t'i" pleasure o dancing ; for even the Ssotsh charactei has thus much of hnman nature tha' what the " unco quid " forbid seemi all the more tenanting* on that account But. seriously, the Free C mreh ol Aberdeen have much cause for groaning The moralty of their town has gone down, so they say, of late years ty leaps and bounds, owing to tht ••springs and fling--" of tile devotee* of dancing; an 1 if people cannotdance without sovin ring and fl-ngnv: they should either give up tin practice or come south to learn more modest measures. As for the " artistic circles and close bosomed whirling*'," in which epithets their counterblast to dancing culminates, it is not easy to see when the sin of an artistic circle lies ; and a« for close-bosomed whirlings, the notion of a Free Church mm'e-ter so engaged is nrooosterous. and what th^v cannot partake they naturally reprobate. But ii is the old con-li-H of Puritanism against human nature— Mrs Parting ton v. the Atlantic.