from the influence of temptations to which they expose themselves only because they cannot find the amusements freed from these vile associations. It has drawn just so much patronage from the grog shop. The parents in whose family circle dancing in proper modes and with approved associates and within reasonable hours is encouraged, are doing just so much to keep their daughters from the unhealthy hours, the immodest displays, and the indiscriminate associations of the ball room. They deserve the thanks, not the reprobation of the church. They are the friends, not the enemies of religion. Let us not be scared by names. Let us not deal, as the pulpit has dealt too much, in vague generalities on this subject. Let us see what those terrible words “billiards” and “dancing,” and others of a similar cast mean. Let us see if they are evil and evil only. Let us not assume that our youth are attracted to them only by their native depravity; but see if there be not some goodness, some beauty, some intellectual stimulus which renders them so fascinating. If they need regulating, surely Christian wisdom can regulate them if anything. If any can use them safely, it is Christians who are taught by Divine grace to use this world as not abusing it, and not those who are swayed by impulse and love of pleasure only. But the church does not regulate them, and she never will or can regulate them on the old theory of separation. Never, so long as she persists in wholesale denunciations which she can sustain neither by scripture nor by logic, and against which the common sense of the educated and thoughtful rebels. A more liberal policy in the past, a juster appreciation of the gospel teachings on this subject, would not only have done much towards separating amusements from their abuses, but would have saved her from her present humiliating attitude as the declared enemy of many forms of amusement, from participation in which she has no power to restrain her members.