THE APPROVAL OF SOCIETY IS NO PROOF AGAINST THE DEGRADATION.
I know that there are many who will contend that I have some selfish or spiteful motive in writing thus strongly in condemnation of the waltz. Many will doubtless claim that the waltz is very moral and healthful, is indulged in by the best people of every land, seemingly tolerated by all, and that he who raises his voice against it does so from other motives than a disinterested desire to warn his fellow-men against it.
I admit that it is indulged in by a great multitude (not of the best) but the most aristocratic society people. But does the fact that society has permitted itself to be carried by storm into a toleration of the modern dance make the dance any less degrading and sinful. No more so, it seems to me, than does the fact of the universal use of alcohol make its effect less harmful or make it any the less a destroyer of homes, happiness and character.
No, its universality does not prove its morality, and it is certain that results prove conclusively its immorality, and all who try to make it out otherwise, are either those who know nothing at all about it and are unwilling to believe that such an evil could be in their midst without their knowledge, or those who know and practice the abominations, but enjoy it far too well to confess what they know. These last will be loudest in their clamor against this book and its author, and in their profession of perfect innocence.
They believe themselves to be the sole possessors of the secret which makes the waltz their pet amusement. They do not mean that their secret shall be divulged, and they seize every opportunity of praising the "beauty and variety" of the waltz. Its "health giving exercise," "its innocent amusement" and its grace-giving qualities. Grace-giving, forsooth. The grace of the harlot, to my mind, is not the most desirable possession.
I have known many and many a non-dancing mother to encourage her child to learn to dance, because she wanted her to become graceful, and in many a case that daughter has lost grace, health, virtue and all that a woman holds dear. If you have a choice of a saloon for your son, and a so-called select dancing school for your daughter, I beseech you, in the name of God, place your son in the saloon, but keep your daughter out of the dancing school.
If you wish her to become graceful there are schools of physical culture which are much better adapted to the development of health and grace, and much less to the development of vile passions and depraved natures. What I have said before will be no surprise to those who waltz, though, of course, they will feign great surprise, ignorance, and innocence of it all.
But dancing schools are often made use of in a way that is not so well known. Professional thieves often frequent these places. Many of them are perfect dancers and good conversationalists. They appear most respectable and are, of course, so considered, since they are found in the select school, where references are required.
They gain admittance to the school either by practising fraud upon the dancing master, or inducing him to practice fraud upon the public by admitting such a man for a liberal compensation, to what he advertises to be a select school.
When once in a school it is an easy matter to form the acquaintance of the wives and daughters of wealthy men.
To these he makes himself most agreeable, as he well knows how to do, and, if possible, manages by some means or other, to get an invitation to call. If he fails, he makes some excuse to call without an invitation. During his calls he manages, if opportunity presents itself, to seize some valuables; if not he will locate them, to be called for upon some future dark night, and he is quite safe from arrest, for even if suspected he knows that the ladies of the house who have been seen with him in public would only bring disgrace upon themselves by arresting for theft a man upon whose breast they often reclined in public.
This, however, is of small account. If it was the only evil connected with dancing, this book would never have been written. The loss of earthly possessions is of little consequence when compared with the loss of health, happiness, purity and virtue.
I simply tell you this to show you how many evils a dancing master is cognizant of in connection with dancing, that the generality of people know little or nothing about.
Some one has said that few people know better than the dancing master and saloon keeper, how many souls are sent through the port holes of hell between the ages of fourteen and twenty by these two agencies of the devil.
And he is right.
The heart of the dancing master must be even harder than that of the saloon keeper, for while the saloon keeper must witness the harmful and disgraceful indulgence of men, principally, he knows that there is a chance that it may prove only a harmful indulgence.
But the man who can constantly see pure and lovely women being whirled to a disgrace from which she can never recover must have a heart hard indeed. Yet this is what I have witnessed and helped to perpetuate by teaching dancing. Still I heedlessly continued in the business, until something occurred which set me to thinking.
I met on a train, while leaving town, one day a young woman, who, a few months before, had been a member of my select dancing academy. She had been ruined there, and was one of the discarded ones when the school was closed for a few weeks, as all dancing-schools have to be every little while, to get rid of those girls who have met with a fate similar to hers.
I entered into conversation with her and found she could no longer endure being shunned and slighted by all her old companions, and was running away from home. I knew that her parents would be heart broken, and that she, without the protection of a home, would soon sink to utter abandonment, and I tried every persuasion to induce her to return to the home she was leaving. I—who was still teaching the very thing which had been her ruin, now that self-respect and all for which life was worth the living, was lost to her forever—I tried to save her from further degradation.
After I had argued for some time with her she turned fiercely upon me, her once beautiful eyes now filled with a desperation born of despair, and said, with a look and tone of reproach which I shall never forget: "Mr. Faulkner, when you will close your dancing schools and stop this business, which is sending so many girls by swift stages on a straight road to hell, then, sir, and not till then, will I think of reform."
I was stirred by her words as I had never been stirred before. But for them I might, perhaps, not have been writing this book to-day. At this I know many may sneer and say that I have myself done more than most men towards the furtherance of the evil I so strongly condemn.
I bow my acknowledgements. I own it all.
"I lived for self, I thought for self,
For self and none beside,
Just as if Christ had never lived.
As though he had never died."
I sinned against heaven and in the sight of God and man, and was in no wise worthy to become a child of him to whom I came ten months ago, and he received me just as I was, all stained with many, many sins, and in his boundless love and mercy he forgave them all.
I feel I cannot close this book without just a word to any of my old companions who may chance to read it, and to others who are leading the life I once led. I want you to forsake that old life I once shared with you and, as I have done, give yourselves into the hands of the Master, Jesus Christ.
You don't know what you are missing of happiness in this world and what you may miss in the world to come. I do not ask you to take my life for an example. That would be a poor example, indeed. We do not have to take any human life for a copy. The life of Christ is the one true example for us all, and I believe that when we stand before, the great Judge of all, the question will not be, if we have lived as well as this professing Christian or that church member, but if we have lived our life as nearly like the life of Christ as we could.
And right here let me say a few words to professing Christians and church members who dance. I say "professing" Christians because I believe there is a vast difference between a Christian and a "professing" Christian and church member who dances.
To be a Christian is to be Christlike, and I believe there is nothing Christlike in partaking of such pleasures as have been described in the foregoing pages, even though you indulge no further than the license of the waltz. And even granting (if this were possible) that you only engage in the indecent and suggestive position and motions, without a single sinful thought or feeling, do you believe that your Heavenly Father could say to you, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Thou hast spent the evening to my honor and glory. Thou art in the world and not of it. Thou hast done nothing that could cause thy brother to offend, but hast set a good and Godly example. Thou art letting thy light so shine before men that they will see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven. Thou art denying thyself and taking thy cross daily and following me. I left my home in glory and lived and suffered and died the death of the crucified that thou mightest take thine ease, dance, drink, and be merry, and then, lay down thy cross and take up thy crown in glory to be with thy Savior and be like Him."
"The Son of man cometh at an hour when ye know not."
If he should come and find you at the dance, locked in the embrace of another woman's husband, do you feel that he would consider you ready?
Do you not feel the slightest fear that He would say, "Depart from me, I never knew you?"
Ah, my friends, I should fear it very much. I should fear that to my account would be laid the sin of the harlot.
You say that you dance very properly. What have you to say for those who, looking to you for a Christian example, see that you, a church member, dance, and conclude that there can be no harm in it for them, so they indulge and are ruined by it, and in after days are to be found leading a life of shame in the brothel, all because of your example which led them to take the first step on the downward road?
Do you believe that when you shall both stand before the bar of God for just judgment that none of her sin will be laid to your charge?
Christian friends, a great responsibility rests upon us all, not only to see that we "keep ourselves unspotted from the world," but that we do all in our power to drive from our fair land this awful blot and curse.