To the transformation of more or less primitive folk-dances into those of strictly religious character is due the principal idea of the modern ballet. In the Oriental temples dancing underwent a strange transformation. While dancing was made the basis of dramatic and symbolic ideas, yet this very fact became detrimental to the musical influence upon the choreography. The Egyptians, whom we consider the pioneers in religious dances, originated elaborate temple ballets, which were based more upon a dramatic than a musical theme. Though the tradition speaks of rounds, of symbolic and sidereal motions, and the instruments chiefly employed, as the Egyptian guitar, used both by men and women, the single and double pipe, the harp, lyre, and flute, yet essentially this all resembled a pantomime rather than actual dance. It is very likely that all the ancient sacred dances originated with the subconscious idea of counteracting the sensuous or strictly playful influence of the social dances. The whole pedigree of our Western religions seems to show a remarkable absence of this method of encouraging religious feeling. The reasons why such manifestations were discouraged by Jewish and Christian moralists pertains to physiology rather than theology. As already said, man’s nature is compounded of many diverse elements, and the machinery of emotion at present at work within us dates back to our animal past. Our most refined and exalted feelings spring from the same nervous reservoirs and pass through the very channels which were at one time solely occupied by grosser passions. The Egyptian church that grew directly of the folk-art of the country was a stranger to Greece and Rome, and still more so to our Christian religion. The ethical ideals that actuated the Egyptian priests in introducing dancing at the altar, sprang directly from the soil and meant, in bringing the better part of human nature to the top, to act as a kind of separator. The priests discovered that the higher emotions, with the help of sacred dancing, can be put to excellent service as impulses to improved conduct. The Christian missionaries, coming from the East, found nothing elevating and ennobling in our Western dancing, which did not appeal to them on account of the very differences of the style and racial character. It is due to their opposition that the religious dances have faded out under the Western civilization. The warfare against dancing generally, on the part of the Apostles of Christianity, dates back to the fanatic era of theological and nationalistic differences. In all countries where the religion descends directly from a racial folk-lore, dancing has remained in high esteem at home and in the temples. This we find true in Egypt, Greece, India and China. In the Jewish form of worship there seems to have been no formally recognized dancing, although we have records of several displays of this kind, as in the case of King David, when, ‘clothed in