Begg, Appendix IV.
James Dodson
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No. IV.
DANCING IN WORSHIP.
DEAN RAMSAY, to evade the force of the argument from the 150th Psalm, denies, on the single authority of Dr Adam Clarke, that the word translated “dance” has that meaning. It is not worth while discussing this question beyond saying, that all kinds of innovators cavil at the translation of the Bible, although that translation was made, with the greatest care, by nearly fifty of the most learned men in England connected with the Episcopal Church. The translation in question we believe to be quite correct; but the fact that dancing was practised of old in worship is beyond all dispute, and does not rest on any single text. If, therefore, all that was formerly lawful in the worship of old is lawful still, dancing may as lawfully be introduced into our churches as instrumental music, Christ himself having, by universal admission, introduced neither.
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Many are apt to imagine that so grotesque a thing as dancing in professed honour of God could have no place by possibility in modern worship; but the Rev. Hobart Seymour, in an eloquent lecture on the Romish “Year of Jubilee,” delivered lately at Bath, and published in the Bath and Cheltenham Gazette, for April 18th, proves that this is simply a mistake. The truth is that no limit can be fixed to human inventions and human absurdity, and will-worship, when the authority of God, and the absolute need of a Divine warrant, are once set aside. Here is one of Mr Seymour’s graphic descriptions of the fantastic proceedings of the Middle Age Pilgrims, who probably thought that therein they “did God service”:—
“But, Sir, while I would touch thus on the numbers of pilgrims, I would call attention to the manner in which the pilgrimages to the several churches were performed. This was extraordinary. The strangeness of it can only be accounted for by the strangeness of the times, and I really believe that in our prosaic, unromantic, materialistic age, we can hardly enter into the romantic, fan-
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tastic, picturesque strangeness of the middle ages. The multitudes of the poor were left in all ages to fare as best they could by themselves; but the richer, the more wealthy, and the more wise, made their arrangements, and they affiliated themselves to the various religious confraternities of the city of Rome. These confraternities made the requisite arrangements. It was religious procession after religious procession every hour of the day, and every day of the whole year. One confraternity would appear at its appointed time, at its appointed place, clad in scarlet dresses, with perelines of blue. There they marshalled their affiliated pilgrims, the men in one column, and the women in another column. They gave to the leaders and outside men dresses, turbans, and shawls, to look like Turks or Asiatics. To the ladies they gave jackets, veils, and trousers, to look like Turkish ladies. These two columns, with bands of music before them, with drums and trumpets sounding beside them, and with banners and bannerets flying above them, passed onward to their pilgrimage, to represent the Mohammedan nations of Asia, in the days of their
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conversion, going to worship at the shrine of the apostles. Then, in another place, at another time, another confraternity are assembling their affiliated pilgrims. The men again form in one column and the women in another. A few of the men are dressed like Egyptians and some of the women are dressed like Ethiopians. Then, with all kinds of music, and flags flying, the columns march on their pilgrimage, to represent Ethiopia and Egypt in the days of their conversion, going to worship at the shrines of the apostles. So it was every day in the year. Men were seen dressed in all the colours of the rainbow, and women masquerading in the dress of every nation, and all this to obtain full remission and forgiveness and pardon for all their sins. (Applause.) But this was not all. There were amongst them, as I believe there are amongst ourselves, some persons who affect what they call aesthetic tastes. (Laughter.) They cannot say their prayers except to the strains of the exquisite music of the opera. They cannot humbly worship God, except with all the by-play and showy dresses of the melo-drama. These young people were
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gathered out from every part of Italy. The young men came garlanded with flowers, like calves to the stall. (Laughter.) The young women came wreathed with flowers, dressed in magnificent laces and flaunting ribbons of every colour. Well, young people are young people, and those of us who are old must remember we once were young. It was, perhaps, not altogether unnatural that the young people should enliven the dulness of the pilgrimage with a little amusement, and with the gaieties of society. Accordingly, these young men and young women assembled, and they absolutely engaged a ballet master to teach them to step through the streets in measure to their instruments, and to dance through the streets to the cadence of their music. It was called at Rome during the Jubilee, the spiritual ballet—an expressive name. (Hear, hear.) It was a literal fact that whole columns of these young people used to dance through the streets together to the churches, offer their little prayers for the exaltation of the Church, for the concord of Christian princes, and the extirpation of heresies. Then they tripped out in a measure
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to the strains of their instruments, danced on into the next church in cadence to their music, and said again their little prayers for the extirpation of heresies, and the exaltation of the Church, and the concord of Christian princes. (Laughter.) Then they tripped out again to the measure of their instruments, and so they merrily, pleasantly, and tastefully went through their pilgrimages, and in the end obtained the remission, the forgiveness, and pardon of all their sins. (Laughter and applause.) Such were the pilgrimages of those days before the Reformation poured its light upon these follies, superstitions, and mummeries of Rome. (Hear, hear.)”*
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* This admirable lecture has since been published separately. London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co.