We are cut off from Hamlet, and Lear, and Othello and Macbeth. We cannot avail ourselves of the interpretation of these by the best histrionic talent, because the theater has been suffered to fall so completely into the Devil’s hands, that a Christian cannot countenance what is good in it, without at the same time countenancing much that is profane, licentious and indecent. But if the intelligence and culture of a community endeavor to apply the principle I have been advocating, and, in the shape of private theatricals, to furnish a refined, beautiful, and instructive dramatic exhibition, the outcry is little less than if they had leased Wallack’s or Niblo’s, with a first class troupe; and those Christians who witness it, are condemned as inconsistent and backsliders. Just so with dancing. The idea of Christianity having the remotest connection with this amusement has been scouted as absurd. A procrustean law has been enacted—“_Thou shalt not dance_.” And surely, one would think from some exhibitions of this amusement, that Christian leaven _had_ been pretty thoroughly withdrawn from it. One cannot much wonder at the disgust excited by those importations from Paris brothels, the round dances, which, with the present style of female attire, really leave modest men at some loss what to do with their eyes. Let us have as much thundering at these as you will. Let us not mince words. Let ridicule, and sarcasm, and denunciation exhaust their armories, for these are abuses; positive evils. But these abuses are not inseparable from the amusement, which, in proper forms, is healthy, graceful, innocent, and highly commendable. Just here an incident occurs to me which so forcibly illustrates this last remark that I must relate it as the involuntary testimony of an enemy. An amiable and most excellent clergyman of this state, happened to be present one evening when some young ladies went through a quadrille. He looked on with great apparent pleasure. The next morning he was rallied by some of his townsmen on having countenanced dancing by his presence; when he roundly denied the charge, and asserted that no dancing had taken place, but only, as he expressed it, “_a most beautiful exercise_.” Now, I ask, in the name of common sense, why not devote a little Christian care to separating from its abuses, and regulating in its conduct an exercise which improves the bearing of our youth, tends to relieve their natural awkwardness in society, and gives them innocent exhilaration? But no! _Thou shalt not dance._ That is Alpha and Omega. Dancing is liable to abuse, and therefore, O most astoundingly consistent logic, leave it to become a prey to all manner of abuses and abominations. So, if a Christian household makes the attempt to leaven this unfortunate lump, and claims that it can, and does introduce graceful and modest dancing into its family gatherings and social reunions, it is too often denounced as an enemy of Christ and a corrupter of the young.