THE ETHICS OF THE THEATER, THE CARD TABLE, AND THE DANCE.
[A Sermon Preached at the First Baptist Church, in Fairport, N. Y., by Rev. E. E. Knapp, Pastor.]
"The kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." Romans 14:17.
I DESIRE to show this morning why the church is opposed to these amusements under consideration, and why Christians and others should not indulge in them.
What Pleases Us Reveals Us.
Laughter and joy cheer the heart and refresh the mind and body. But it is a trick of the devil to sugar-coat the poison of sin with fun and frolic.
"Pleasures, or wrong or rightly understood,
Our greatest evil, or our greatest good."
Laughter is an index to character. Tell me what a man laughs at, and I can tell you what he is. If he laughs at virtue, he is vicious. If he laughs at goodness, he is bad. His sports and plays will also reveal his aim. The things that amuse people, do much toward moulding their character. Are the theater, card table, and dance the proper influences with which to mould desirable character? Let us see from Scripture, sense, and fact.
What They Do.
Our indictment contains the following counts:
1. They injure the body. A glance into the modern ballroom shows at once that dressing in many cases is white, light, slight, and tight, of which I shall speak again. Every law of health is disregarded. Going from a heated room into a cold atmosphere has made many wrecks. The ballroom has been called the mother of rheumatism and consumption. The coming and going, the riding and walking, has made many funerals. Late hours and broken rest, and constant excitement of emotions and passions, all are powerful agencies in undermining the health. It is easy to point to examples.
2. They dwarf the mind. "Cards," says a man of authority, "were invented for the entertainment of an idiotic king; and it takes but little brains to amuse oneself with cards." Says Addison, the great essayist: "It is wonderful to see persons of the best sense, passing away a dozen hours together shuffling and dividing a pack of cards, with no other conversation but what is made up of a few game phrases, and no other ideas but those of black and red spots arranged together in different figures. Would not a man laugh to hear any one of his species complaining that life is short?"
3. They corrupt the moral character. The severest charge. When judged by this test, the dance is an arch-fiend and criminal, who numbers his victims by the millions. It goes without saying that the round dance is immoral in its tendency. I am not saying that all who indulge are immoral, but I do say that all that are moral, and retain their moral purity, do so in spite of the dance, and not by means of it. It had its origin in the low dance houses in Paris, and ought to be sent back to its proper place.
What Others Have Said.
First of all, let me give you a few quotations from men and women of large experience and observation. In most instances I withhold the name, but can give it in nearly every instance.
"The dance is destructive to morality in too many instances. It has an immoral past. It did not originate with the Hebrews, but with heathen nations. History shows that heathenism and lust are its parents. The dress of the ballroom increases its inherent tendency to uncleanness. Women vie with one another to appear before men with what, for the sake of delicacy, I will call the lowest-neck dress. Every hooting owl by night and every hissing goose by day, cries to them: 'God hath entirely covered us, so that we could appear in the society of creation without shame, and God hath provided you materials for clothing; why then expose yourself with such a shameless face?' Some will endeavor to justify the dress of the ball by quoting, 'To the pure, all things are pure.' But human nature is human nature. You might as well say that powder is not what it ought to be because it explodes when sparks fall upon it. We have Bible authority for keeping the sparks of temptation away from the powder of human nature."—Geo. H. Neal, Jr.
The Christian Advocate has this to say: "Balls are sensual in the worst sense by the modes of dress indulged in, by the stimulus of passion always provided and drank. Young men often go to the house of infamy that never would have gone there but for the excitement of the one place, which naturally feeds the other. Why are balls used for this express purpose by the keepers of dens of infamy?" This same article refers to the fact that high society of Washington law-makers has succumbed to its blighting influence. No plane or circle is exempt. If you are, how about your partner?
Dr. Leonard, missionary secretary to the M. E. church, says: "The dance is harmful to the moral and religious life of society. I do not hesitate to affirm that the modern dance is lasciviously immoral, and responsible for the destruction of the virtue of thousands of our youth. Everything connected with the waltz is calculated to arouse and inflame the animal passions."
The late "Gail Hamilton," a well-known Congregationalist lady and writer of note, said: "The thing in its very nature is unclean, and can not be washed. The very pose of the parties suggests impurity."
The late Dr. Howard Crosby, a Presbyterian divine, wrote: "In regard to these waltzes, polkas, and such like, a Christian ought not to hesitate a moment, any more than he would about thieving and lying. The foundation for a vast amount of domestic misery and crime was laid when parents allowed the sacredness of their daughter's persons and the purity of their maiden instincts to be so rudely shocked in the waltz. This vice has captivated the young and deluded the old in the church of Christ, and no minister must utter an uncertain sound here."
An army officer is said to have exclaimed, after seeing the modern waltz for the first time, "If any man were to embrace my wife after that fashion, I would horsewhip him."
Two rooms are adjoining. In one the carpet is removed, the floor is waxed, there is music. Here is freedom and embrace. In the other, carpets and furniture are intact. Let a man try in that room what he did in the other and see what would happen. Yet morally what is proper in one is proper in the other.
The Dance and Young Women.
What the saloon is doing for young men, the dance is doing for the downfall of our young ladies. The chief of police of New York city says: "Seventy-five per cent. of the fallen girls of the city trace their ruin to the evils of the modern dance."
The Roman Catholic bishop of the diocese of New York, makes this statement: "Nineteen out of twenty of the confessions made to me, by girls who have lost their purity, ascribed the fact to the evils of the modern dance."
The official organ of the W. C. T. U. once said: "Out of 500,000 fallen women in the United States, seventy-five per cent. of them are where they are through the modern dance. Think of it, ye people, 375,000 women who once were virtuous and pure, ruined through this thing of which you say there is no harm."
Prof. LaFleur, who wrote, "From the Ballroom7to Hell," made a census of 200 girls who had fallen. The result was: Seven through poverty and abuse; twenty through drink given by parents; ten through choice; 163 through the modern dance.
So I might go on and quote others; proof is not wanting; but these are sufficient if you are to be convinced; if not, no amount of proof will avail. Still the wonder grows that in spite of these facts, and knowing the danger, there are parents, some of them Christians, who advise or allow their daughters to go to the dancing school, that juggernaut that has crushed out the life of thousands upon thousands. We raise money and send missionaries to convert the heathen mothers, who throw their babes to the crocodiles of the Ganges River; but I sometimes think there is need of their sending missionaries to us who throw ours to the dancing school. Theirs go to an instant death; and seventy-five per cent. of ours to a living death of everlasting shame.
What It Is.
Talk about the dance as you may, apologize for it as you will, the fact remains that it is an institution of the devil, calculated to undermine the virtue of the young, and has been remarkably successful. The close and familiar contact of the persons, the rapid motion, all to the strains of enchanting music, and often heightened with spirits, all are calculated to give free rein to the animal passions. There can be no question about these things.
Some young lady says, "I do not allow any young man to pick me up, or hold me in that way." Why emphasize the me? Simply because that is the rule. "But I am careful with whom I dance." But propriety does not allow you to dance with one many times. You can not always choose. I am told by those of experience that unless the gentleman does come up close and perform the part properly, and combine the two figures into one gracefully, he is shunned by the fair sex as a bad partner. Now tell me what there is that makes a position proper in a ballroom, that is not in a parlor, and you have the chief objection against dancing. As one of long experience in dancing said: "The eyes can look, and the hand press the impressions the lips dare not utter." The chief attraction in the dance is the contact of opposite sexes, permitted nowhere else. Take this away, and the dance is a thing of the past.
A good way to test its influence on yourself is to ask if you would allow the same to take place in your parlor. Would you be willing to have your picture taken in the position of the dance?
Is the Theater Moral?
The theater on the moral issue: The theater gives occasionally a moral play and it is advertised widely. Tickets are often sent to preachers. But look out for the next six months of the most foul things that can be spread before the public. There is only now and then one that a man would allow read in his home.
Dr. Buckley recently made an examination of 200 plays given in New York. Only a small per cent. could be called decent, not to say respectable. It is enough to satisfy the pure-minded to look at the bill board. You know how they advertise, and what kind of pictures draw the crowd. Would you like one in your parlor? The pictures displayed at carnivals and on bill boards abound in spectacular obscenity and the display of woman's shame. Deny it who will, this is the character of most of the plays, and the kind that is patronized.
I repeat what I said last Sunday, that it cheapens and weakens every noble virtue of the human heart. It weakens the sacred vows of the altar, makes divorce possible; love, virtue, faithfulness, and the like, are at discount.
Cards tested on moral grounds: Cards are played for entertainment for awhile; then a company gathers, a prize is offered; then come chance, skill, and cheat. Here is a gambling-den in full operation, in your parlor. Thousands of boys go from their mother's table and end in the gambling-den. Some one is responsible, mothers.
A boy was chided by his mother for gambling. He called her into the parlor, and pointing to a beautiful picture, said, "Mother, where did you get that picture?" The mother answered, "I won it at a card party." He pointed to a vase and asked,
"Mother, where did you get that vase?" She answered again, "I won it at a card party." Then looking her squarely in the face he said, "Mother, when you stop gambling, I will." He had a perfect right to say it.
Thousands of boys go from their mother's card table and end up in the gambling-den. Mothers, some one is responsible.
Every now and then we see in a paper the bold headlines, "Didn't know 'twas loaded." Some boy has been playing with a gun, and supposing it was empty, has taken aim and fired, killing his playmate. It is being repeated in thousands of so-called Christian homes, where the moral character of boys and girls is being destroyed.
A mother who was giving a card party, found herself lacking one pack to supply her tables. She sent her little boy to the store after the required article. Said she, "Johnnie, be sure to get the kind with an angel on the back." What blasphemy, only to be paralleled by Belshazzar, who drank and treated his lords at his unholy banquet and revelry from the gold and silver vessels which his father took from the temple in Jerusalem! Christian mothers, what are you doing with that gambler's game in your home? As you prize chastity, shun the dance; as you prize honesty, shun gambling; as you prize a clean and pure character, shun the degrading theater.
4. They associate us with great evil institutions. The people of Israel, on the return of Moses, were dancing before the golden calf. "And Moses' anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount. And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strawed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it." Ex. 32:19, 20. No wonder his anger waxed hot. He did what every man of God would like to do with both. Shun that which associates you with an evil institution. The card table is a world-wide evil institution of all countries, Christian and Pagan. It is the gambler's instrument, his robbery den. It has been blackened by dishonesty, stained by awful murder, and disgraced by millions of wrecked characters. A pack of cards is suggestive, not of an innocent game, but of a great foul institution, which has forever been a curse to mankind, the world over, the pet game of the gambler, the libertine, found in every foul and vicious place. Your home is better off without them.
The dance, besides the objection on moral grounds, has become a world-wide institution of evil and corruption. The dance house can not be fittingly described in polite society, and I have only been able to hint at its character and evil. I could not tell all the truth, and maintain my self respect and yours. The dance is linked with vice the world over. It is not only worldly, but desperately wicked. It may be a pleasure, but it is also dangerous.
No Redeeming Qualities.
The theater as we know it, has no redeeming qualities. Edwin Booth would not allow his children to go to the theater, except he knew the character of it. He determined to establish a respectable theater, before whose footlights there would be no display of woman's shame, or anything to make the pure blush. His theater failed, and paid five cents on the dollar. Henry Irving tried again in the Lyceum Theater, New York. He had to change his policy to keep from bankruptcy. Mary Anderson left the stage, on account of its influence on her children. McCready would not permit his children to go to the theater. Edwin Forrest, after hearing Dr. Brantly, in a sermon, denounce the theater for its immorality, remained to take the preacher by the hand and say, "Sir, what you have said to-night is true, only you have not painted the picture as dark as it is."
Every theater in our cities lives by painting the weakness and sins and unfaithfulness of mankind, mostly of the weaker or gentler sex. I, for one, raise my voice to you and Almighty God in righteous protest. These are not the things that help us, but injure us.
5. They produce a pleasure-loving spirit, and displace the serious and worthy pursuits of life. "She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth."
How a boy gets carried away with sports! He talks and thinks about them at school and Sunday-school. I have attended a social gathering where several enjoyed themselves exclusive of the rest, with stock jokes and phrases concerning such things as I have been discussing. I have had young ladies tell me that they got so wrought up at the theater and other amusements under consideration that they could not sleep. I have noticed that those who indulge give more and more time to it, going to the games and plays, night and afternoon and night again. What wonder the home is neglected, the husband or wife alienated, the children become street Arabs! What wonder the American home is passing! "What is home without a mother?" In the parable of the sower, the seed was choked by the pleasures of the world. And when one makes up his mind that the end of life is to have a good time, duty is neglected, sacred obligations are ignored, business lags, the prospects of life wither, and the end is despair. Here is a good place to hold up the red flag of danger.
The Duke of Orleans, in a certain town on the day of a circus, could get no meals, for all had gone to the circus.
The Romans were noted for their greed for amusements. Gladiators and wild animals were thrown together for sport. "Give us bread and games," she cried, and died. Enervated, she became an easy prey for the bold Northmen.
Some cavalrymen, during six weeks of rest, taught their horses to dance to the music of the band. It was great sport. During the next engagement, the horses stopped to dance. The enemy conquered. Many moral battles are lost in the same way.
After Napoleon Bonaparte had killed the Duke D'Enghien, the indignation of the French people was so intense that there was danger of a revolution. The wily emperor quieted their consciences by producing for them the most magnificent ballet that Paris had ever seen. They rushed to the theater and forgot their grievances.
Why So Little Christian Conviction?
It is impossible for conscience to assert itself when the pleasure-seeking spirit is master. We often ask, "Why is there so little Christian conviction?" The question is largely answered, "We are going to have a good time." The text is: "For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." Rom. 14:17. These amusements endanger and destroy our true joy. "The good is the enemy of the best." Amusement, pleasure, and fun may be good in their place; but true joy is better. Amusement is the dash of the spray, the sparkle on the surface; joy is the flow of the deep current of the soul. The true joys of many a home have been destroyed by its amusement; and the joy of many a Christian has been laid waste by his amusements. The Bible magnifies joy, it believes in laughter; but there is a soul experience too deep for laughter. It flows in tears. This is rich.
Fill thy life with the blessed Master, and His work and earth's pleasures will be made to assume their proper place. True religion is not a creed, but an experience; not a restraint, but an inspiration; not an insurance for the next world, but a program for this present world.
You say, I am wrought up. I am profoundly stirred upon this subject, till my indignation waxes hot, like Moses'; till I fancy I can sympathize with Paul, when he saw the city of learning and boasted culture "wholly given over to idolatry." My spirit is stirred within me when I see dancing and cards flaunted from the secular and local press of village, city, and country, as if it were the chief object of the life of that community; when I see that which has been the sport of the lowest of all foul places, adorned by Christian homes as the favorite pastime of moral Christian people; when the only sports of the gambler's den and harlot's brothel, engaged in by the people to whom I preach the word of purity; when I see that which has blasted the purity of millions, excused by church members, indulged in by the leaders of society, as if it were a mark of superior society, provided by Christian parents to be the downfall of their children, running riot with the souls and bodies of young and old alike.
"Stirred?" Indeed I am; and with sufficient reason, too, I affirm. I should be recreant to my Master and my commission if I were not stirred. When I see the dearest interest I have on earth, to which I have given my life, confronted by this evil, menaced by its power, I have no choice. I must speak. When I see God's people giving themselves to these great sources of evil, night after night, and forsaking His house and work, and more than that, alienated from His cause, I should be untrue to them, as well as to Him, if I did not lift my voice in protest. God have mercy on and quickly convert the man who is not stirred in this matter!
If I am wrong, somebody take me and convert me. I am open to reasoning. Don't hesitate. If these things are right, somebody champion them.