Let us not grudge to the young their joy. As we go further on in life,
let us go with the remembrance that we have had our gleeful days. When
old age frosts our locks, and stiffens our limbs, let us not block up
the way, but say, "We had our good times: now let others have theirs."
As our children come on, let us cheerfully give them our places. How
glad will I be to let them have everything,--my house, my books, my
place in society, my heritage! By the time we get old we will have had
our way long enough. Then let our children come on and we'll have it
their way. For thirty, forty, or fifty years, we have been drinking
from the cup of life; and we ought not to complain if called to pass
the cup along and let others take a drink.

But, while we have a right to the enjoyments of life, we never will
countenance sinful indulgences. I here set forth a group of what
might be called the dissipations of the ball-room. They swing an awful
scythe of death. Are we to stand idly by, and let the work go on, lest
in the rebuke we tread upon the long trail of some popular vanity? The
whirlpool of the ball-room drags down the life, the beauty, and the
moral worth of the city. In this whirlwind of imported silks goes out
the life of many of our best families. Bodies and souls innumerable
are annually consumed in this conflagration of ribbons.

This style of dissipation is the abettor of pride, the instigator of
jealousy, the sacrificial altar of health, the defiler of the soul,
the avenue of lust, and the curse of the town. The tread of this wild,
intoxicating, heated midnight dance jars all the moral hearthstones of
the city. The physical ruin is evident. What will become of those
who work all day and dance all night? A few years will turn them out
nervous, exhausted imbeciles. Those who have given up their midnights