Note: Images of the original pages are available in the American Memory Collection of the Library of Congress. See http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html THERE IS NO HARM IN DANCING by W. E. PENN With an Introduction by Rev. J.H. STRIBLING, D.D. St. Louis, Mo. Lewis E. Kline, Publisher and Bookseller. 1884 "Buy the TRUTH and sell it not; also WISDOM and INSTRUCTION and UNDERSTANDING."--PROV. 23-23. "There is a way that SEEMETH right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of DEATH."--PROV. 14-25 This little book is respectfully and kindly dedicated to all Husbands, Fathers and Brothers, who love their Wives, Daughters and Sisters, by THE AUTHOR. PREFACE. During the past seven years I have delivered the substance of the foregoing Lecture on Dancing, as a part of my work as an Evangelist, before not less than one hundred thousand people. I have been requested by hundreds of FATHERS and mothers, young men and girls, HUSBANDS and BROTHERS, and pastors of churches to publish the Lecture in the form of a book, that its influence may be extended to fields I shall never visit. It is in compliance with these requests that the little book is written, with the hope that at least some good may result in begetting and fostering a better state of morals in our day and generation, and in checking the terrible increase of crime which is rolling over the earth like a mighty wave of the ocean. If I shall ever hear that this little book has had some humble part in stopping one poor soul from taking one more step down the "BROAD ROAD," _or that it has done any good in the world_, I shall feel well paid for all the time and trouble it has cost me in getting it into the hands of the printer. Most of persons speaking or writing on the subject of the dance, are "_hear-say_" witnesses, but I profess to having been an "_eye-witness_," which I propose to prove by all the _bad_ men, or those who have been _bad_ men, who may carefully read this book. Their verdict will be: "HE HAS BEEN THERE." While I believe that hundreds of thousands of fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, and pastors, and Christians, will bless the day this little book was written, and will offer many earnest prayers for the author, I shall expect many Othellos to curse me with all the bitterness of their souls, because I hope it may be said wherever the book is read: "OTHELLO'S OCCUPATION IS GONE." THE AUTHOR. INTRODUCTION. Major W.C. Penn, the author of the following treatise on the modern dance, has requested the writer to pen a few thoughts introductory to a theme he has presented with such pith and power to listening thousands in his travels as an Evangelist.