Ethics of the Dance
“A time to dance.” Ecclesiastes iii: 4.
“Whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” I Cor. x: 31.
MAY I DANCE? Yes, when you are so happy that you cannot help it. Children often dance with joy when mother is seen returning from a long journey. And, gray head that you are, if you are so rilled with ecstatic delight that it runs from your heart into your hands and feet, why clap your hands and shuffle your feet. No harm will be done.
Such joy may be religious. Miriam, when she saw that God had delivered her people and destroyed their enemies in the Red Sea, wras so filled and thrilled with religious jov that it was natural for her to take her tim-DANCE kre] anQi gQ forth in dances with her maidens
who shared her joy. When David saw the ark returning from its captivity he was so happy that he danced before the Lord with all his might. His wife despised him for it, not because it was unmanly for him to do it, but because she did not share his joy. When the daughter of Jephtha looked down the road and saw her father returning with the trophies of victory she expressed her joy by going forth to meet him with timbrels and dances. After David’s brilliant victories over the Philistines the women became so enthusiastic that they could express their joy only in songs and dances. As the elder brother of the parable approached the house he heard music and dancing, for all the household was thrown into a delirium of delight by the return of the prodigal. He complained because he was not grateful. Gratitude never grumbles. The Psalmist exhorts us to praise God with the timbrel and dance. In his prediction of the happy time when Israel shall be restored li and they shall not sorrow any more at all,” Jeremiah said, “then shall the virgins rejoice in the dance.”
If, therefore, there ever comes a time in your life when in grateful joy for some blessing from God you become so happy that you cannot refrain from dancing, why dance with all your might. Some cold, ungrateful daughter of Saul may complain that you have laid aside your dignity if you have not lost your senses, but you need not fear such criticism as much as you fear the phlegmatic state of heart that prompts it. In revivals of the old times men and women became so happy that they danced for joy even in church, and no one, except the spiritual icicles that hung around, was unduly shocked. A religion that makes a man dance for joy is better than a religion that freezes him to his seat with a frigid conventionalism.
The dances of the Bible which are commended were expressions of religious gratitude and joy. Of this biblical dance Dr. Lyman Beecher says: ( i ) fc; Dancing was biblical a religious act, both of the true and also of idol dances worship. (2) It was practiced exclusively on joyous occasions, such as festivals or great victories. (3) It was performed by maidens only. (4) It was performed only in day-time in the open air, in highways, fields or groves. (5) Men who perverted dancing from a sacred use to purposes of amusement were deemed infamous. (6) No instances of dancing are found upon record in the Bible in which two sexes united in the exercises, either in or out of worship or as an amusement. (7) There is no instance upon record of social dancing for amusement except that of the vain fellows devoid of shame; of the irreligious families described by Job, which produced increased impiety and ended in destruction; of Herodias, which terminated in the rash vow of Herod and the murder of John the Baptist.”
We see that the Bible “time to dance” was when dancing really expressed great joy, when the sexes danced apart and when the surroundings were such as to promote health.
But there are some very objectionable dances in the Bible. When Moses came down from the mount, as he approached the camp he heard music and dancing. The
people were worshipping, men and women tobiblical gether, before the calf which Aaron had made.
The record says, u The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.” Eminent commentators agree with Adam Clark in declaring that the word uplay” carries with it loathsome lewdness and abominable practices. The Israelites had not only turned to idols, but had adopted the unspeakable horrors which went with promiscuous dancing in the calf worship of Egypt, which made the sacred groves of Greece the plague spot of the world, and which still exist in some of the temples of India. In Pagan religions the dance has been the promoter of debauchery. The patriarch Job gives us a picture of the wicked, worldly classes of his day in the words, u They send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance. They take the timbrel and harp and rejoice at the sound of the organ. They spend their days in wTealth, and in a moment they go down to the grave. Therefore they say unto God, ‘Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways. What is the Almighty that we should serve him, and what profit should we have if we pray unto him? ‘” (Job xxi: 1 1-15.) The teaching of this Scripture is that a dancing, dissipating life leads men to rebel against God because they desire not the knowledge of His ways, to despise the Almighty and refuse to serve Him, and to give up praying because they see no profit in it. Such a life to-day, as in the time of Job, goes easily with rebellion, blasphemy and prayerlessness.
The scene in the palace of Herod, when the daughter of Herodias danced for the amusement of the company, gives an instance of the use of dancing which is common to-day. The woman danced, not because she enjoyed dancing, but because the guests enjoyed it; and they enjoyed it because it appealed to their lewd, sensual natures. When a man of wealth wishes to please a company of his sensual companions he adds to the wine of the banquet a vaudeville entertainment, which means that women, whom the dancing master has taught to conquer shame, will appear and make a vulgar display of themselves in the dance. And it is a sign of relapse into Pompeian shamelessness when such entertainments are furnished after Sunday dinners in high-class hotels, in the presence of women as well as men. The dance for the entertainment of others is of Pagan origin and is apt to bring with it Pagan morals.
The modern social dance, however, is not akin to the religious, joyful dance of the Bible, nor to the Pagan dance for the enjoyment of beholders. No one now modern pretends to dance, except a small religious sect, dances because he wishes to give expression to exuberance of religious feeling. Nor is the dance intended to express happiness, but rather to produce happiness. People do not dance because they are happy so much as because they want to be happy. They go to the ball for a good time.
And it ought to be said that dancing is practiced very little for the sake of physical exercise. The gymnasium* croquet, lawn-tennis, golf and the bicycle are recognized as better for exercise than the dance. The claim that dancing is good exercise should have no weight, for it is not usually done for that purpose. It is simply an indulgence and a dissipation. Dancing exhausts and debilitates more than it builds up.
The plea that one acquires grace of manners by dancing has been overworked. The grace of the dance is apt to be artificial and less pleasing than the natural ease of manner which comes from conscious rectitude and high aims in life. Says Dr. Brooks: “Compare the natural grace of a pure girl, taught by a pure mother and by a native grace of delicacy, with the disgusting affectation and brazen effrontery of a pert miss who has been trained by a foreign dancing-master not to blush, and you can judge for yourself whether there is any force in the oft-repeated plea that children should be sent to a dancing-school to learn manners.”
Not with the religious, joyful dance of the Hebrews, nor with the minuet and square dance of our fathers and mothers, nor with dancing as an exercise or as a cultias an vator of good manners, but with the dance as
institution an institution have we to deal. There is no moral harm in the square dance, provided you can keep it square. But I learn that it is next to impossible to confine dancing to the square dance, even in the most select company. The modern dance is the round dance, with all that it means of indelicacy, dissipation and debauchery. Its home is the dance-hall, where the lowest disreputables congregate; the variety theatre, where it makes its display of spectacular obscenity; the public ball-room, where women, good and bad, swirl in the arms of men; the select company in the house, where liberties are taken under the spell of music which would be shocking without the musical accompaniment. This round dance, born in the low dance-houses of Paris, taught by French dancing-masters in all countries, popular because people of high position with low moral tone indulge in it, is finding recognition at college commencements, on excursions and picnics, and even in the homes of some christian people.
Against this modern dance Perry Wayland Sinks, in a book recently published, entitled, “Popular Amusements and the Christian Life,” brings the following seven indictments:
(i) The modern dance violates the universally recognized laws of health. He says, “The dance was not originated for the promotion of health. It was never laws of designed to be, and in fact never has been, prohealth motive of health. Viewed as an exercise, as at present conducted, it is in violation of the soundest hygienic laws. The exercise of dancing, under limiting conditions of time, place, scope and participants, might be eminently healthful. Such it might be as an element of the gymnasium curriculum. But the dance of to-day is not conducted for the purpose of promoting health and longevity. Viewed as an exercise, leaving out of account moral considerations, the dance as an institution of society violates the laws of health.” And he further says, u We will dismiss this indictment with a quotation from the valuable treatise of Dr. H. C. Haydn: 4 Proverbially, the dance seeks the cover of the night. Dancing assemblies are seldom well under way till it is time they were dispersed, and often do not end till the small hours of the morning. The simple fact that dancing assemblies seek not recreation with a due regard to freshness and vigor the next day, but satiety, ignoring the laws of health and rest ordained for us by the Creator, ranks dancing as ordinarily pursued among the dissipations which both the moralist and the physician are bound to proscribe. They have no choice in the premises. They are bound to do so.’”
(2) u The modern dance has contributed greatly to the emptiness, aimlessness and selfishness of the social life of the times.” Conversation is not in demand.
The cultivation of the foot has displaced
VS. CONVERSATION., ,..<.,
to a large extent the cultivation of the head. If you ever tried to entertain a young lady at a ball for five minutes after the music began, I am sure you felt that the head had been swallowed by the feet and that the only response she was then capable of was the physical response to music.
(3) u The modern dance thus assails the highest intellectual improvement of its votaries and of society when given rein.” Time and taste for mental improvevs. mental ment are crowded out. If the use of memimprovement bers increase their size, and if things continue as they are in some quarters, there is coming a generation with very small heads and very big feet. It takes little intellectual effort to dance well. Dogs, cats and monkeys are man’s rivals in this accomplishment.
(4) u The modern dance exerts a positive influence in withstanding the Spirit of God calling the human soul to a christian life.’’ All evangelistic workers know that the love of the dance and the conviction which godless people have that the modern dance is not a proper amusement for christians is a common obstacle in the way of young people, who but for this objection would enter upon the christian life. From a christian point of view this fact is a terrible indictment of the dance.
(5) u The modern dance operates, both in the individual and in the church, in retarding the growth and stabilization of christian character and in hindering the greatest efficiency and success of christian effort.” The vs. christian restrictions placed upon the Lenten season character prove this, and the observation of every pastor teaches him that the dance hinders the growth and usefulness of christians who indulge in it.
(6) “The modern dance is inimical to the highest enlightened christian consciousness, as voiced by a concensus of opinion from the christian church, including the Roman Catholic, and from earliest times.”
Several years ago the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church put itself on record in these words: “We regard the promiscuous round dancing by memvs. christian bers of the church as a mournful inconchurch sistency, and the giving of parties for such
dancing on the part of the heads of families as tending to compromise their religious profession, and the sending of children of christian parents to the dancing-school as a sad error in family discipline.”
Among the “General Rules” of the Methodist-Episcopal Church, its members are called upon to abstain from uall such diversions as cannot be used in the name of the Lord Tesus,” and this has always been
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interpreted as including dancing. 1 he vow that every Episcopalian takes at confirmation, if conscientiously kept, would keep every member of that church from the ball-room and lead them to censure the modern dance. Eminent bishops of that church have spoken on
the subject in the strongest terms. Bishop
episcopal rJ nr, * 46T ., - A’K
Hopkins or. Vermont said:” In the period or
youthful education I have shown that dancing is chargeable with waste of time, the interruption of useful study, the indulgence of personal vanity and display, and the premature excitement of the passions. No argument can make it consistent with baptism.”
Bishop Meade of Virginia said: u Social dancing is not among the neutral things which, within certain limits, we may do at pleasure among the things lawful but not expedient; but it is in itself wrong, improper, and of bad effect.”
Bishop Mcllvain of Ohio said: “The only line I would draw is entire exclusion.” He declared that “it is renounced in baptism, its renunciation is ratified in confirmation and professed in every participation of the Lord’s Supper.”
Bishop Coxe of Western New York, in a Lenten pastoral said: “The enormities of theatrical exhibitions and the lasciviousness of dances are so disgraceful to the age and so irreconciliable with the gospel of Christ that I feel it my duty to the souls of my flock to warn those who run with the world ’ to the same excess of riot ’ in these things that they presume not to come to the holy table. Classes preparing for confirmation are informed that I will not lay hands knowingly on any one who is not prepared to renounce such things, with other abominations of the world, the flesh and the devil.”
The Plenary Council of the Roman Catholic Church,
which met in Baltimore a few years ago, sent out the
following:” We consider it to be our duty to warn our
people against those amusements which may
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easily become to them an occasion of sin, and especially against the fashionable dances which, as at present carried on, are revolting to every feeling of delicacy and propriety and are fraught with the greatest danger to morals.”
It will be seen that the Episcopal Church, which worldly Baptists, Methodists and Presbyterians sometimes join because they imagine that in its fellowship they can be as worldly as they please while they keep up the forms of religion, is really very strict in its requirements. The rector who advocates the modern dance, and the Episcopalian who indulges in it, violate their baptism and confirmation vows. The old historic church is true to good morals and a high standard of spirituality, however recreant some of her sons and daughters may be. The stigma should not rest upon the church, but upon the faithless members who break their solemn vow.
(7)” The modern dance, in its nature, in its tendencies and in its results, is dangerous to social purity. In vs. social other words, for we cannot evade the issue, purity jt js as at present indulged in, fundamentally
and necessarily immoral.”
We dislike to tell the truth about the dance under this head, but for the sake of the young men and women whose danger is that they think no evil, it ought to be told.
Dr. Horace Bushnell was led to say of the modern forms of the dance: “They are the contrived possibilities of license which belong to high life when it runs low.”
Gail Hamilton wrote: u The very pose of the parties suggests impurity.” The central source of the attraction of the modern dance is sex, and an amusement that depends upon sex for popularity is dangerous. witnesses i, r„,11. -r. i,
bays Dr. Wilkinson: “It mingles the sexes in
such closeness of personal approach and contact as, outside of the dance, is nowhere tolerable in reputable society.” The track of the ball-room is strewn with wrecks of character and lives. Said Dr. Howard Crosby: 6 4 The foundation of a large amount of domestic misery and domestic crime, which startles us after its public out-cropping, was laid when parents allowed the sacredness of their daughters’ persons and the purity of their maidenly instincts to be rudely shocked in the waltz.” Mr. T. A. Faulkner, at one time proprietor of the Los Angeles Dancing Academy and ex-president of the Dancing Masters’ Association of the Pacific Coast, has given it as his deliberate opinion that u two-thirds of the girls who are ruined fall through the influence of the dance.” The matron of a home for fallen women in Los Angeles declares that u seven-tenths of the women who go there have fallen through the dance and its influence.” Archbishop Spaulding of New York is reported to have said that nineteen out of twenty of the fallen women who come to the confessional have ascribed their fail from virtue to the influence of the dance.
With all these facts before us can a christian minister remain silent while this juggernaut of evil destroys the virtue and wrecks the lives of so many?
No christian can afford to indulge in a pastime that links him with a great immoral institution like the modern dance. If he should have stamina of character to resist its evil tendency, he, nevertheless, will lose his influence as a spiritual force, and his example may lead others who are weaker to the wreck cf their morals. There is danger in indulgence, and there is safety, joy and usefulness in whatever self-denial your refusal to indulge may mean.
Let everyone take Christ into his heart and life and He will be guide and protector. Do what pleases Him and you will always be on the safe side. In His strength take for a motto and live up to it: “Whether ye eat or drink or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.”