THE DISCUSSION.
MARION went about her dingy room brushing off a bit of dust here,
setting a chair straight there, trying in what ways she might to
brighten its homeliness. She was a trifle sore sometimes over the
contrast between that room and the homes of her three friends. Sometimes
she thought it a wonder that they could endure to leave the brightness
and cheer that surrounded their home lives and seek her out.
There were times when she was very much tempted to spend a large portion
of her not too large salary in bestowing little home-looking things on
this corner of the second-rate boarding-house; a rocking-chair; a
cozy-looking, bright-covered old-fashioned lounge; a tiny centre-table,
instead of the square, boxy-looking thing that she had; not very
extravagant her notions were, just a suggestion of comfort and a touch
of brightness for her beauty-loving eyes to dwell on; but these home
things, and these bright things, cost money, more money than she felt at
liberty to spend.
When her necessary expenses of books and dress, and a dozen apparently
trifling incidentals were met, there was little enough left to send to
that far-away, struggling uncle and aunt, who needed her help sadly
enough, and who had shared their little with her in earlier days.
There was no special love about this offering of hers; it was just a
matter of hard duty; they had taken care of her in her orphanhood, a
grave, preoccupied sort of care, bestowing little time and no love on
her that she could discover; at the same time they had never either of
them been unkind, and they had fed and clothed her, and never said in
her presence that they grudged it; they had never asked her for any
return, never seemed to expect any; and they were regularly surprised
every half year when the remittance came.
But so far as that was concerned Marion did not know it; they were a
very undemonstrative people. Uncle Reuben had told her once that she
need not do it, that they had not expected it of her; and Aunt Hannah
had added, "No more they didn't." But Marion had hushed them both by a
decided sentence, to the effect that it was nothing more than ordinary
justice and decency. And she did not know even now that the gratitude
they might have expressed was hushed back by her cold, business-like
words.
Still, the remittances always went; it had required some special
scrimping to make the check the same as usual, and yet bring in
Chautauqua; it had been delayed beyond its usual time by these new
departures, and it was on this particular evening that she was getting
it ready for the mail. For seven years, twice a year, she had regularly
written her note:
AUNT HANNAH:--I inclose in this letter a check
for ----. I hope you are as well as usual.
In haste,
M. J. WILBUR.
This, or a kindred sentence as brief and as much to the point. To-night
her fingers had played with the pen instead of writing, and at last,
with a curious smile hovering around her lip, she wrote the unaccustomed
words, "Dear Aunt." It would have taken very little to have made the
smile into a quiver; it seemed just then so strange that she should have
no one to write that word "dear" to; that she should use it so rarely
that it actually looked like a stranger to her. Then the writing went on
thus:
"I hope I have not caused you discomfort by being somewhat later than
usual with your check. Matters shaped themselves in such a way that I
could not send it before. I hope it will be of a little help and comfort
to you. I wish it were larger. Give my re--love to Uncle Reuben."
The "re" was the beginning of the word "regards," but she thought better
of it and wrote "love." He was her father's brother, and the only
relative she had. Then the pen paused again, and the writer gnawed at
the painted holder, and mused, and looked sober first, then
bright-faced, and finally she dashed down this line:
"Dear Aunt Hannah, I have found my father's
Friend, even the Lord Jesus Christ. He is indeed
mighty to save, as father used to say that he was.
I have proved it, for he has saved me. I wish you
and Uncle Reuben knew him.
"Yours truly, MARION."
I suppose Marion would have been very much surprised had she known what
I know, that Aunt Hannah and Uncle Reuben shed tears over that letter,
and put it in the family Bible. And, someway, they felt more thankful
for the check than they had ever done before.
Marion did not know this, but she knew that her own heart felt lighter
than usual as she hurried about her room. The girls came before she was
fairly through with her preparations--a bright trio, with enough of
beauty and grace and elegance about them to fairly make her room glow.
"Here we are," said Eurie. "We have run the gauntlet of five calls and a
concert, and I don't know how many other things in prospective, for the
sake of getting to you."
"Did you come alone?"
"No; my blessed Nell came with us to the door, and most dreadfully did
he want to come in. I should have let him in, only I knew by Ruth's face
she thought it awful; but he would have enjoyed the evening. Nell does
enjoy new things."
"There is no special sensation about Bible verses. I presume they would
have palled on him before the evening was over." This was said in Ruth's
coldest tones.
"You are mistaken in that, my lady Ruth. I have found several verses in
my search that have given me a real sensation. Besides which, I have
proved my side beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt, and I am very
anxious to begin."
Marion laughed.
"I dare say we have each proved our sides to our entire satisfaction,"
she said. "The question is, which side will bear the test of our
combined intellects being brought to bear on it? Did you bring your
Bibles, girls? Oh, yes, you are armed. Flossy, your Bible is splendid;
when the millennium dawns I am going to have just such a one. By the
way, won't that be a blissful time? Don't you want to live to see it?
Eurie, inasmuch as you are so anxious to begin, you may do so. Let us
'carry on our investigations in a scientific way,' as Prof. Easton says.
Give us your 'unanswerable argument,' and I will answer it with my
unanswerable one on the other side; then if Ruth can prove to us that we
are both mistaken, and each can follow her own judgment in the matter,
we will be quenched, you see, unless Flossy can give a balancing vote."
"Well, in the first place," Eurie said, "I found to my infinite
astonishment, and, of course, to my delight, that the Bible actually
stated that there was a time to dance. Now, if there is a time for it,
of course it is the proper thing to do; that just settles the whole
question. How absurd it would be to put in the Bible a statement that
there was a time to dance, and then to tell us that it was wrong to
dance!"
"Eurie, are you in earnest or in sport?" Marion asked, at last, looking
at her with a puzzled air, and not sure whether to laugh or be
disgusted.
"A little of both," Eurie said, breaking into a laugh. "But now, to be
serious, there really is such a verse; did you know it? I am sure I
didn't. I was very much astonished; and I think it does prove something.
It indicates that dancing is a legitimate amusement, and one that was
indulged in during those times."
"Do you advocate its use under the same circumstances in which it was
used in those times?"
"I'm sure I don't know. Was there anything peculiar in its use?"
"Didn't you follow out the references as to dancing?"
"No, indeed, I didn't. I wish I had. Does it give an account of it? That
would have been better yet."
"It would have enlightened you somewhat," Marion said, laughing. "If you
had been on the other side now, you would have been sure to have
followed out the connection as I did; then you would have found that to
be true to your Bible you must dance in prayer-meeting, or in church on
the Sabbath, or at some time when you desired to express religious joy."
"Pooh!" said Eurie, "Now is that so?"
"Of course it's so. Just amuse yourself by looking up the references to
the word in the concordance, and I will read them for our
enlightenment."
"Well," said Eurie, after several readings, "I admit that I am rather
glad that form of worship is done away with. I am fond of dancing, but I
don't care to indulge when I go to prayer-meeting. But, after all, that
doesn't prove that dancing is wrong."
"Nor right?" Ruth said, questioningly. "Doesn't it simply prove nothing
at all? That is just as I said; we have to decide these questions for
ourselves."
"But, Eurie, did you content yourself with just one text? I thought you
were to have an army of them."
"What is the use in that?" Ruth asked. "One text is as good as a dozen
if it proves one's position."
"A multitude of witnesses," Marion said, significantly; and added,
"girls, Ruth has but one text in support of her position; see if she
has."
"Well, I have another," said Eurie. "The wisest man who ever lived said,
'A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.' Now I am sure that advocates
bright, cheerful, merry times, just such as one has in dancing; and
there are dozens of such verses, indicating that it is a duty we owe to
society to have happy and merry times together; and a simpler way of
doing it than any I know is to dance. We are not gossiping, nor saying
censorious things, when we are dancing; and we are having a very
pleasant time for our friends."
"'Is any merry, let him sing psalms,'" quoted Marion. "Would you like to
indulge in that entertainment at the same time you were dancing; or do
you think the same state of mind could be expressed as well by either
dancing, or psalm-singing, as one chose?"
"Eurie Mitchell, you are just being nonsensical!" Ruth said, speaking in
a half-annoyed tone. "You are not absurd enough to suppose that either
of those verses are arguments in favor of dancing, or against dancing,
or indeed have anything to do with the subject? What is the use in
trying to make people think you are a simpleton, when you aren't."
"Dreadful!" said Eurie. "Is that what I'm doing? Now, I thought I was
proving the subtle nature of my argumentative powers. See here, I will
be as sober as a judge. No, I don't think those verses have to do with
it; at least the latter hasn't. I admit that I thought the fact that a
time to dance was mentioned in the Bible was an item in its favor as far
as it went; but it seems I should rather have said as far as _I_ went,
for it went farther, as Marion has made me prove with that dreadful
concordance of hers. We don't own such a terrible book as that, and I
have to go skimming over the whole Bible in a distracting manner. I just
happened on the verse that says 'there is a time to dance,' and I didn't
know but there might be a special providence in it. But now, frankly, I
am on the side that Ruth has taken. It seems to be a question that is
left to individual judgment. There is no 'thus saith the Lord' about it,
any more than there is about having company, and going out to tea, and
a dozen other things. We are to do in these matters what we think is
right; and that, in my opinion, is all there is about it."
"Then you retire from the lists?" Marion asked.
"Not a bit of it. I am just as emphatically of the opinion that there is
no harm in dancing as I ever was. What I say is, that the Bible is
silent on that subject, leaving each to judge for herself."
"'As he thinketh in his heart, so is he,'" quoted Ruth. "That is my
verse, one of them; and I think it is unanswerable. If you, Marion,
think it is wicked to dance, then you would be doing a wrong thing to
dance; but, Eurie, believing it to be right and proper, has a right to
dance. Each person as he thinks in his heart."
"Then, if I think in my heart that it is right to go skating on Sunday,
it will be quite right for me to go? Is that the reasoning, Ruth?"
"No, of course; because in that instance you have the direct command,
'Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.'"
"But who is going to prove to me in what way I should keep it holy? I
may skate with very good thoughts in my heart, and feel that I am
keeping the spirit of the command; and, if I think so in my heart, why,
isn't it so?"
"You know it isn't a parallel case," Ruth said, slightly nettled.
"Flossy, would you speak for a dollar?" Eurie asked, suddenly turning to
her. She had been utterly grave and silent during all this war of words,
but, to judge from her face, by no means uninterested. She shook her
head now, with a quiet smile.
"I know what I think," she said, "but I don't want to speak yet; only I
want to know, Ruth, about that verse; I found that, and thought about
it. I couldn't see that it means what you think it does. I used to think
in my very heart that joining the church, and trying to do about right,
was all there was of religion; but I have found that I was wonderfully
mistaken. Can't persons be honest, and yet be very much in the dark
because they have not informed themselves?"
"Why, dear me!" said Marion, "only see, Ruth, where your doctrine would
lead you! What about the heathen women who think in their hearts that
they do a good deed when they give their babies to the crocodiles?"
"I found that verse about Paul persecuting all who called on the name of
Jesus, and he says he verily thought he was doing God's service." This
was Flossy's added word.
"See here," said Eurie, "we are not getting at it at all. I haven't any
verses, and you have demolished Ruth's. The way is for you and Flossy to
open your batteries on us, and let us prove to you that they don't any
of them mean a single word they say, or _you_ say; or _something_,
_anything_, so that we win the argument. What I want to know is, what
earthly harm do people see in dancing? I don't mean, of course, going to
balls and mingling with all sorts of people and dancing indecent
figures. I mean the way we girls have been in the habit of it, Ruth and
Flossy and I. We never went to a ball in our lives, and we were never
injured by dancing, so far as I can discover, and yet we have done a
good deal of it. Now I love to dance; it is the very pleasantest
amusement I can think of; and yet I honestly want to get at the truth of
this matter; I want to learn; I don't in the least know why churches
and Christians think such dancing is wrong. I couldn't find a thing in
the Bible that showed me the reason. To be sure I had very little time
to look, and a very ignorant brain to do it with, and no helps. But I am
ready to be convinced, if anybody has anything that will convince me."
"Just let me ask you a question," Marion said: "Why did you think,
before you were converted, that it was wrong for Christian people to
dance?"
"How do you know I did?" asked Eurie, flushing and laughing.
"Never mind how I know; though you must have forgotten some of the
remarks I have heard you make about others, to ask me. But please tell
me."
"Honestly, then, I don't know; and it is that thought, or rather that
remembrance, which disturbs me now. I had a feeling that someway it was
an inconsistent thing to do, and that if I was converted I should have
to give it up, and it was a real stumbling-block in my way for some
days. But I don't this minute know a single definite reason why I, in
common with the rest of the girls and the young men in our set, felt
amused whenever we saw dancing church-members. I have thought perhaps it
was prejudice, or a misunderstanding of the Christian life."
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