phen, the first Christian martyr, was put to
death; he only held the clothes of those who cast the stones, but he was
just as guilty of murder as though he had cast the fatal missile, _by
his presence, and making no objection he was consenting to the crime_.
To have relieved himself of the blood of Stephen, he should not have
gone to the place where the murder was committed, if he knew, or had
good reason to know, that a crime was to be committed. If he had gone
there with the belief that it was an _innocent, harmless_ gathering, and
after getting there he saw their murderous intent, he should at least
have left immediately and thus have withdrawn all his influence and
supposed sympathy with the criminals. The holding of their clothes did
not make him guilty, but was only _cumulative_ evidence of the murderous
intent in his heart.

Reader, if you go to a ball or dance, knowing it to be such, you are a
participant in all the sins and crimes which would not have been
committed, if such ball or dance had never been. So if the gathering be
for a _sinless, harmless_ purpose, and you find, after arriving at the
place, that there is to be a dance, and you do not leave immediately,
you will be just as guilty as though you had gone with full knowledge of
what was to be. The encouragement and endorsement of your presence makes
you just as guilty as those who join in the dance. There is no
difference, except in degree, between the select parlor dance and the
masquerade ball, because the one is the stepping stone to the other. Not
one in ten thousand have done their first dancing at the masquerade
ball, just as not one in ten thousand ever took their first drink of
whiskey in a drinking saloon. But let it be remembered that hundreds of
thousands have taken their first drink of wine or whiskey at a ball or
dance.

One of the greatest sins committed by children and young people is
_disobedience to parents._ It is one of the greatest, because it is one
of the first, and because if cultivated it becomes a cesspool of
iniquity. It is a pandora box, out of which ten thousand troubles,
trials, difficulties, sins and crimes will come. I claim that the _love_
of dancing is the most fruitful source of _disobedience to parents_ to
be found beneath the sun, because it becomes a _ruling passion_. If
anything will cause a child to disobey its parents, it is to forbid them
going to a ball or dance when their heart is set upon it. _They go and
t