ing it with book, bell, and candle; has seen in it the sure road to eternal damnation, a carnal sin that no purgatory could purify. And yet dancing has always been a part of religious services; it even originated at the altar of worship by the old heathen, and took a prominent part in the gloomy and fanatical fervor with which the early church inspired the first Christian. Also, we read in the Scripture: "Praise the Lord. . . . Praise him with the timbrel and the dance."
The Puritanical mind evidently condemns the dance because it caters to the senses, because it naturally forms a part of sheer physical enjoyment. However, the dance in its ideal form, whether on the stage or in a drawing-room, is a thing of grace and beauty, and "Beauty is a refiner's fire, and the beauty that enters in through the doorway of the senses cannot soil, but only cleanses the spirit."
Changing fashions in the art of women's dress and changing fads in social dancing have always aroused in narrow minds their most violent criticism. Down the ages we can follow this animosity toward any reform of the accepted dances. When figure dances had to give way to square dances; later on, when square dances found their places as favorites usurped by round dances; and
now, when the new school of dancing has entirely
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