Correspondence.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 1180, 16 September 1885, Page 5

Correspondence.

DANCING V. GAMBLING. {To the Editor.) SlB, — As I did not consider your correspondent " Credo " had laid down a single argument for me to reply to I took no notice of his misty epistle ; but there were one or two remarks made by another correspondent calling himself " Presbyterian," which I take exception to. He says: •• 'Anti-Humbug' admits he has no fixity of principle when be says ht sometimes goes to church, but attends the qusdrillo assembly. Alas, for the religion of the man when it only talus the second place! No wonder that such a man takes axception to a faithful minister who donounces dancing and gambling, seeing he himself practices both." "Presbyterian" with the characteristic Pharisaism of all " true blues " considers that a man's religion is to be estimated by the regularity with which he attends the ehuroh, and because I attend the quadrille aisambly it does not follow that my religion oaly takes a second place. I was not aware that I admitted that I practised gambling ; but sinoe I hare taken a ticket in the Presbyterian Church Art Union, I suppose I cannot consistently deny tho charge. Then again the minister did not denounce dancing and gambling. The latter, under the patronage of the ohareh, he considered perfectly legitimate, while danciug per se is the " slippery Toad to Hell." By the way, my rev. friend cannot have read the Revised Version, for it will be there sieu that the rerisors have abolished Hell. " Presbjterian " says that the "private dance loads to the ballroom, MO" from that \0 the theatre." He does not name the next step— Hell, I suppose, he implies. "Presbyterian" is not perhaps aware that even some of his own ministers give private dances ia their manses. To B»ch Pharisees as your correspondent I would address the words of their own Professor of Theology (Professor Salmond) : — " Blind man's buff would be the best occupation for those blinking owls who mistake the gloom of their own morbid egotism for the spiril of the religion of Christ. " — I am, &c, Anti- Humbug.