THE BALLROOM AND THE SALVATION ARMY BAND.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume II, Issue 218, 22 October 1894, Page 2

THE BALLROOM AND THE SALVATION ARMY BAND.

(To the Editor) I Sir, —Glancing down ihe columns of your paper a curious article on dancing met my eyes. A reverend gentlemen of Pahiatua takes upon himself the duty of piloting us past the ballroom aud of hading us on the read of virtue and to God. This Daniel in judgment tells us that God is far away from any place of daae ing. Does this mighty divine tell us that God has lost one of his attributes—omnipresence ? If so, will my reveren 1 friend tell me what this Bible passage means ** It I make my be 1 in the uttermost corner of Hell, thou, O Lord, art there.” My revo-cad friend night till me that it does not mean what it says tiisre, and he will be the Lord's interpreter to teli me what it does mem. but we are like dancing, not like it was in the time of David, and we are not ready to ! accept the word of God as second hand i goods from him. Does it not seem strange that that reverend gemieman is t anxious to become our finger post on the path of morality, when it is a well-known j fact that there is not too much morality amongst tne puipit dwellers, even in New ; Zealand. I know of a few immoral rases committed by parsens in New Zaalau i ; w iieh I .am willing to tell mv reverend fr;end if he wishes. My friead. sweep ! first at your own doors. Men and women ; must not mingle together in the ball- * room, but they are permitted to do so at j the church, for our reverend friend's j shepherd’s eye is ever watching over us I when it is time to take up the collection. I Anxious Mother thinks, like the parson, j that the ballroom is th** hotbed of crime. I don’t know whether it was so in her i time; certainly it is not so now. The j oallroo’ii is as pure as the pulpit. Dancing will not create half the evil as the ■ **vil minds of *ome anxious mothers. Our Anxious Mother can have but a poor ! opinion of her own daughters, who are. <no doubt, of her own training. What | narrow minds have both Anxious Mother aud that loud-voiced parson to tell us | God is far away from ballroom, that not being a fit plac* to die in. And why not ? At Last the ballroom ha> no pit ■ attached to it. but the pulpit has. The pulpit It as p. nil : imss denounced noble j pastimes as well as science. It has dosed, or tried to close, our Sunday public reading rooms wherever it had the power to lo so. Throw away yeur dial theological spectacles along with the dog in the manger business, and look at dancing from n point of common *ense. and be not like Solomon, after over indulgence, j to call things vanity. Our frievid the V ;t:.ten would like to i put tiie sordine on the Salvation Band instruments ,to make them what he ought jto be—mute' on Sundays. I cannot conceive what object he has in view, unless it is the fear of a divided collection. How those Christians love one another. Ten out of twelve will sooner listen to the Salvation Army Baud than to the monotonous jingling of some cracked church bell, which is not even tit to do duty for a fifth rate fire bell. The Army has a< ui ;ch right to indulge iu their fad as any other sect. If any good i* done by any of the sects, the Army stands foremost in taking up the collection. Now, you trinity, become ouc, and try to form a | member of tint beautiful chord of bar i monv called Triad, which is the base of j ill concords so essential to the wall-being of humanity ; be natural. u*o sharp* and fiats in their respective onbn. be p in I moderate in all things, and then will you in i-ith , hecomo a credit to our Great Conductor. • 1 am. etc.. MrsiKts.