E-text prepared by Susan Skinner
from images in the American Memory Collection
of the Library of Congress
| 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 |
"Buy the TRUTH and sell it not; also WISDOM and INSTRUCTION andUNDERSTANDING."—PROV. 23-23.
"There is a way that SEEMETH right unto a man, but the end thereof arethe 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.
During the past seven years I have delivered the substance of theforegoing Lecture on Dancing, as a part of my work as an Evangelist,before not less than one hundred thousand people. I have been requestedby hundreds of FATHERS and mothers, young men and girls, HUSBANDS andBROTHERS, and pastors of churches to publish the Lecture in the form ofa book, that its influence may be extended to fields I shall nevervisit. It is in compliance with these requests that the little book iswritten, with the hope that at least some good may result in begettingand fostering a better state of morals in our day and generation, and inchecking the terrible increase of crime which is rolling over the earthlike a mighty wave of the ocean. If I shall ever hear that this littlebook has had some humble part in stopping one poor soul from taking onemore step down the "BROAD ROAD," or that it has done any good in theworld, I shall feel well paid for all the time and trouble it has costme in getting it into the hands of the printer. Most of persons speakingor writing on the subject of the dance, are "hear-say" witnesses, butI profess to having been an "eye-witness," which I propose to prove byall the bad men, or those who have been bad men, who may carefullyread 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 manyearnest prayers for the author, I shall expect many Othellos to curse mewith all the bitterness of their souls, because I hope it may be saidwherever the book is read: "OTHELLO'S OCCUPATION IS GONE."
THE AUTHOR.
Major W.C. Penn, the author of the following treatise on the moderndance, has requested the writer to pen a few thoughts introductory to atheme he has presented with such pith and power to listening thousandsin his travels as an Evangelist.
Various inquiries have been made as to ho