Examine it, test it for yourself; only be honest. Can you dance "in armour"? crowned and shielded and shining with "the hope of salvation," with "righteousness" and "faith"? Are your shoes "peace"? peace of heart, of conscience. Is your belt the girdle of "truth"? Can you "shew your colours" in the throng? _Dare_ you? Are they not rather trailing in the dust, or quietly pocketed, or left at home? Think honestly, and answer to yourself how it is. As in feasting, so here: you cannot dance all night with people, and next day warn them against "the world, and the things of the world," and even hope to be listened to. "I am as good as most Church members,"--ah how often we teachers and talkers meet that rebuff! And how well the Lord knew when he said: "He that is not with me, is against me." "Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?" [16] "A time to dance."--Yes: whenever, and wherever, you can do it as the whole-souled servant of Christ. And how about dancing at home, among ourselves, as people say?--Without going any further, one thing forbids it all. If you dance anywhere,--you, a professing Christian,--in the eyes of the world you dance _everywhere_. The world allows no middle ground for Christians. "I saw her dancing,"--and nobody stops to inquire when, or with whom, or how. So that there is nothing for you but this: "Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away." [17] [1] Eccle. iii. 1. [2] Eccle. iii. 4. [3] Ps. cxlix. 3. [4] Ps. cl. 2, 4. [5] Isa. lxi. 3. [6] I Pet. ii. 9. [7] Ex. xv. 20. [8] Ex. xv. 20. [9] Judges xi. 3. [10] I Sam. xviii. 6 [11] II Sam. vi. 14. [12] Luke xv. 11. [13] Ps. xxx. 11. [14] Ex. xxxii. 6 [15] Ex. xv. 19. [16] James iii. 11. [17] Prov. iv. 15. Theatres. If I say that it degrades oneself to find pleasure in degrading things or degraded people, you will perhaps admit the fact but deny that it has any application to theatre-going. Is it not a fashionable, intellectual, and what not, amusement? Let us see. Many of you who yet are theatre-goers, know well that you would feel yourselves degraded if even a dear friend went on the stage. "She has trailed an honoured name in the dust,"--so have I heard the comment, from one who was not even a personal friend. "She might at least have taken another name!"--And the speaker was not brought up among Puritans, and belonged to a Church which--as a Church--has no fear of the theatre. I think occasional indulgence was common enough in the family. And the young actress had done nothing but become an actress, keeping her own name. Friends are mortified,--and yet friends go to see, and to help along.