p. 48 | Clergy and the Ballet

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 20, 1887

Clergy and the Ballet

Not long ago several of the clergy of Chicago, yielding to the argument(?) that "to the pure all things are pure," and to an invitation from the National Opera Company, attended the performance of certain ballets that they might, as the invitation ran, "give a fair opinion as to whether the dance, as presented with artistic refinement in the American Opera ballets, is not an attractive, artistic, and morally innocuous adjunct to the opera." It is almost needless to say that no sooner had these men yielded to this operatic sophistry than they were told by the friends of the ballet that they "went there to satisfy their curiosity and see what it looked like;" that "the excuse that they desired to inform themselves that they might more forcibly condemn it, is too thin;" that they knew very well before they went what they would see, "for it is a matter of conceded, undisputed, universal knowledge. Yet they went there to see whether it was bad or not!" and finally, that having gone themselves they could not well object to their parishioners going. All of which should be a lesson to the clergy of Chicago.