A SCOTCH MINISTER ON DANCING

Patea Mail, Volume IV, Issue 325, 29 May 1878, Page 4

A SCOTCH MINISTER ON DANCING

At a Free Gardeners’ meeting, held in the Waverly Hall recently, the Rev. Alexander Webster, ot'St. David’s, Edinburgh, was present and delivered an address. He said he was one of those who had a great respect for the intelligent, honest working man. He made it aprinciple to lift his hat to the servant as well as the mistress, especially if she was young and good looking. (Laughter.) He hoped there was nothing heretical in the remark. (Renewed laughter.) It was not that he had less respect for women advanced in years, but it must be confessed that the element of youth, especially in women, was very attractive. When one saw a fine woman who wars about the age of forty, one could hardly help wishing he could do as when he went to the bank with a £4O note—change the article into two twenties. (Great laughter.) They had met that evening for social recreation, and this was . highly commendable. Dancing, which was to form part of the evening’s entertainment, was right and good, provided always it was kept within proper bounds. (Applause.) He was not one of those who considered dancing a damning sin, and it was all nonsense to say that people must of necessary be going to the devil if they indulged in that pastime. (Applause.) He had danced himself at her Majesty’s gathering at Doeside, but he w r as now 100

heavy for that exercise—-(laughter)—and, besides, members of Presbytery were expected never to lift their feet too high or too quickly, but to move through the world with becoming gravity and solemnity. (Laughter.) He was not sure but it would be a useful thing for members of Presbytery to indulge in what w; s termed the light faulaslic too. (Loud laughter.) Some of them who had largo stipends, and consequently heavy corporations, might not be able to exhibit all the beauties of motion —(laughter) —but it might be a much better exercise for them than snarling at each other as they sometimes did in Presbytery meetings. It might also be able to make them preach more humanly, and develop in ministers that brotherly love which they preached about so. much, but which all, both priest and people found so difficult to practise. (Applause.) Lei them imagine their respected friends George Gilfillan and Dr Pcddie of their more modest friends Mr Macaulay and Professor Robertson Smith or Fergus Ferguson and his antagonists all dancing to the strain of some Presbytery flute or fiddle. (Great laughter.) He thought that the perspiration produced by such recreation would purge some of them of their bad humor, and make them of a more tolerant state of mind. [Laughter.] As one remedy for our Scottish bigotry he would suggest more innocent recreation both for the clergy and the people. [Hear, hear.] Let them remember that what they had the ministers must have also. He would set the Presbyteries to dance occasionally. [Laughter. J He did' not mean in a literal sense exactly, but he would set them to dance either literally or metaphorically, and their difference would very soon be danced oat of them.