I should not have dismissed the solemn event which gave a special tone to our address last Sunday, and which has formed the theme of pulpit exercises throughout the length and breadth of the land, without a further effort at improvement, were it not that the season of festivity at which we have arrived seems to call for the moulding of our thoughts into harmony with its time honoured customs. Yet I am free to confess that the transition from grave to gay just now is, with me, a somewhat forced and difficult one. Who, amongst the pleasures of this festive week, when household groups long separated are made complete, when the circle round ten thousand firesides is widened to make room for the daughter from the country, the brother from the town, or the son from abroad; and when so many hearts are glad; who can forget amidst these smiling scenes that from the noblest home in all the land, from the gayest halls throughout the country, their brightness is excluded, and the shadow of the cypress supplants the mistletoe in the palace, and instead of printing coy and merry kisses upon living faces, princes and princesses are still wafting from their quivering lips adieus and farewells to the noble dead? With his thought upon our minds, the carols of this Christmas time come with a more forced effort from our voice, and plaintive

notes mix with the joyous numbers, to show that though our hearts are light they still bear a part of the great public grief. There's scarce a party, however young and romping, where the hues of mourning will not be infused amongst the colours of festivity, and sombre ribbons contrasting with the virgin white of maiden robes, will show that Father Christmas lays his jolly hand with more constraint than usual upon his sons and daughters, and that while he bids them "trip it on the light fantastic toe," there is something like a tear-trace in his merry eye, and on his hearty cheek.

But, after all, we have no right to banish all the joy of Christmas time. He's too kind and beneficent an old fellow to be disregarded. He has led many families together under the old roof-tree again this year. How many Manchester young men will forget the sour, dingy smell of warehouses and close offices amongst the purer air of a country home? How many will exchange the roar of wheels upon the stones, the crack of whips, the clatter of the hoofs of horses, and the shouts of men, for the singing of the winter robin on the hedge row, the lowing of the cattle, or the bleating of the sheep? How many will drive away the recollection of the gruff voice of some crusty "head of a department" amidst the music of his sister's welcome, or the "God bless thee of parents never seen for years. Yes, yes, Christmas is a good time, and we ought to keep him up. Fill up the homely bumper, tie up the mistletoe, "let the merry toast go round," and "trip it on the light fantastic toc."

But the worst of talking about a thing of this sort is-one is sure to get into the bad graces of some of those stern Mawworms who are ever lying in wait for a "railing accusation " against any one who dares to speak with toleration of anything more truly merry than a mild tea meeting. I can't help it. Gentlemen in high white stocks may say what they please. Good people with long coats and cassock waistcoats must pro

nounce their professional anathemas, but I do like blind man's buff, I do like a good game at snap dragon, even though the raisins are steeped in spirits; I do like a mistletoe bough, and a kiss beneath its shade; and I do not see why a man cannot be happy, merry, rollicking, and jolly, without compromising his reverence for what is sacred, high, and good; or why he cannot join in the jovialities of a jovial time without forfeiting his claim to the esteem and confidence of religious friends.

But there are two or three special amusements upon which religious people have laid the finger of their disapproval, and which it is a very dangerous thing to attempt to defend. One of these pursuits is dancing. They say, by all means play at blind man's buff and hunt the slipper; by all means play at twirl the trencher, puss in the corner, and 'silly old man'; but do not dare to dance or you are done for at once. Now, I have a thing or two to say about dancing, which I hope will not be misconstrued.

As for myself, I could no more get through a quadrille than I could run across Blondin's rope; and if I were to waltz across this platform I should be sea-sick when I got to that end. I shall never forget being pressed to dance at a rather formal party at Liverpool, some years ago. Everybody in the room. was dancing, with but one or two exceptions, and it was very clear that such was the rational and elevating pursuit for which they had assembled together. The one or two exceptions consisted of the host, an elderly gentleman of about sixty years of age, and two very tight, round old ladies, in very low dresses, and with very yellow necks, who evidently abstained only from fear of apoplexy. I was the only young person who was not engaged in dancing. To my great horror a buxom young lady, in blue muslin and flounces, was presently ushered into the room, and at the termination of the set it was needful to provide this lady with a partner. Accordingly, my gallantry was appealed to by the host, to join in the next quadrille, as otherwise, the young

lady, who was very anxious to dance, would be excluded from a participation in the sport. It was in vain for me to plead my utter ignorance of the Terphsichorean art; my protestations of having sprained my ankle, of having dislocated my hip, of having strained my instep, and of having three corns, two bunions, and a chilblain on my left foot, were all unavailing, and with a chivalry, equal to that of Don Quixote when he tilted at the windmill, I stepped forth to brave the mazes of the dance, and to whisk the blue flounces through, the mysteries of Mazurka and the vagaries of Varsoviana. But, alas, my gallop was cut short. Before I had got the length of the apartment I contrived to entangle my "light fantastic toe," which, by the way, was enveloped in a highly serviceable pair of double-soled Wellingtons, amongst some of the voluminous skirts of my fair partner's apparel. Suddenly an awful ripping sound was heard, and in another moment the blue gauze syren stumbled and would have fallen to the ground but for my timely aid. The music stopped, and as the lady stepped out of her entanglements, a white muslin garment, such as is doubtless included amongst the "under clothing" mentioned in milliner's advertisements, lay in bold relief against the pattern of the carpet. The lady vanished in a moment. O, what would I have given to have vanished too! I had rent my partner's garment, but I had rent my own heart. If the needle of remorse which pierced me through and through could have bodged up the rent with only half the efficacy with which it sewed me up, 1 should have been enabled to have made a better reparation of my own breaches, and of the lady's slip.

Such was the inglorious result of my only attempt at dancing. In anything, I say, concerning that pursuit, therefore, I think I shall be readily acquitted of any deeply self-interested motive, or for apologising for a pursuit in which it is any pleasure to me personally to engage. For my own part I very much dislike dancing; and although I have witnessed some highly fanciful

displays of the art, I can see nothing graceful, nothing enjoyable, nothing rational in the pursuit. Ladies who are excessively devoted to it are generally very vain and empty, and gentlemen who are passionately fond of it are too often very shallow and very self-conceited. There always seems to me to be something especially humiliating in a man of thought and sense, dressing himself up in pumps and tights, and spending hour after hour in pirouetting about a room with some insipid girl, whose stock in trade for the business of life consists of a cluster of ringlets, a mincing voice, a smirking smile, a cold heart, and an empty head.

But there are a great many sensible men and women, who do not think as I do in this respect; and dancing is one of those conventionalisms which have obtained the approval and patronage of some of the wisest and the best of people. Far be it from me, then, to set up a dogmatic individual opinion against that which is so commonly approved. My objection against dancing is not that it is too fast, but that it isn't fast enough. It seems to curb rather than encourage the natural interchange of social regard. The reduction of romping joviality to a sort of conventional art, the bringing down of natural pleasure to an artificial rule seems to me cruel, chilling, and repulsive. I can understand such a thing as blind-man's buff, where a roystering shriek or a merry shout are taken as a matter of course, but I cannot understand people who are come together professedly in friendship and unconstrained communion, submitting to the stiff and formal rules which are generally identified with the pursuit of dancing. What a profanation would it be of the jovialities of a Christmas Eve to waste the hours in the bowing and the scraping, and the stilted etiquette of the ball-room, when they might be so much more naturally employed in the free, the true, the loving intercourse of friendship and regard. There's nothing particularly rational in hunt the slipper, but then there's something natural and warm-hearted in it, and you are not perpetu