RELIGIOUS DANCING.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1719, 9 April 1913, Page 4

RELIGIOUS DANCING.

r o 3TEANGE SPECTACLE IN A PRESBYTERIAN CHUKOT. Religious dancing is not commonly associated either with tho Scottish temperament or tlia Calvinistic theology. But mi octogenarian correspondent of tho "Scotsman" solemnly civers that lie has seen it practised by a so:t of Highland Presbyterians—the "Macdonaldites"—who settled in l'riuco Edward's Island nearly n century ago. In that isolation their religion had undergone certain curious developmeats. Tho writer, who is . evidently a Presbyterian minister, describes their mode of public worship as he saw it:—' "Tho men sat at one side of the clnirch; tho women on the other, with an open space between. While pleaching to in their beloved native tongue (Gaelic), I could not help observing the rising of a quiet, subtle, silent stir among the people —like a gentle, soundless wind among the corn. It quietly, quietly, olmost reverently, developed into tlu religious dance. . "A woman was tho first to show, in features and in -some slight bodily movements, quiet symptoms of deep cinotl jii which soon became contagious, ller facial muscles became .rigid; her head was thrown back; her.bonnet hung down behind her neck, prevented from falling off by tho ribbon knotted-under her chin. Others on tho wemen's-side of the church became similarly affected, and tht men soon followed. Une after mother some dozen of. both sexes got out into the open intervening space, and they danced; tiioy danced in solemn, wrapt, absorbing quietude. They danced not with eacn other. Though never jostling, they seemed not to, s?3 each otlw. They were absorbed; unconscious to the world, they 'danced bofore tho Lord.' 'J'lie movement s?emed to begin in a sort of cotclepsy—an ecstatic trame. It worked itself olt in tho religious danck." Then the preacher gave out a Guelic psalm, "whioii was slowly and very reverently sung after the manner of the groiul sacramental gatherings in Hie open air. After a time tlio stningo movement ounng these simple, pjuus, exiled souls miie'.eued down. And them ivus a, grout calm. But what I sar that day and in that church of pious Highlanders I c<iu never forget. - '